Labor finds some spine on hate laws – and the LNP reaches for outrage

In Queensland parliament’s most recent makeups, any vote except the government’s is essentially symbolic.

But even symbolism can be significant. And, this week, the Labor opposition made its most significant symbolic gesture since it was swept from power at the 2024 state election.

By voting against the Crisafulli LNP government’s ultimately passed hate speech and gun control laws, the MPs showed they still held some of the principles that had been questioned internally.

As already shown by the performances of the government’s outrager-in-chief, Jarrod Bleijie, Labor’s vote opened the party to accusations it supported terrorists and harboured antisemitism.

But with limited avenue to show opposition, a decision not to vote for something does not always, by extension, mean support of its opposite. Bleijie and the rest of the government know this.

On whether his speech might further inflame tensions, Bleijie was adamant. “I categorically reject it,” he said Friday morning. Later, Attorney-General Deb Frecklington also accused Labor of having “sided with terrorists”.

Whether such accusations will stick with Queenslanders is a calculation Labor has obviously made, considered, and will now have to wear.

Thursday’s decision to vote against the laws, including the criminalisation of pro-Palestinian slogans “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada”, is only Labor’s second explicit act of opposition to a government bill.

(The first was the LNP’s repeal of renewable energy targets, though Labor did vote against technical items like the abortion debate gag, and stages of the ultimately supported First Nations path to treaty repeal, wrapped in an Olympics bill.)

While painting its push as the strongest antisemitism laws in the country, backed by the state’s peak Jewish group, the government was also accused of ensuring the state had the weakest gun controls.

The laws were prompted by December’s killings of 15 people at a Hanukkah event in Sydney. Ever since, government figures have cast their development as “calm and methodical”, but they were pushed through parliament in a fashion that was anything but.

In the end, according to a police analysis and response to the 390 public submissions fielded in a week of committee scrutiny of the bill, 156 were against the bill, with 132 expressing support.

Those against featured several Jewish groups, including Jewish Voices of Hope, the Jewish Council of Australia, and Jews for Justice. Other criticism came from Muslim groups, churches, civil libertarians, ethnic communities, hate speech and constitutional law experts and much of the union movement.

Police Minister Dan Purdie insisted the government’s last-minute watering down of the laws – which no longer allow the attorney-general to declare any phrase as hate speech – was about avoiding a quiet attempt by a future Labor government to reverse the ban. But Frecklington herself had suggested otherwise.

A crackdown on hate speech was, of course, a topic over which the LNP’s colleagues in the federal Coalition split, after voting down federal gun reforms.

Maybe it’s no wonder the LNP sought to make the week in Queensland parliament about Labor.

The peak Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies voiced concerns about “antisemitic rhetoric” in Healy’s activity, but others have not.

Bart Shteinman, an executive committee member of the progressive Jewish Council of Australia group, told this masthead the LNP’s focus on the posts was an attempt at “manufacturing a scandal” while they “pushed through some of the most illiberal laws in Queensland’s history”.

“Genuine communal safety is built through social cohesion and robust gun control, not by silencing democratic expression,” he said.

Even before the Healy brouhaha, there was internal pressure for Labor to take a stand against the bill: over the issue of Palestine, but also the broader free speech and process concerns, which the parliamentary arm ended up leaning on to justify its vote.

Labor’s eventual opposition will raise expectations for more, particularly in an area the government can still arguably claim to have a mandate: its youth justice “adult crime, adult time” push.

The youth arm of the party’s Left has threatened to cause public havoc if the opposition supports another round of those laws – which clash with stated priorities to reduce the over-representation of First Nations kids in the criminal justice system.

As one senior Labor MP previously told this masthead, this week’s bill was seen as a more obvious attempt by the LNP to press a wedge between the opposition’s internal left-right factions.

“We’re not at each other’s throats like we were a bit for the first ‘adult crime, adult time’ stuff,” they said last month.

The crime-related campaign bruising suffered by Labor, largely in regional parts of the state, is still a sore point, particularly given recent polling.

Complicating things somewhat may be how the LNP decided to serve up the latest edition of adult time – wrapped in a broader bill with a repeal of Labor’s three-strike drug reforms and an expansion of police powers to crack down on “anti-social behaviour” in designated business and public areas.

As that push works its way through parliament’s government-controlled committee process and beyond, many – in both major parties and the wider public – will be watching how Labor handles it.

Heads up

Catch up

• Another bill set to cause some controversy on its way through parliament in coming months? Traeger MP and Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter’s long-promised “castle law” bill to allow lethal force against home intruders.

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