In the national interest, the Liberal Party has today stepped up to fix legislation that the Albanese Government badly mishandled.
For more than two years, the Albanese Government failed to confront the rising tide of antisemitism and failed to keep Australians safe.
That failure was exposed by the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil and when leadership was required, the Prime Minister did not provide it.
Instead, Labor produced a clumsy and deeply flawed package of legislation that collapsed under scrutiny, divided the Parliament and risked encroaching on fundamental freedoms.
After months of exclusion and arrogance, the Prime Minister was forced to come to the Liberal Party to fix legislation he could not draft properly and could not deliver alone.
From the outset, we said we would be constructive, and we have been.
As a result of Liberal Party action, the legislation has been narrowed, strengthened and properly focused on keeping Australians safe, not political point scoring.
The key changes secured by the Liberal Party narrow the legislative focus to combatting antisemitism and radical Islamist extremism by:
- Ensuring aggravated offences will capture radical Islamist extremist preachers and leaders, including visiting speakers, are captured by the law.
- Strengthening the role of Parliament in examining these extraordinary powers. Including by inserting mandatory two year reviews by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to ensure new powers are effective, proportionate and accountable.
- Making the Prohibited Hate Groups Listing Framework more targeted to those most dangerous hate groups seeking to incite violence.
- Ensuring in legislation that the laws are directed at serious conduct of a criminal nature that impacts our national security, not at free speech.
- Requiring consultation with the Leader of the Opposition on both the listing and delisting of extremist organisations strengthening the bipartisan approach to national security.
- Closing gaps in hate crime definitions so Commonwealth offences are properly covered and ensuring only the most serious state and territory legislation can be used to prescribe groups.
- Ensuring migration powers are used decisively to remove extremists who threaten community safety.
These changes strengthen the law, close loopholes and restore clarity and accountability.
The Liberal Party will always strongly defend freedom of thought, freedom of worship and freedom of speech.
Those freedoms define who we are as a nation, and they must be defended even when the task before us is confronting hatred and extremism.
As a direct result of the Liberal Party’s veto, Labor’s attempt to criminalise free speech is no more.
The Liberal Party will always act to keep Australians safe, defend freedoms and put the national interest first.
We have succeeded in narrowing the scope of this bill to deal with what we said it should do — tackle antisemitism and tackle radical Islamist extremism.