Kat THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (18:34): I rise in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024.
It is legislation that will deliver the strongest anti-vilification protections in Victoria’s history, giving effect to 15 recommendations of the 2021 Victorian parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification protections.
I have listened to the debate today, and while it has sometimes been heated, I have nevertheless been heartened to hear that there is overall a general consensus about the need to do more to protect Victorians from rising and alarming levels of hate speech and conduct.
That reflects the sentiments in my own community of Northcote too. I support this bill after having spoken to a great many people in my community, people with a diversity of views on this topic, people who have valid questions and even reservations but who on the whole have a genuine hope that these new laws will curb the disturbing trends that we have seen and allow us to collectively demonstrate that hate has no place in Victoria.
Hate will not define who we are.
People in my community are deeply concerned about the rise of extreme views and groups.
In conversations around dinner tables, in classrooms, in the office kitchen or over drinks with friends people are talking about the far-right movement, about online agitators and bots spreading misinformation, about people being radicalised and about coordinated campaigns of harassment designed to stoke division and destabilise democracies.
These are not abstract concepts.
They are real threats – real, frightening threats to our social cohesion and our way of life.
ASIO currently assesses our terrorism threat as ‘Probable’, having increased it from ‘Possible’ in August last year.
Director-General of Security Mike Burgess explained:
More Australians are being radicalised and radicalised more quickly. More Australians are embracing a more diverse range of extreme ideologies and more Australians are willing to use violence to advance their cause.”
“We are seeing spikes in political polarisation and intolerance, uncivil debate and unpeaceful protests. Antiauthority beliefs are growing. Trust in institutions is eroding. Provocative, inflammatory behaviours are being normalised.
And he went on:
“Many of these individuals will not necessarily espouse violent views, but may still see violence as a legitimate way to effect a political or societal change. All of this creates a security climate that is more permissive of violence.”
People are genuinely worried. I am worried.
We are here in this Parliament, in this great hall of democratic debate, with the privilege and the honour to debate legislation in peace and safety. We live in a country that has largely been buffered from so much of the terror and horrors we have witnessed on our screens.
We cannot take that for granted – not ever.
And frankly, we have absolutely no reason to believe that democracy will ultimately win the day overseas or here at home.
History is not on our side. Democracy is not the rule, it is the exception, and there are no guarantees that it will continue to prevail against its resurgent competitors of authoritarianism and anarchy.
What holds our form of government together? What preserves the sovereignty of our people and our precious ability to go to the ballot box and cast a vote on who will represent us and to change that vote if our trust is broken?
It is a culture of respect.
Democracy breaks down when hate takes the place of disagreement.
I may have differing views to my opponents across the way, but they are not my enemies, they are my opponents. Politics is not war, it is the alternative to war.
And yet what we have seen – what we are seeing increasingly – is divisive rhetoric taking the place of genuine discourse.
Political extremism thrives in this environment, driven by the promise of simple solutions and fuelled by stigmatising otherness.
The targets? People of colour, people with disabilities, women, LGBTIQA+ Victorians, people of faith and, lately, Victoria’s Jewish communities.
Jewish families in our community have woken up to find neo-Nazi stickers on their letterboxes. We have seen not only Jewish schools and synagogues defaced with racist graffiti but also, terrifyingly, a firebombing.
This is not just offensive; it is targeted, it is deliberate, and it is dangerous.
History teaches us that hate left unchecked does not go away – it escalates.
This bill is about confronting that reality. It is about ensuring that those who seek to incite hate, threaten harm or target people based on their identity face serious legal consequences.
It is about making our communities stronger, safer and more united.
I want to make it very, very clear that in our state every Victorian has the right to protest peacefully without putting others in harm’s way, and we will always defend that.
As someone with Labor values, I will always defend the critical right to protest, to political expression and to collective action.
We owe so many of our precious advancements in this state to these movements and those who stood up for what they believed in.
Equally, we are a party that upholds the rights, dignity and safety of all Victorians.
No-one should have to see neo-Nazis parading their hateful ideologies in the street nor be subject to violent activity or criminal property damage by the far left.
When that is occurring, we need to step back and reflect. Because when that is occurring it means that anger, fear and cynicism have won the day - it means nuance is lost in policy debates, because in hate there is no room for disagreement.
The struggle between democracy and authoritarianism does not just happen on a big, global scale. It happens in the day-to-day actions that we take and the decisions we make to either honour human dignity or to dehumanise.
That is a decision that every single one of us needs to make, and political parties need to make it when they consider how they conduct themselves and whose voices they seek to elevate and platform.
Because frankly there are some who have really shown their dark side this last year. Some who, rather than offering compassion or constructive dialogue or peaceful protest, have preferred to be complicit in undemocratic acts of hate and violence.
Or rather than actually offering aid, they have opted to fetishise and exploit the suffering of others, often simply to attract a social media following for their political party.
It is an ugly, toxic thing to witness - and Victorians deserve better from people who are meant to be the custodians of their democracy.
Hate speech, incitement and vilification have no place in our community, and victims need clear pathways to justice.
That is what this bill delivers by expanding protections to also cover attributes of BILLS 120 Legislative Assembly – PROOF Wednesday 5 February 2025 disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and people associated with a person or group with a protected attribute.
It introduces two new serious vilification offences under the Crimes Act 1958. These are the:
Incitement offence applying to conduct that is objectively likely to incite hatred against, serious contempt for or revulsion towards or severe ridicule of another person or group of persons on the grounds of a protected attribute;
and the
Threat offence. This offence applies if a person threatens physical harm or property damage against a person or group on the grounds of a protected attribute.
Both offences capture intentional and reckless conduct. We are talking cases of extreme, serious conduct, not just unkind or offensive conduct.
There are, as others have outlined, a range of defences that can be utilised, including the defence of genuine political purpose.
Unlike those opposite, we have taken the time to carefully consider this bill and to respect the feedback and the findings we have had from community stakeholders, from members of the public and from the inquiry itself.
Of course, there will be varying views on where the balance needs to be struck, but I believe this bill represents a goal that is supported by the majority – a modern, diverse, safe and free state that does not tolerate vilification.
I want to thank the member for Preston for his contribution as well tonight. His concerns about the polarisation of public debate and the reductionist politics being played out in particular by the Greens and the socialists, which is so damaging and stigmatising, was incredibly well articulated and something that we are living in the inner north.
We must hold ourselves to a higher standard and enable dialogue to win over division. I commend the bill.
