Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026

Senator PAYMAN (Western Australia—Australia's Voice Whip) (20:40): Antisemitism has no place in Australian society. I condemn the antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi. The murderers who carried out that atrocity have terrified Australia's Jewish community.

Australians, no matter who they are, where they come from or who they pray to should feel safe and be safe to assemble and celebrate a religious holiday without fearing for their lives. The terrorists have also jeopardised the lives of Australia's migrant communities, who have already been subject to increased discrimination and abuse. I support measures that will restrict access to firearms and reduce hate in our communities.

Support for the latter is conditional on those measures being very specific and targeted at addressing hate, and reasonably appropriate and adapted to achieve that goal in line with the Lange Test adopted by the High Court in determining whether a law unduly burdens the freedom of political communication implied by the Constitution. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the class that proved itself most unable to rise to the occasion has been the political class.

The politicking that occurred in the wake of the Bondi shooting has been sickening. On the night of the attack, the Leader of the Opposition offered the government her full and unconditional support in responding to the massacre. In the days that followed, the Leader of the Opposition, Ms Ley, moved away from this principled and decent position.

She began to echo Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's suggestions that our Prime Minister and our government bore sole responsibility for the attack. At a time of national crisis, she chose to divide Australians. It was not long until openly bad-faith statements were being made, such as demanding that the Prime Minister recall parliament before Christmas, despite knowing full well that drafting, let alone giving proper consideration to such complicated legislative measures in that time frame, would be impossible.

Now that the parliament has returned, she has decided that everything needs to be slowed down. It was wedge politics at its worst. Not long after the attack, the member for Canning, Mr Hastie, in the other place began making statements that immigration was the cause of this attack.

No doubt it was the influence of Mr Hastie and others like him that pushed Ms Ley to politicise this issue. The conduct of Josh Frydenberg was similarly beyond the pale. Some of the people now calling for stronger hate laws were arguing a decade ago that section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act needed to be repealed.

Australians will not forget how the Senate and the parliament responded to this crisis. The politicisation of this issue has extended far beyond anything that could be reasonably connected to this horrific attack. The New South Wales government has abolished freedom of assembly; instead, making the right to protest a privilege that it can dole out as it sees fit.

The idea that Australians protesting against a genocide bear any responsibility for what happened is so cynical, so offensive. The adoption of a definition of 'antisemitism' by the federal government that sees no difference between criticism of Israel and hatred of Jews is a decision that will further weaken social cohesion, not strengthen it. The Australians who have marched against genocide are on the right side of history, and I will never apologise for calling for a Palestinian state, which was an action that ended my career in the Labor Party.

It saw me hounded out of the party that, in recognising a Palestinian state last year, conceded that I had been doing the right thing all along. In the media, the campaign for a royal commission was as bad faith as the Prime Minister's struggle against it. The avalanche of open letters became farcical when a collective of Australian sports stars offered their opinion on whether letters patent should be issued.

At the same time, the Prime Minister dug himself a deeper and deeper hole. He said he did not need input from the families of the victims of Bondi and that he was listening to actual experts. This remark was so disgraceful—as were all the other meritless excuses offered during the fight against a royal commission.

This was only succeeded by the utter goal of, after backflipping on a royal commission, pretending it was always the plan of his government. The Prime Minister saying, 'This hasn't been done up this morning; we have been working on this for weeks,' will be remembered as the 'we have always been at war with Eastasia' of this period. I sincerely hope that Commissioner Bell is able to hand down a report that will have practical effects in reducing antisemitism hate in this country and addressing flaws in our national security frameworks.

If you look at the draft Senate program that was published last week, it says that this chamber would be debating the 'Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026' today. We heard from the Prime Minister that nothing would be dropped and the bill would not be split. Since then, the highly contentious racial vilification offence has been dropped and the bill has been split.

We have seen that the government will not move forward with proposals that do not have the coalition's support. Once again, as with the migration amendments in 2024, as with the electoral reform and as with the mandatory sentencing, the Liberals are governing from the opposition. I have a range of concerns with these bills—some of which I outlined in my submission to the needlessly and dangerously rushed PJCIS inquiry—and, to summarise, there are a few points I'd like to raise.

Much of the hate speech changes are window dressings, through increased sentences for existing offences and new aggravating factors for existing offences. The changes to the Migration Act would allow the minister to cancel or deny visas to people who might incite division. Stopping hatred is one thing—and it's a good thing—but kicking people out of Australia based on speculation is quite another.

Visa holders in Australia should be able to engage in peaceful protest as freely as Australian citizens can. The proposed prohibited hate group framework hands an unprecedented amount of power to the executive in a manner, as others have noted, that is similar to the Menzies government's ban on the Communist Party, which was rejected by the High Court and the Australian people in a referendum.

If these powers to declare organisations fell into the wrong hands, the results could be catastrophic. I found it much easier to support reforms to our firearm laws, but I still have concerns with the broad drafting of the new firearm material offences. These provisions, like both bills, were rushed through parliament and through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which means that the deficiencies of the reforms will not be known until they become law.

Section 51 of the Commonwealth Constitution provides that, as elected representatives of the people of Australia, we have the power—and I would argue, the duty—to enact laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth. It is the responsibility, however, of the entire apparatus of government to ensure that these laws are operating soundly. While we do not have the full picture yet, there are many questions that need to be asked of counterterrorism officials and, particularly, ASIO to identify where their processes went wrong.

The natural instinct of some, particularly our media class, is to demand more laws, but we must be considered in doing so. Kneejerk legislation passed in response to an outrage is, at best, ill thought out and, at worst, harmful. Terrorism and antisemitism in Australia will not go away by sending a few bits of paper down Dunrossil Drive.

It requires a whole-of-government and a whole-of-society push to not only foil terrorist plots before they occur but to tackle the causes of terrorism and close off the pathways that lead people towards extremism. The Prime Minister has arrogantly decreed that, with unprecedented haste, these bills will pass through both houses on the same day they were introduced.

This arbitrary deadline will lead to this parliament missing issues in the drafting that would have been spotted through a proper inquiry process. While I hope that this parliament enacts wise laws tonight, unfortunately, history shows that a lack of scrutiny leads to poorer outcomes. I urge all senators, all of my colleagues in this place, to conduct themselves deliberately, thoughtfully and with the interests of the nation and the people we represent in mind.

Thank you. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Cox ): Before I hand the call to Senator Scarr, I believe there's a second reading amendment in your name. Will you seek to move that now?

Senator PAYMAN: Yes. I, and also on behalf of Senators David Pocock, Lambie, Thorpe and Tyrrell, move: Omit all words after "That", substitute: "(a) the Senate notes that: (i) this bill includes complex legislative changes that make significant amendments to hate speech and migration laws, (ii) independent senators have had the final text of the bill for less than 12 hours, (iii) the Government only undertook very limited consultation on the exposure draft legislation and only provided three days for public submissions on the bill and a week for parliamentary consideration and public consultation, (iv) time for parliamentary debate of this bill has been significantly curtailed with many senators not afforded an opportunity to speak on or ask questions about the bill on behalf of their communities, (v) there is strong community support for combatting antisemitism and all forms of racism, hatred and violent extremism; however, a broad range of experts, community leaders, organisations and members of the community have expressed serious concerns about the bill and have called for more time for it to be considered, (vi) serious concerns have been expressed about potential unintended consequences and the bill's potential to impinge on legitimate freedom of expression, especially in the absence of a federal Human Rights Act, (vii) serious concerns have been expressed about the failure to extend new proposed protections to other groups with protected attributes, creating a two-tier system of protections and potentially putting further stress on social cohesion, (viii) there is ambiguity and uncertainty about many of the definitions and provisions including serious matters like retrospectivity and inclusion of a 'good faith' defence, the introduction of recklessness based fault elements and a reversal of the burden of proof, (ix) the bill lacks procedural fairness safeguards, particularly in relation to changes to migration law, and (x) to be successful in advancing towards the Government's worthy ambition of national unity, Australians and their representatives need a fair opportunity to be heard to consider such significant legislative changes, and the time and political will to develop and negotiate amendments in good faith while respecting parliamentary process; and (b) the bill be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 3 February 2026.