Radio Interview – ABC Radio Sydney, mornings with Hamish Macdonald

E&OE

Subjects: Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Legislation.

HAMISH MACDONALD, HOST: Michelle Rowland, good morning. Welcome to 702.

MICHELLE ROWLAND, ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Good morning.

MACDONALD: National Day of Mourning today. Listeners have already heard from the Governor-General, Sam Mostyn this morning. How are you reflecting today?

ROWLAND: It is a very solemn day and the reflection I have is about the need for the country to be unified and to come together and to remember those who were lost or who have lost as well. I think that this is an important day for all Australians to reflect on how we move forward stronger as a nation.

MACDONALD: You will observe, you will see in your electorate here in Sydney that there are very strong but very polarised views still on many of the issues at the core of what we're discussing. How do we move past those differences? How do we find the common threads?

ROWLAND: Well, firstly, representing a very diverse electorate, I can say that there has been an outpouring of support for our Jewish brothers and sisters. Again, coming from a multicultural electorate, you can appreciate how much people put themselves in the shoes of Jewish Australians. So, I think that bodes well for Australia to be able to move forward. These are people of goodwill that we have in our community, and I think that will be reflected today and I look forward to that being reflected even stronger in the days ahead.

MACDONALD: I know that's the intention and I believe that to be sincere. I'm just wondering whether our politicians are being totally upfront about what they're hearing, even in their own electorates, about these issues. You know, clearly these big global issues are playing out on our streets. Strongly held views, deeply entrenched beliefs and, you know, we see it, hear it on the text line and on the phone lines every single day, and we're hearing it again today.

ROWLAND: Well, there's no point being disingenuous and I can tell you that the primary reason why people choose to make Australia their home is because they want a better life than they had and they want their children to have every opportunity. I think by and large, Australians are sensible people that appreciate that what goes on outside of our borders, a lot of it, we don't have control over, but it does impact us. But people want peace, they want peace in their communities and in their countries. We've come together this week in a recalled parliament to examine and to legislate. That's the job of us as elected officials to do just that.

MACDONALD: Michelle Rowland is here, the federal Attorney-General. How will those laws that you have passed this week in relation to hate speech, how will they make anyone in Sydney safer?

ROWLAND: Well, I think firstly, we need to appreciate that this is about making existing hate laws better. So, there are tougher penalties, expanding the kinds of criminal offences that relate to not only antisemitism, but discrimination based on someone's inherent attributes, namely race. There's not only those increased penalties, there's also aggravated sentencing factors where race has been a motivator. It's also really important that we establish this new regime for listing groups that engage in or advocate hate crimes, including violent conduct.

MACDONALD: So, can we be a little more specific about the hate groups? How will a group be designated a hate group? Because the Prime Minister told us earlier this week Hizb ut-Tahrir would be banned. There's also been talk about some of these neo-Nazi groups. Specifically why and how would these groups be determined or prescribed as a hate group?

ROWLAND: Well, the first point to make is that this regime of prescribing hate groups is based on existing frameworks which are in our criminal law. So, these go to where we have terrorist groups that are listed. These go to where we have state sponsors of terrorism that are listed. So, associated with them, funding them, basically, them existing is an offence against the Commonwealth. There’s three limbs for defining what is a hate crime and how these hate groups, and this hate group regime will operate. The first is there needs to be conduct that constitutes offences under the existing Commonwealth Criminal Code, or there's public incitement of hatred of another person or group of persons that meets a reasonable person test for the group that's being targeted, or it can involve serious harm or threats. The PM's absolutely right, this is because we've got groups, particularly like the National Socialist Network and HUT, have been skirting just below the threshold of what is legal.

MACDONALD: That's what I wanted to ask about, though, because often these groups, whether it's Hizb ut-Tahrir or a neo-Nazi group, they're pretty careful with their language. So, they don't specifically incite violence, but they do tend to talk about Zionism. So, the State of Israel rather than Jews, perhaps. So, this raises a lot of questions for people listening as well. Will it be okay, for example, to criticise the actions of the State of Israel without being accused of engaging in hate?

ROWLAND: Well, Hamish, let me be very clear for your listeners - criticism of a foreign country or of that country's government is not sufficient to meet the thresholds for listing. The laws are directed at groups that target people based on their race, not governments. So, we should be very clear again here, these are not talking about the actions of individuals, they are the actions of organisations.

MACDONALD: But there is a wrinkle in this, isn't there? Certainly speaking to members of the Jewish community, the view is that groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir tend to use Zionism as a byword for Jews.

ROWLAND: That is why there are other limbs in this offence, and looking at what constitutes a hate crime. So, there is the ability not only to look at that type of conduct, but also the threat of conduct and whether that conduct has been engaged in because they are seeking to create a serious risk or endangering a person's life. But importantly, I will point out for your listeners, any hate listing needs to be informed by advice from ASIO. So, this is not just a question of the government looking at the law and ticking boxes. This needs to be informed by our intelligence agencies and it's our investigative agencies who do this work right now. So, that's what the AFP is doing. Individuals that are involved in groups like the National Socialist Network and Hizb ut-Tahrir are by and large known to our agencies, but they haven't been able to bring action yet because those thresholds have been too high.

MACDONALD: But these groups are pretty smart. They're already, for example, removing their online presence. The National Socialist Network formally disbanding. It doesn't mean that these individuals or their ideas have gone anywhere.

ROWLAND: Well, we are very pleased to see that even in the release of the exposure draft, within days we had the Nazis announcing that they would be disbanding. Only weeks earlier, Hamish, let's remind ourselves in Sydney, we had Nazis engaging in a lawful protest outside the state Parliament of all places. There would be no right minded person in our state who would think that's acceptable. The fact that we've got HUT scrubbing their website right now indicates that these laws are already having an impact and the more that we can stop this hateful conduct, the better.

MACDONALD: Michelle Rowland, thank you for your time.

ROWLAND: Pleasure.

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