A hastily drawn-up “inquiry” into hate speech in NSW, following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, will hand down its report on January 31.
The inquiry’s narrow term of reference is looking into the “threat” that words pose to “community cohesion and safety”. Labor Premier Chris Minns is campaigning to outlaw what he terms “hateful” phrases such as “Globalise the intifada”.
Minns also wants to give councils new powers to shut down “factories of hate” which, he says, operate without planning approvals. The new laws will allow councils to cut off utilities to targeted venues, and raise fines on individuals from $11,000 to $110,000 and for corporations from $22,000 to a massive $220,000.
Minns claims to be motivated by concerns for people’s safety, but his practice over the past two years shows this to be a lie. Since October 2023, he has followed the Zionist copybook and smeared the anti-genocide movement as antisemitic.
His efforts to ban several Palestine marches backfired, including the historic March for Humanity over the Sydney Harbour Bridge which the NSW Supreme Court ruled should go ahead. His attempt to stop the protest likely compelled more people to exercise their conscience and join despite the driving rain.
Just as last year, the NSW Supreme Court ruled that aspects of Minns’ new anti-protest laws were unconstitutional. This year, Palestine Action Group, Jews Against the Occupation ’48 and Blak Caucus are challenging his new rushed laws after the Bondi terror attack in the courts.
Minns may be overreaching — as his counterpart in South Australian has done by publicly urging the Adelaide Writers Festival to disinvite Australian-Palestinian author Randa Abel-Fattah. Premier Peter Malinauskas’ anti-democratic push may come back to bite him at that state’s March election.
The NSW inquiry is looking into how to “prevent the use of phrases that are so inherently hateful that they lead to incitement of hatred and threaten community safety”.
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (CCL) notes in its submission that to assume “Globalise the intifada” is “inherently hateful” and/or will “lead to incitement of hatred and threaten community safety”, is already showing up the inquiry’s bias.
“Allegations that these slogans undermine its sense of safety emanate from the Zionist Jewish community”, CCL said, pointing to submissions from previous inquiries into antisemitism in Australia (2024 Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities, the 2025 NSW Legislative Council Portfolio Committee Justice and Communities Inquiry into Antisemitism in NSW).
Criminalising slogans?
CCL said the assertion that “these slogans are ‘directed at’ the Zionist Jewish community ‘to intimidate [it] and instill fear of violence’ mischaracterises the use of these slogans and their purpose”. Slogans used at marches are directed at “society at large” it said, and are “intended to raise awareness of Israel’s genocide in Gaza”.
In any case, as it points out, “Globalise the intifada” hasn’t been a key chant at Palestine rallies. The most popular chants have been: “Stop arming Israel”; “Albanese/Minns/Penny Wong! You can’t hide; You’re supporting genocide”; and “Ceasefire now”.
Trying to ban slogans, the CCL said, “raises a number of concerns and questions of criminal law that make the path of criminalisation unworkable” including how to define a slogan and the definition of “community” within a state, territory or Commonwealth law. It said the ordinary meaning of the term is “too imprecise to form the basis of a legal definition”.
In any case, as the NSW CCL said, banning slogans will not protect communities from hatred, intimidation and violence.
CCL said criminal law is a blunt instrument to “manage tension in the community”; it recommends “an approach centred around education and human rights” as more likely to be effective.
“Responding to hate, intimidation and violence in the community must be evidence-based,” CCL said. “The mechanisms through which social cohesion is best achieved are those which aim to prevent social dysfunction at its inception, rather than those which serve as a deterrent.”
Jews for Occupation ’48 said in its submission that “intifada” in Arabic means to “shake off” something external or to come to consciousness. “It is a call to overcome despair and exhaustion, and to resist oppression in all its forms, including political repression, economic exploitation and cultural erasure.”
Expressions of solidarity, not hate
Michelle Berkon, the submission author, said while “no group should be allowed to monopolise the discourse on trauma and use it to curtail the legitimate rights of others, no objectively Jewish trauma-triggering events can be linked to the Palestine solidarity movement in Australia”.
She said there were no grounds to call for a ban on the use of slogans that “neither vilify nor call for violence against an individual or group”.
“The slogans ‘Globalise the Intifada’ and ‘From the river to the sea; Palestine will be free’ express solidarity with people living under apartheid, belligerent occupation and genocide. They are thus legitimate political positions.”
She said the inquiry should find that there are no grounds on which to criminalise Australians who use either or both.
Responding to the inquiry’s question about how best to prevent the use of phrases that do lead to hatred and threaten community safety, Berkon said the ban on Nazi paraphernalia, symbols and slogans “has not dampened enthusiasm”. She pointed to the NSW Police’s support for a Neo-Nazi protest outside NSW Parliament House last November, where an antisemitic banner was displayed and “blood and honour” — the calling card of the Hitler Youth — was shouted multiple times.
“NSW Police approved and observed the protest,” Berkon said. “Australia's Antisemitism Envoy, Jillian Segal, whose family bankrolls far-right lobby group Advance made no comment, instead expressing her concern for Jewish safety by targeting those who condemn Israel’s crimes and defend Palestinian rights.”
While the intifada against Israel’s unlawful actions in Occupied Palestinian Territories “did and does include armed resistance, alongside decades of diplomatic, political and economic strategies”, she said the Palestine solidarity movement is “explicitly non-violent”.
“Expressing abhorrence of a political ideology that espouses racial discrimination, and a state that enacts apartheid, unlawful military occupation and genocide should be uncontroversial.”
Berkon said it is “not possible to legislate away people’s hatred of oppression and hatred for their oppressors, nor is it desirable.
“No phrase used by the Palestine solidarity movement expresses hatred for Jews, Jewish Israelis, Jewish individuals, or Jewish communities in Australia or elsewhere; nor an intention to intimidate or commit any other act of violence against Jews, Jewish Israelis, Jewish individuals or Jewish communities in Australia or elsewhere.”
[A repeal the anti-protest laws protest is being held on January 16, 6pm, Sydney Town Hall.]