Mr REPACHOLI (Hunter) (17:38): 

 I rise to contribute to the debate on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023. There is no place for hatred or intolerance in this country, but sadly there is only one purpose for some symbols: they are a way to show hate. They are a way for one person, or group of people, to clearly push hatred towards another group of people and society as a whole. I do not tolerate intolerance, and I refuse to sit back and allow this country and our communities to be in a place in which hatred is able to exist. Symbols that glorify the horrors of the Holocaust and symbols that praise the human rights atrocities of the Islamic State have no place in this country, and this government is making sure that they will not be able to make their mark on society. This legislation will criminalise public displays and the trade of the Nazi hakenkreuz and Schutzstaffel insignia, as well as the Islamic State flag.

Some of the criminalised items could include flags, armbands, T-shirts, insignia and the use of those symbols online. Police will also be provided powers to direct a person to remove public displays of these symbols.

It is also important to point out that we must understand the importance of some of these symbols to some religions and other parts of society. We have been mindful of this in the drafting of this legislation. As a result, this ban will not in any way apply to the display and use of a swastika which is used for spiritual significance to religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. We also recognise the important distinction between the Islamic State, which is a terrorist organisation with a violent ideology, and the Islamic faith, which is deeply respected and valued as part of Australia's multicultural society.

This bill is separated into four schedules. The first is specifically focused on prohibited symbols. This part of the bill will create new offences for publicly displaying prohibited Nazi and Islamic State symbols or trading in items bearing those symbols. Symbols such as the Nazi hakenkreuz—or hooked cross—the Nazi double-sig rune—or SS bolts—and the Islamic State flag are as clear a representation of hatred, violence and racism as you can get, and they are completely incompatible with Australia's multiculturalism and democratic society. We aren't going in lightly on these matters. Both offences will carry a maximum penalty of 12 months imprisonment.

The first offence is the public display offence. This prevents the kind of hateful material by Neo-Nazi and Islamic State supporters from harming Australians both in person and online. There is also a second offence, which is known as the trading offence. This would target commercial profiting, including the selling, renting or leasing of things containing the prohibited Nazi and Islamic State symbols. We also know that there are times when these symbols are displayed without the intention of creating hate or violence. Sometimes these symbols are displayed for a genuine religious, academic, educational, artistic or scientific purpose. These offences are not intended to capture a symbol being used in these circumstances.

The second part of this legislation focuses on the use of carriage services to deal with the violent extremist material. Under this part of the bill, a carriage service is outlined as including a range of platforms such as webpages, social media applications, email, chat forums and text messages or the downloading of violent extremist material from the internet onto a digital storage device. This part of the bill creates new offences for using a carriage service for violent extremist material or possessing or controlling violent extremist material obtained or accessed using a carriage service. We cannot allow people to use the internet in order to take advantage of vulnerable people and radicalise them. We cannot allow the internet to be a place where violent extremist material is used to create fear in our community.

We absolutely have to get on top of this, and we need to do this by making sure that law enforcement have the powers that they need to be able to stop the internet from being a place of radicalisation and fear. This is exactly what this part of the bill does. The criminalisation of the use of a carriage service for violent extremist material would allow law enforcement to take action against persons who are exploiting the internet to recruit, spread propaganda and incite violence, particularly by targeting the young people of our society. The internet is a very public place. It is used by people of all ages from all parts of Australia and the world. Unfortunately, this means the content is easily spread and can be shared with people who should not be seeing it. This includes extremist content, which is of particular concern to me and my members of the Hunter.

Extremist material can be confronting and graphic and is not something that should have to be seen by anyone, especially not young people, our children or anyone else for that matter.

They need to be protected from this kind of online content. This bill provides this protection and identifies clearly what is considered to be violent extremist material—that is, material that describes, depicts, provides instruction on, and supports or facilitates, serious violence for the purpose of advancing an ideology or coercing or intimidating the government or the public. This definition gives law enforcement a strong guideline and helps them to be able to make the internet a safer place, free from confronting and hateful content of extremist organisations.

There will be strong consequences for those who are found using a carriage service to spread extremist content or to radicalise others. Offences will be punishable by up to five years imprisonment and will allow law enforcement to intervene at an earlier stage of an individual's progress towards violent radicalisation. This will also provide more of a chance for rehabilitation and for the disruption of violent extremist networks. This would also complement the existing framework for regulating online service providers, including offences for hosting abhorrent and violent material, and the eSafety Commissioner's powers to require providers to remove or cease hosting certain content.

The third part of this bill takes action against those who are seen to be advocating terrorism. There are increasing concerns that a form of radicalisation, particularly with respect to young people becoming radicalised online, could include the promotion and idolisation of extremist views. There is a concern that glorifying terrorists or terrorist acts can incite others to imitate or seek to engage in similar behaviour and further their own radicalisation. This part of the bill will address these concerns by expanding the 'advocating terrorism' offence in section 80.2C of the Criminal Code to include providing instructions on the doing of a terrorist act and the praising of the doing of a terrorist act where there is substantial risk that the praise will lead another person to engage in a terrorist act.

The existing offence already covers counselling, promoting, encouraging or urging the doing of a terrorist act, but this just doesn't quite go far enough. Instructing on and praising the doing of a terrorist act also supports another person to engage in terrorism and therefore amounts to advocacy. As a result, this should also be covered by the offence.

Advocating terrorism is a serious international act that can incite violence against innocent Australians. It presents a real risk to our safety and deserves a strong punishment. That's why this bill will also increase the maximum penalty for this offence from five to seven years imprisonment. This will ensure that the penalty more appropriately accounts for the potential severity of the offending and better aligns with the penalties for similar offences in the Criminal Code.

The final part of this bill looks at terrorist organisation regulations. Currently, the listing of organisations which are considered to be terrorist organisations ceases to have effect after a period of three years and must be remade for an organisation to remain listed. This part of the bill removes these so-called sunsetting requirements from the regulations listing organisations as terrorist organisations under division 102 of the Criminal Code. The reality is that there is an enduring nature to terrorist organisations and their operation. This is seen by the fact that, of the 29 organisations currently listed, the considerable majority have been relisted multiple times—some as many as eight times. The removal of the sunsetting requirements from the terrorist listing regulations would help align the framework with this enduring nature of terrorist organisations and their operation. It just makes sense to do this.

Whilst there are existing strong safeguards to ensure that any listing of an organisation is appropriate and ceases should the organisation no longer meet the threshold, there can never be harm in making sure that these strong guards are more secure, and that is what this bill will do.

No-one deserves to be a victim of hatred. Sadly, in the modern world, there are many new ways that someone can be taken advantage of to spread hatred and extremism. This bill will help to prevent this and will create a better and safer Australia for all. I've got two young girls and I don't want my girls to be seeing this kind of stuff on the internet. They're eight and 10. They're starting to use the internet quite a lot for school and things like that. They're on social media. They're starting to see some things. They don't go on TikTok, but they get on Messenger with their friends. They go on plenty of different platforms, and we don't want this for our kids. Our kids don't need to see this. These are massive, massive issues from the past that we're bringing forward here, and people are profiting off this. It's just not on. I commend this bill to the House.