CIS Statement to Federal Parliament on Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill (Exposure Draft)

Statement to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security
Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 (Exposure Draft) 

Chair and Committee members, thank you for the opportunity to address you this afternoon on this significant Bill. 

I appear before you from the Centre for Independent Studies, where my work focuses on the cultural and institutional foundations of free societies, in particular civil society, liberal democracy, religious liberty and social trust. The principal question guising my work is: how are we to live together? 

I wish to affirm that antisemitic violence, intimidation and harassment in Australia are real, corrosive and unacceptable. In such circumstances the state has not only the right but the duty to respond. I understand the reasons why the government thinks it necessary to legislate. However, my concern is not so much with the Bill’s purpose as with its method and scope. 

This Bill is not merely a security response to violence. I think it represents a significant shift in the moral and legal architecture of public life which risks blurring crucial distinctions. In doing so, it also risks weakening both law and society. 

Liberal democracies traditionally distinguish between three kinds of harmful conduct. 

1. Immoral or offensive conduct which should primarily be addressed through social norms, leadership and the moral resources of civil society. 

1. Dangerous conduct which may justify monitoring, disruption, and prevention. 

1. Criminal conduct which justifies coercion, punishment, stigma, and deprivation of liberty through judicial process. 

I think this Bill tends to collapse these categories into one another. It shifts us from punishing acts to managing risks, from adjudicating harm to preventing possibility, and from regulating conduct to regulating expression, association and identity.  

One troubling feature of the Bill is the introduction of status-based aggravation into criminal law. Religious officials face higher penalties not for doing something different, but for being someone different. This makes liability depend on social role rather than conduct thereby undermining equality before the law. 

Similarly, by embedding motive as a pervasive aggravating factor, the Bill moves criminal justice away from judging what people do toward judging what they think and feel. I consider this a profound change to the character of criminal law. 

The proposed prohibited hate groups regime also concerns me. It mirrors terrorism law in structure but extends those exceptional powers into a fundamentally different domain, normalising a category as politically contested and elastic as “hate”. 

Groups may be listed by regulation on ministerial satisfaction with only limited procedural safeguards. Membership and “support” become criminal; but “support” can be interpreted is so broadly that it could capture academic analysis, journalistic inquiry, or even personal relationships. This moves us from criminalising acts to criminalising association and alignment with heavy executive discretion and limited judicial oversight of the exercise of that discretion. 

The new vilification offence similarly expands criminal law into expression. It criminalises public conduct intended to incite hatred where a reasonable member of the targeted group would feel intimidated or fear violence, with strict liability for the fear element of the offence. This invites subjective, politicised judgments about emotional impact rather than objective harm. 

My concern is that in over-legalising our response to antisemitism, we risk undermining the very thing we seek to protect. For antisemitism is not only a security problem – although it certainly is that.  

Antisemitism is also a moral and cultural problem. Treating it primarily through the criminal law risks weakening the social taboo that makes antisemitism unacceptable. When moral responsibility is outsourced to law enforcement, civic responsibility withers. 

I think that the effectiveness of law in a liberal democracy must always depend on its legitimacy – that is, on public trust that the law is fair, proportionate, restrained and neutral.  

I am concerned that this Bill risks eroding that trust by expanding criminal law into belief, identity, and association; by shifting power from courts to administrators; and by introducing differentiated treatment based on status and motive. 

What might a better response look like? I wish to make five points:  

1. Keep the criminal law tightly focused on violence, threats, and direct incitement, and on conduct that has clear links to tangible harm. 

1. If administrative powers are used, they should be applied narrowly and transparently, with strong procedural safeguards and judicial oversight. 

1. Preserve the distinction between what is illegal and what is offensive. I do not think that everything we consider we should also consider criminal. 

1. Invest seriously in civic responses – in those of education, community leadership and in the strengthening of social norms that make extremism culturally unacceptable. 

1. Include sunset clauses for exceptional powers so that measures adopted in crisis do not become permanent without scrutiny. 

 

On this basis, I therefore wish to recommend: 

1. Removing status-based aggravations. 

1. Narrowing the prohibited hate groups regime to organisations that directly incite or organise violence, and accompany this with mandatory judicial review. 

1. Removing the element of strict liability from the vilification provisions and requiring proof of intent to cause fear or intimidation. 

1. Thorough strengthening of procedural safeguards. 

1. Including a three-year sunset clause on administrative processes with independent review. 

I wish to argue that the ultimate test of this Bill is not whether it appears tough, but whether it proves to be trusted; and not whether it suppresses harmful speech, but whether it preserves the conditions of a free and plural society. 

The fight against antisemitism does require criminal law. But it also requires civic courage, moral clarity and social solidarity. I am concerned that this Bill, as drafted, risks weakening all three. 

Thank you.