Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on Australia introducing new hate speech laws off the back of the Bondi Beach shooting

Australia's Government says it is entering new legal territory as it pledges to combat hate speech after Sunday's Bondi Beach terror attack. 

Fifteen people were killed and dozens injured when two shooters opened fire at Jewish Hanukkah celebrations.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced new powers will be given to target and crack down on people spreading hate speech and violence.

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says it feels like the Government is playing catch-up with this legislation.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
While we're being skeptical about things. Let's go to Murray.
Old's the Australia correspondent who joins us Now, Murray, good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi Wryng, good afternoon to you.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Now. Albaneze has made an announcement about hate speech laws.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
What's he said, Well, look, it's a whole lot. There's
been a sort of a massive info dump today from
the government under pressure. I saw the interview last night
Josh Fridenberg.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
He's Jewish.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
He was very, very upset. He was at Bondai yesterday,
bondeou Beach, met other Jewish leaders, attended a funeral. He
was well wound up personally, deeply, deeply affected. But for
him to say there's no politics in this is patently ridiculous.
I'm not in any way diminishing the deep feelings of

(00:48):
grief and sorrow and whatever word you want to use.
Freedenburg and the Jewish community here are deeply traumatized. But
it's just wrong to say there's no politics in this.
We'll have a look at that moment. ALBINIZI not at
the funeral of the little girl, the youngest victim, ten
years old, but Susan Lee is. Now that's clearly political.

(01:08):
But anyway back to your point, and there's a whole
suite of measures. The government will step up fight against
any Semitism. People are saying, where the hell was it
in the last two years. He also admits he in
a government could have done a whole lot more to
combat the hate that's fested within the community. The target
now will be hate preachers, these people who use the

(01:29):
net to spread these evil messages to their weird followers.
Penalties for hate speech to be amped up. Hate will
be an aggravating factor now to be considered by judges
and magistrates in sentencing for those convicted online threats and harassment. Plus,
the government's going to draw up a program to list
organizations that are found to promote hatred and division much

(01:51):
tougher visa checks Ryan to know, to potentially weed out
these dreadful people to want to come here and divisioned
and maybe even go further. There's to be an education
task force to make sure education that the system has
the tools to respond to antisemitism. You know, an Australian universities,
not all of them Jewish students have to go and

(02:14):
study in secure areas within the campus.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Me it'sis ridiculous. This is Australia. It's not the bloody
Middle East. The government says this is brand new legal
territory for it, and it is. But you do get
the feeling it's playing catch up after the dreadful events
of last Sunday, very much playing catchup.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
And an over correction. You know, are you at risk
of that of an overcorrection given the pressure is under.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I don't think as anyone in this country is going
to say you can overcorrect too much. Not what we
saw on Sunday. This country has been changed forever on
the back of what happened on Sunday. I think there's
been a lot of a lot of soul searching. A
lot of people, me included, thought, oh, it will never
happened here. We're far too far away from the hotbeds

(02:59):
of around the rest of the world. Well, that bubble
was well and truly pricked last weekend was murried.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
The funeral situation you mentioned it briefly, was was he
invited was Elbow invited to the funeral and didn't go like,
what's it's very.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Well, it's been pardon me portrayed here today. His office
did not reach out to the family of this little
girl who died last Sunday. The family was on the
record very very angry at what it believed to be
the government's failure to tackle anti Semitism. So his office said,

(03:37):
we did not want to offend the family. We didn't
want to upset them any more than they're already upset
for goodness sake, so we did not put that call in.
Tanya Tanya Plibasek, who is a government front bencher. Her
electorate is where the little girl's grandparents lived, so she's
there in that capacity representing the federal government. Susan Lee,

(03:58):
the opposition leader, is also there at the funeral today
and she went through the office of Liberal frontbencher Julian Lisa,
who was himself a Jew. He or his officer, i
should say, contacted the family may we please attend and
they said yes, of course, come along. So Susan Lee
is there and the Prime Minister is not.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Murray appreciate that. Murray Old's are Australia correspondent. For more
from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks
it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.