The Coalition has serious concerns about Labor’s clumsy effort to stamp out antisemitism. As drafted, it fails two basic tests: does it eradicate antisemitism, and does it crack down on radical Islamic extremism? Right now, it fails both. There are more than 500 pages and the term “radical Islam”... is not mentioned once. If the Prime Minister cannot name the problem, he cannot tackle it. In the parliamentary inquiry, the Attorney General’s Department could not explain whether phrases like “globalise the intifada” or “from the river to the sea” would be captured by the law, nor whether an extremist fatwa would be treated as a religious text. The Parliament can and should criminalise antisemitic extremist hate preaching without impinging on free speech. But if the government cannot explain how its own legislation will work, the Parliament cannot be expected to vote for it, and the community will have no confidence in it. The Coalition will continue to scrutinise this proposal closely and engage constructively with the inquiry. But from what we have seen so far, it raises more questions than answers and appears unsalvageable.show more

Sussan Ley

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