Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and Julian Leeser MP yesterday: the gun reform and hate speech bills have exposed divisions between the Liberal and National parties. Photo: Sussan Ley Facebook.
Labor’s hate speech laws drafted in response to the Bondi terror attack passed the Senate late on Tuesday night (20 January), with support from the Liberal Party but not the Nationals.
The Federal Government had watered down its bill considerably to secure the Opposition’s vote, but the bill still split the Coalition.
In the House of Representatives earlier in the day, where Labor has the numbers in its own right, the Nationals abstained from voting on the bill.
But at around 11 pm in the Senate, and with Nationals leader David Littleproud watching his senators from the chamber, the Coalition’s junior party ultimately voted against it after trying and failing to move a number of amendments.
The Nationals were joined by Liberal Senator Alex Antic, who crossed the floor to also oppose the bill.
Greens senators, along with One Nation and independent senators David Pocock, Fatima Payman, Ralph Babet and Tammy Tyrrell, also united to vote against the hate laws.
The bill passed 38 votes to 22 and will allow the government to ban extremist groups that promote hate and violence, apply tough penalties for religious hate preachers, and have greater powers to cancel visas.
Before the final vote, Mr Littleproud issued a statement saying his party could not support the bill, adding that this did not mean the Coalition was divided.
“Labor’s legislation has been a mess. They did not consult. They played politics. They over-reached,” he said.
“Our priority is keeping Australians safe against Islamic extremism. We support legislative measures that protect against this threat.
“The Nationals support the intent of the legislation, but we must get it right … This decision does not reflect on the relationship within the Coalition.
“The Coalition has secured significant improvements to the legislation, but the Nationals’ party room has concluded that more time is required to more fully examine and test the bill before it is finalised.”
Earlier in the day, before the bill passed in the Lower House, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley claimed the Liberal Party had “stepped up to fix legislation that the Albanese government badly mishandled” and successfully narrowed its scope and focus.
But with the Libs and Nats unable to reach a common position, the state of Coalition unity and shadow cabinet solidarity is again in the spotlight.
Pressure is already on Ms Ley to sack the senior Nationals shadow ministers from her front bench for voting against the bill in the Senate and breaching shadow cabinet rules.
Earlier in the evening, the Opposition voted against gun reform when that bill reached the Senate, but it passed with the support of the Greens.
Speaking on Radio National Wednesday morning, Greens justice spokesperson David Shoebridge said the party could not agree to the hate speech laws as they were.
“I think it would have been beyond reckless,” he said.
“It would have been a sort of betrayal of basic sense of democracy to ram through legislation last night with such broad-ranging impacts when every legal expert we spoke to said it was reckless and dangerous and they didn’t know the scope of it.”
Racial vilification elements of the original bill were abandoned before the legislation was introduced, due to the government being unable to secure agreement from the Coalition or the Greens.
Also speaking on Radio National Wednesday morning, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said while he would have liked to have seen the stronger version of the legislation get up, there is no doubt the Jewish community is safer because of the new laws that did pass.
“Part of delivering safety is doing something about bigotry. The laws that have gone through do give us more tools to effectively be able to combat antisemitism,” the minister said.
“They don’t give us as many tools as the government would have liked, but we have to deal with the parliament that we have.
“And there’s no doubt that we now have the strongest protections Australia has ever had.”
Senator Pocock, who voted for the gun reform bills but against the hate speech laws, issued a statement saying he was reflecting the will of his constituency.
