After weeks of tense back-and-forth and a late-night sitting in Canberra, Parliament has officially passed sweeping new hate speech and gun control laws — marking one of the biggest overhauls in both areas since the Howard era.
The legislation, introduced in direct response to the tragic Bondi Beach terror attack, was split into two separate bills after days of negotiation. Both passed overnight, though not without pushback from across the political spectrum.
Why these laws exist
The package is a direct response to the Bondi Beach terror attack, where 15 people were killed near a Hanukkah event in Sydney in an attack authorities allege was inspired by ISIS. Anthony Albanese recalled Parliament early for a special two-day sitting to deal with what he called “sweeping hate speech and gun laws” aimed at both the ideology and the weapons used.
“The terrorists at Bondi Beach had hatred in their minds but guns in their hands. This law will deal with both, and we need to deal with both,” he told Parliament. That line has basically become the government’s rationale: if you only tackle the rhetoric or only tackle access to weapons, you’re not really dealing with the risk.
How the politics played out
Labor initially tried to jam everything — hate speech, migration changes and gun reforms — into one massive omnibus bill and push it through by 20 January. Neither the Coalition nor the Greens were willing to back that, and legal experts, community groups and faith organisations quickly started flagging “unintended consequences” and the speed of the process.
Albanese eventually split the package in two: one bill for the gun reforms, another for hate speech and extremism powers. The gun bill passed first with the support of Labor, the Greens and some cross-benchers; the hate crimes bill passed just before 11pm with Labor and most Liberals voting yes, Nationals mostly abstaining, and the Greens, One Nation and several independents voting no.
Labor also dropped previously proposed racial vilification provisions after it became clear neither the Coalition nor the Greens would support them. Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth described the compromise pretty bluntly, saying, “We need to get laws through the parliament. It’s a numbers issue,” on the Today Show.
For the Liberals, Sussan Ley used the moment to mark out some distance from the government while claiming credit for reshaping the bill. She said the original proposal was “clumsy and deeply flawed” in a statement, arguing it had “collapsed under scrutiny, divided the Parliament and risked encroaching on fundamental freedoms”. After negotiating changes with Albanese, she said “as a result of Liberal Party action, the legislation has been narrowed, strengthened and properly focused on keeping Australians safe, not political point scoring”.
What the new hate speech offence does
The centre of the hate speech package is a new federal criminal offence of publicly promoting or inciting racial hatred.
- It applies to speech, writing, symbols, gestures and online posts intended to promote or incite hatred because of someone’s race, colour, or national or ethnic origin.
- Prosecutors do not need to prove hatred actually occurred or that someone actually felt afraid. The test is whether a reasonable person would feel intimidated, fear harassment or violence, or fear for their safety because of the conduct.
- The maximum penalty is up to five years’ prison, with higher maximums for aggravated cases, including when a religious or spiritual leader is involved or when children are targeted.
After faith groups raised concerns, the bill includes a narrow defence for directly quoting religious texts for the purpose of religious teaching or discussion. Albanese referenced the Old Testament to explain why that exists, saying, “We need to be careful… We want to make sure there isn’t unintended consequences of the legislation.”
The government describes this as a “principles-based test”: it looks at the effect the conduct would have on a reasonable person, rather than banning particular words or scriptures outright.
Hate groups, visas and new powers
The laws don’t just stop at individual speech. They also create a new prohibited hate‑group listing regime and widen the federal government’s ability to use visa powers against people who spread hate.
- The Home Affairs Minister can designate an organisation as a “prohibited hate group” if it has engaged in, prepared or planned to engage in, or assisted or advocated a hate crime.
- That can be based heavily on intelligence assessments from agencies such as ASIO and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, with the bill not requiring the usual level of procedural fairness before a listing.
Once a group is listed:
- Being a member, or trying to become one, can carry up to seven years’ jail.
- Directing, funding, recruiting for or otherwise supporting a listed group can attract penalties of up to 15 years in prison.
On top of that, the migration side of the bill gives the minister new tools:
- Visas can be cancelled or refused if a person is assessed as spreading, or likely to spread, extremist or hateful views in Australia.
- The threshold here is risk, not guilt, meaning someone doesn’t need to have been charged or convicted for action to be taken against their visa.
This is where a lot of the civil liberties and political concern sits. Greens Justice and Home Affairs spokesperson David Shoebridge said the government was seeking “sweeping changes to Migration laws to give the Minister new powers to cancel visas basically whenever he wants”, arguing that happens “in a bill that is supposedly targeting hate”. Community legal groups have warned that relying on classified intelligence with limited avenues for appeal risks sweeping up legitimate political expression or protest as “extremism”.
The Liberals negotiated some extra oversight in exchange for their support. One change requires the Opposition Leader to be consulted and briefed before hate‑group listings, though there is still no veto, and Parliament only reviews listings after the fact.
Who is protected — and who is left out
The new offence focuses specifically on race, colour and national or ethnic origin. That narrower drafting was enough to get the bill through, but it leaves other groups — like LGBTQ+ people or people with disabilities — outside the direct scope of the federal hate speech crime.
Independent MP Allegra Spender, whose electorate includes Bondi Beach, has welcomed the creation of a federal hate offence but argued it’s inconsistent that only some communities are covered. “Neo-Nazis target the Jewish community, and they target the Muslim community and they target the LGBTQ community, but only one group at this stage will be protected by race laws,” she told the ABC, adding, “This is also about consistency.”
Spender has said she will push to broaden the protections to other minority groups but will ultimately support the bill in its current form if that’s what it takes to get a framework in place.
Outside the government, some legal and human rights experts see that as a major missed chance. Kurin Minang human rights expert and law academic Dr Hannah McGlade wrote in National Indigenous Times that “the federal government’s proposed laws to address race hate, increasing criminalisation of hate and banning racist organisations has now been rejected by Ley and her party, ignoring Jewish leaders who supported the laws”. She argued that “the overwhelming opposition to the proposed law, even from some sections of the left, was a missed opportunity to tackle race hate and ban racist organisations in Australia”.
Equality Australia Legal Director Heather Corkhill also criticised the choice to drop the vilification laws in the package: “Serious vilification laws must apply equally. The government should be stopping all hate before it turns violent, not creating tiers of protection.”
What the new gun laws actually change
On the firearms side, the reforms deliver the most significant tightening since the post‑Port Arthur era, including a national gun buyback, stricter import rules and much more intensive background checks.
Key changes include:
- A two‑year national buyback scheme targeting newly banned, high‑capacity and rapid‑fire weapons, plus certain assisted‑repeating and straight‑pull firearms, large‑capacity magazines (over about 30 rounds), belt‑feeders, suppressors and speed‑loaders.
- A framework for the Commonwealth, states and territories to cap the number of firearms people can own, review licensing categories and factor in criminal intelligence when deciding who can have a gun.
- Following a National Cabinet meeting, NSW moved to a cap of four firearms for individuals, with farmers and commercial users limited to ten, which is expected to influence national settings.
Nationals MPs have argued the changes unfairly punish “everyday Australians” for the actions of two men, and some gun owners say firearms with sentimental value — like heirlooms — shouldn’t count toward the limit. Albanese, meanwhile, has insisted the reforms are “not targeting farmers” and are aimed at high‑risk weapons rather than standard tools of farm work.
AusCheck, security vetting and licence reviews
One of the more technical but far‑reaching shifts is that gun licensing will be folded into the AusCheck system — the same national security vetting framework used for aviation and other sensitive roles.
Under the reforms:
- Licence checks will become more frequent and more detailed, moving from roughly every five years to closer to every two, with a focus on “risk” rather than just clean criminal records.
- Agencies like ASIO and the ACIC will be able to provide classified intelligence to help decide whether someone poses an unacceptable risk to public safety, even if they’ve never been charged with anything.
- Decision‑makers can consider spent, quashed or historical convictions when assessing risk, not just fresh offences.
Former police officer and prosecutor James Glissan has warned this mix of more frequent checks, old incidents and limited appeal rights could leave long‑time licence‑holders vulnerable. He said someone who had a mental health incident a decade ago, but has been law‑abiding since, could lose their licence with “no ability for independent review”, telling SBS News it’s “a recipe for disaster”.
Gun safety advocates back the tighter system. Stephen Bendle from the Australian Gun Safety Alliance said Australians have been “rightfully proud of our gun laws for the last 30 years, but unfortunately, blissfully unaware of the growth in the number of firearms, the types of firearms and the availability of firearms”, and urged governments to listen to a “cry” for stronger protections since the Bondi attack.
The buyback, the money and the backlash
The national buyback is intended to be co‑funded by the Commonwealth and the states on a 50‑50 basis, and billed as the biggest scheme since 1996. Queensland, the Northern Territory and Tasmania have all pushed back on that funding model, despite agreeing in principle that gun numbers need to come down.
Money is a big flashpoint. Glissan pointed out that a person who spent $20,000 on multiple firearms could receive only around $5,000 under draft figures, arguing there was “no clear justification on the price of the firearm”. The Shooting Industry Foundation Australia estimates that the cost to government could run up to $15 billion.
“The current trend is for more expensive guns while technology and sophistication of firearms are significantly different 30 years later,” SIFA CEO James Walsh said in a statement.
For some owners, there’s also the question of sentimental value — guns passed down through families that people feel shouldn’t be counted against their limit. For others, especially survivors and communities targeted by hate, the focus is squarely on reducing the number and type of weapons in circulation as quickly as possible.
Concerns for the future
The other running theme here is process. The government says the risk of further extremist violence justifies acting fast, critics worry rushed lawmaking tends to reach further than intended.
Barrister Greg Barns, a former president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, told reporters in Canberra parts of the bill were so complex that “even to senior lawyers, it’s unintelligible”, and that fast reform “after tragedy” often comes with “very little public education” about what it will actually do. Greens Leader Larissa Waters called it “a dangerous piece of legislation that cannot be fixed”, warning of “chilling effects on political discourse and our right to protest”.
On the other side, Executive Council of Australian Jewry co‑chief executive Alex Ryvchin has backed a serious clampdown on hate preachers and extremist groups. “We have no interest whatsoever in stifling debate and the public exchange of ideas … what we’re talking about is a process of radicalisation and incitement to violence, which culminates in massacres like this,” he told Sky News.
That’s the tightrope these laws now sit on: trying to better protect communities — particularly Jewish communities and other minorities who’ve been on the front line of rising antisemitism and racism — without unnecessarily shutting down protest or criticism of governments.
What happens next
Even though the bills have passed, a lot of the real‑world impact will come down to how they’re used: which organisations get listed as hate groups, how often visas are cancelled, how strictly licence decisions lean on secret intelligence, and how generous (or not) buyback compensation ends up being.
For now, Australia has just redrawn some of its most sensitive lines — around speech, security, community safety and guns — and the way authorities and ministers use those new powers will matter just as much as the words Parliament agreed to last night.
Lead image: Getty
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