Australians in the state of Victoria could go to prison for up to five years for “hate speech” under new anti-vilification laws proposed by the state Government.
Under the proposed laws, it would be an offence to “incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule” of a person or group based on their sex, gender identity or race.
It would also be illegal to “threaten physical harm or property damage on the ground of a protected attribute”.
The new laws would lower the legal threshold for prosecuting people for vilification and would add gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and disability to the list of protected attributes alongside race and religion, which are already protected.
Online, these laws will apply to anyone, anywhere who vilifies a person in Victoria, although the Government acknowledges that this may be difficult to enforce.
Offline, these laws will apply to both public and private interactions.
The changes, which amount to a heavy rewrite of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, are intended to “reduce the harm caused by vilification, protect more people, reflect the seriousness of hateful conduct and ensure those who experience vilification can easily seek help”.
Hate speech laws welcomed by human rights, law and special interest groups
The Sun Herald reports that the original motivation for the legislation was “due to fears of Islamophobia after women were getting spat on for what they were wearing”, but it has “since expanded to address rising antisemitism, as well as other attributes including to protect people with disabilities and members of the LGBTIQ+ community”.
The proposed hate speech laws have been welcomed by human rights groups including the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.
“We need to shift the burden of responding to hate from individual victims and instead create a system that can drive change,” said the Commission, which has played an active role in advocating stronger legal protections to protect Victorians from hate conduct.
A Parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification protections in 2020 drew strong expressions of support for expanding the anti-vilification legal framework from diverse groups including the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, the Islamic Council of Victoria, the Law Institute of Victoria, the Online Hate Prevention Institute, Victoria Legal Aid, Equality Australia and the Victorian Pride Lobby.
In its response to the inquiry report, the Government committed to strengthening the state’s anti-vilification laws, acknowledging the “profound” impacts of hate conduct and vilification on the physical and psychological wellbeing of individuals and communities, and on “the very core of Victoria’s social cohesion through its inherent divisiveness and unequal distribution of power”.
Since the inquiry wrapped up in 2021, the Victorian Government has undertaken several rounds of consultation, with the final consultation phase open until this Friday, October 11th.
Prison time for ridicule
However, the proposed anti-vilification laws have not been welcomed in all corners.
“Victoria has a new fight on its hands,” said Victorian MP David Limbrick in a video posted to X. The Libertarian and free speech advocate shared his concerns and called on followers to voice their dissent.
“This is really serious stuff. You can go to jail for three years for ridicule!” he said.
“The Government’s definition of public conduct is so broad that it includes private property – does that include your backyard barbeque?
“And how weird is this – they want to include behaviour that incites hatred or other serious emotions. But the Government’s actions incite serious emotions in me all the time!”
Indeed, under the proposed reforms, you could be criminally prosecuted for incitement of “severe ridicule” on the ground of a protected attribute, with a maximum penalty of three years prison time.
Threatening physical harm or property damage would carry a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.
Currently, the threshold for prosecution is higher and the maximum penalty is lower – both incitement and threat must be proven to prosecute for vilification, and the maximum penalty is six months imprisonment, a fine of up to $11,855.40, or both.
And, it is certainly possible that Victorians could be prosecuted or sued for things said at a backyard barbeque. The proposed criminal incitement offences apply to both public and private conduct, which means that, “regardless of whether hate speech or conduct occurs in public or in private, it can be a crime”.
An additional set of civil protections apply only to public conduct, but as pointed out by Limbrick, “conduct might be considered public even if it occurs on private property or at a place not open to the general public”, such as neighbours calling across the fence, or interactions that occur at a school or workplace.
Also under the modified civil protections is the clarification that the legal test for incitement would be “conduct that is likely to incite hatred or other serious emotions in another person”.
Limbrick jokes that the Government’s actions incite serious emotions in him all the time, but this provision would be no joking matter for the accused, who could face legal action for inciting serious emotions in relation to someone’s race, gender identity or disability.
Breastfeeding advice a hate crime?
During Parliamentary debate last year, Limbrick attempted to secure assurances from Victoria Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes that the new laws would not prevent Australians from speaking plainly on important issues.
For example, “Can the Attorney-General provide reassurances that the dictionary definition of ‘woman’ – that is, an adult human female – will not be considered hate speech under the proposed anti-vilification laws?” asked Limbrick.
“That is a bit of a stretch,” said Symes.
But is it?
A Victorian breastfeeding counsellor, Jasmine Sussex, is currently being taken to a Queensland tribunal over a vilification claim by trans-identified male Jennifer Buckley, after Sussex raised concerns online about biological males trying to chest-feed newborn babies.
This is the third complaint made by Buckley to various authorities, including the Queensland Human Rights Commission and the e-Safety Commissioner, resulting in Sussex being fired from her volunteer role at the Australian Breastfeeding Association, her social media posts being censored and now legal action.
The difference under Victoria’s proposed laws is that Sussex could be liable for criminal prosecution and jail time for her proclamations of biological fact, which reportedly hurt Buckley’s feelings.
Principal lawyer at the Human Rights Law Alliance (HRLA) John Steenhof, who is representing Sussex, said in a statement that “ordinary Australians like Jasmine Sussex should be free to speak openly about issues of public importance”.
“Vilification laws are easily weaponised to silence free speech and suppress opposing views on contentious social issues,” he warned.
This is a concern shared by Dr. Rueben Kirkham of the Free Speech Union of Australia (FSU), who describes the proposed laws as “expansive” and “problematic”.
“The origins are Soviet – literally – which tells you a lot about what you need to know,” he said in an email.
Dr. Kirkham highlighted a range of concerns including the potential for politicisation of the police force, which would be empowered to initiate prosecutions, the prospect that even “mildly offensive” speech could meet the threshold for legal action, and insufficient provisions for legal defence against accusations.
It is proposed that only conduct or speech engaged in for a “genuine” purpose in the public interest be protected from the scope of the anti-vilification laws, which would require an accused person to prove genuine intent.
“Imagine having to keep records to prove that every tweet is reasonable. We are appalled,“ said Dr. Kirkham.
The FSU has created an online tool for people to make submissions to the Victorian Government’s consultation on the proposed anti-vilification laws.
Federal hate speech bill also in play
As Victoria works to extend and strengthen its anti-vilification laws, a federal hate speech bill is already moving through the Australian Parliament, targeting speech and conduct that recklessly incites violence against people because of their race, religion and other protected attributes.
The federal bill is less extreme than the laws proposed by the Victorian Government, and has drawn criticism from some special interest groups for not going far enough.
The Victorian Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024 will strengthen existing offences to reduce the fault element to “recklessness”, will remove the “good faith” defence, will expand the list of prohibited hate symbols and will create new criminal offences for threatening force or violence against targeted groups.
The Senate is currently conducting consultation on the bill, with submissions open until November 7th.
United Kingdom hate crime laws a taste of what’s to come?
In April of this year, Scotland passed laws making it a crime to “stir up hatred” against protected groups, with a maximum prison sentence of seven years.
Similarities between the Scottish laws and those proposed by the Victorian Government can offer a sense of what Victorians might expect: a large uptick in reported hate crimes, a moderate number of successful prosecutions and an increased burden on the police force.
More than 7,000 hate incident complaints were reportedly made to the Scottish police in the first week after the hate crime laws came into effect. Ironically, many were in relation to an infamous 2020 speech by then First Minister Humza Yousaf in which he bemoaned the “whiteness” of the leadership class in Scotland (a country in which 96% of the population is white), showing that vexatious complaints can go both ways.
While no action has been taken on a majority of anonymous and vexatious complaints, Police Scotland reports that between April and September, 468 hate crimes had progressed to some form of prosecutorial action; 42 cases resulted in conviction, while more than 80% of cases are still moving through the courts.
Aside from successful prosecutions, Scotland’s new hate crime laws have coincided with an upsurge in recorded hate crimes. In the six months since the laws came into effect, Police Scotland recorded 5,400 hate crimes, representing an increase of 63%.
Justice Secretary Angela Constance said that the increased number of recorded hate crimes “demonstrates that this legislation is required and needed to protect marginalised and vulnerable communities most at risk of racial hatred and prejudice”.
On the other hand, opposition Justice Spokesperson Sharon Dowey said that the increase in reports highlighted the strain that the new laws were having on Scotland’s “overstretched” police force, which includes hate crime training as well as attending to reports.
Arrests and prosecutions in Britain in the wake of racially charged protests and riots this year related to the stabbing of three children in Southport, and the related issue of mass immigration, offer insight into how hate speech laws may be applied in times of inflamed social tensions.
In response to the riots, the Starmer Government assigned specialist officers to investigate hundreds of social media posts suspected of “spreading hate and inciting violence”.
Law enforcers arrested hundreds and sent multiple people to jail under a hodgepodge of legal provisions including “stirring up racial hatred”, “sending false communications” or causing public disorder, either on social media or at the protests.
Some of these cases involved outright calls to violence, while others said offensive things, inadvertently shared false information or were merely onlookers to riots, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Stark Naked Brief noted “bizarre inconsistencies” in the application of the subjectively worded hate speech laws, with some – like “keyboard warrior” Wayne O’Rourke, who was sentenced to three years in prison for “stirring up racial hatred” on social media – receiving longer prison time for hate speech and conduct than actual murderers.
Have your say
Consultation on the Victorian Government’s proposed hate speech laws is open until Friday October 11th. Visit the Free Speech Union website to use its custom tool.
Consultation on the federal Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024 is open until Thursday November 7th.
This article was originally published on Dystopian Down Under, Rebekah Barnett’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I don’t know who the lady is in the first picture but I bet those glasses she is wearing are top quality frames and lenses made with precision machines. That haircut looks expensive too, done with top quality scissors. I don’t know much about the manufacture of cosmetics other than they do get manufactured. She is not smeared in whatever people used to put on their faces before cosmetics, or wearing an animal skin or leaves or whatever. Don’t know about her state of health but bet she’s had scans from high-tech machines.
That is absolutely the first thing that came into my mind – they look like pretty high end glasses, but presumably even low end glasses cannot be produced under “deindustrialised” conditions, she is also wearing a printed top that looks suspiciously industrially produced as well, has a nice haircut like you say (under her future plans, presumably it would have to be grown long or hacked at roughly with a flint knife); and I am willing to bet ten squillion pounds that she currently has more than 50 square metres of space to call home. These people should be forced to live as they are advocating for several years with no exceptions (if she gets ill, for example, she can’t take industrially produced medicines – a bit of herbal medicine is all that’s permitted) then see how they like it. Although doubtless some of them WOULD like it, of course.
Absolutely. You can bet that when she envisages the glorious future, she doesn’t imagine she will live in a mud hut, scavenging and foraging for survival. Oh, no, she will be part of the elite, shielded from these uncomfortable conditions, but of course that’s the least she deserves for sacrificing her life for the salvation of mankind (oops, sorry, humankind).
Oh yes there will be exceptions of course, for the important rulers. Just like we are seeing already, when they tell us to stop flying cattle class once a year for a nice holiday but insist that they need to take private jets everywhere for “security” or “timetabling” reasons.
I wonder if any of them have ever set out exactly how they see this working. Would love to see it – hard to think that is would be in any way plausible or coherent. You can focus what you put effort into in order to prioritise what you feel is of most value (THEY decide this, of course) but you can’t turn the clock back across the board without huge knock on effects that they are unlikely to feel happy with if affected personally.
I think the really scary bit is they may actually believe what they say…
I find it hard to fathom. I would like to have a serious discussion with someone like her, but my experiences trying to have such discussions with covidians were fruitless – they won’t engage – and I suspect ecoloons would be the same.
Bye bye radio and chemo therapy, x-rays, scans of any sort and any types of joint replacement. Welcome to a painful old age.
This would suit them (as long as it only applied to other people of course) as an easy way to ensure depopulation (of other people).
Without the fossil fuels industry modern make-up would not exist. The ladies would be back to sticks of charcoal, gravy browning and white lead.
Indeed. It’s hard to imagine they actually believe this crap. It’s probably as MajorMajor says above – they don’t think it applies to them. Trouble is that a lot of modern comforts are only really viable if made at scale for a mass market.
“Green intellectual” now there’s a contradiction in terms!
‘Demanding, via political fiat, that your automobile industry begin producing a totally different product in the course of the next decade, is not all that different from abolishing your automobile industry.’
The genius of the self licking lollipop.
This doesn’t end well.
Wars never do.
The genius of the self licking lollipop.
A superb summary.
‘Green Intellectual’ is an oxymoron.
These people are actively destroying society with an insatiable callousness. They are absolute monsters. But who is promoting them, who is always providing them a public platform and why?
All western societies are going down the same road to hell and they are all doing their utmost to drag the rest of the world down with them too.
Emphasis on ‘moron’.
‘Intellectual’….a person who can’t plant a flower, fix a roof, or unfold a folded box.
Useless.
Maybe this tard can lead by example.
Everything made with hydrocarbons – leave them, strip them off, run naked to the woods and survive with Gaia.
Problem solved.
All revolutions are sponsored by powerful individuals. Are these people their useful idiots?
The collective death-wish is strong with these people.
Aren’t these ideas just a little bit similar to Pol Pot’s?
State ownership, rationing, abolishing money, restrictions on property, etc, etc…
So my suspicion is that this is just another educated intellectual who has fallen in love with the idea of communism, except this time the liberation of the masses will be done for environmental reasons.
The outcome would of course be the same.
Aren’t these ideas just a little bit similar to Pol Pot’s?
Pol-Pot – preceded by Mao, preceded by Lenin. For example: in 1921, after four years of Lenin’s government, the Russian economy was less than 20% what is was in 1913.
Exactly.
The end result of all these ideas is always, always the same. Totalitarianism, political terror, mass starvation, forced labour camps.
And the madleft tell us that they are the wise ones!
You need to move up the food chain to find the real psychopaths.
Yes, after murdering all the oil well owners in Baku – except for Alfred Nobel’s brother who was saved by his workers – oil exports slumped so Lenin was forced to beg the western oil companies to step in to revive production and income.
The whole of the green eco lunacy industry is based on the Club of Rome 1972 statement – mankind is the virus and climate (Co2) is the means to control that virus.
All about depopulation and control.
On what basis, and on who’s say so, is she an intellectual? Really?
No, she is an intellectual in the sense that she is well educated, articulate and intelligent.
The problem is that this is not enough.
Lenin was also extremely well educated too. But their educated mind has been captured by a fundamentally evil idea.
Perhaps the way to look at it is to view them as high priests of an evil cult. You can’t be a high priest if you are dumb, certain human qualities are necessary. But the cult you are serving is still evil.
Or, another way to understand is: the devil is not stupid.
No, she is an intellectual in the sense that she is well educated, articulate and intelligent.
Let’s see:
The central elements of the economy would have to be rationed. First of all, living space, because cement emits endless amounts of CO2. Actually, new construction would have to be banned outright and living space rationed to 50 square metres per capita. That should actually be enough for everyone. Then meat would have to be rationed, because meat production emits enormous amounts of CO2.
Assuming the translation is accurate, these are two factually dubious statements even when considering climate politics standards. The reason we’re supposed to decarbonise energy generation first and foremost is not that most of the CO₂ emitted as side-effect of economic activities comes really from construction and husbandry. The repetiveness (emits endless amounts of CO₂ … emits enormous amounts of CO₂) is very poor style people who had any (German) education worth anything would have been taught to avoid. The hysterical tone is a sign of someone getting carried away by his own emotions, another mark of the poorly educated who never learnt how to structure their thoughts instead of just letting them rush on like a waterfall.
This person who self-identifies as human being despite not everyone will want to agree with that is certainly neither well-educated nor intelligent nor articulate. Just another post-menopausal green autocunt who excellently networks in her chosen social environment and has no skills beyond that. Narcisstic, shallow, domineering and with an almost psychopathic lack of empathy for others.
Your final paragraph sums up Kneel to a tee.
They’re probably lab-grown somewhere.
How deranged do you have to be to count as an intellectual these days
“Leading green intellectual.”
The epitome of an oxymoron.
The fannification of the workplace continues at pace.
With predictably disastrous results.
We all look back prior to 1989 at the truly awful life East Germans, Russians etc had before the Berlin Wall came down. But what emerged was an even bigger communist monster called GREEN. It hijacked the environment for its purpose and has brainwashed the last couple of generations of young people who truly believe that without massive government intervention, central planning of every aspect of people’s lives that billions of people will die in a climate apocalypse and that all scientists agree this to be so. Young people so easily manipulated now clamour for their own impoverishment then head off home with their placards to their cosy house, laptop, fridge, satellite television, all courtesy of the very fuels they think they want rid of, without realising that without those fuels they would be back in the Stoneage, where no doubt they would have something different on their placards. —–“WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF STONES”.
Well their plan to destroy Germany is working very well. Manufacturing is heading for the exit if it hasn’t gone bankrupt. Retail chains are closing down. Construction is in a total mess. Inward investment is cratering. Educated people are leaving in droves. And of course those with wealth will be gone as there are plenty of other countries that will welcome their contribution to the economy – obviously not the UK of Two Tier and Thieves.
Ulrike Herrmann is seriously deranged, and her (honest) supporters are seriously deluded. Her dishonest supporters will be figuring out how they can gain from this madness. The rest of us must resist these people, all of them.
Basically she wants a society like pre-WW1 Russia …. peasant farmers, tied to the land.
Or post WW1 under Stalin.
The trouble with 50 square metres per person is that residential properties rarely approach this now. They are either too big or too small. Unless you have a rebuilding program of 50 square metres dwellings and compel people to move as their life circumstances change, the provision of these dwellings means pulling down what already exists and building new. Even with low environmental cost building that’s a huge environmental cost for very little environmental gain.
Lunacy.
I think you’re underestimating the unorginality and callousness of this far/ hard left columnist revolutionary: 50m² is the limit of what the German welfare state will pay for for people who are long-term unemployed or otherwise dependent on it¹ which is doubtlessly where she got the number from. Why would any of these … excess human beings deserve more than that?
¹ About 50% of the people permanently living off welfare in Germany are “refugees” and other unemployable/ not-looking-for-work foreigners.
Ulrike Herrmann is a leading Green intellectual? Well, she’s certainly not clever. Her opinions would have been kept more discreet if she had written them in her books rather than allow herself to be filmed/recorded spouting this drivel. At least in her book people would have to read past the first page to find these ideas – which would filter out all but the most afflicted insomniac.
These people have to be stopped by any means necessary, and I mean ‘any’.
Surely you don’t mean… ridicule?
Soapbox, ballot box, jury box…
Greens – Reds who Hate the Countryside
“…as long as we continue to screw up our economy, they’re the only ones who are really winning.”
Perhaps, but there are plenty of examples in history where it’s not good to be on the receiving end of large groups of poor, hungry and angry people. What is also not good is when those poor and hungry people know who made them poor and hungry because the architects of this poverty have been loudly telling the world everything they are doing and want to do.
Well finally the lunatics are spewing their rhetoric forth, all part of the WEF/WHO’s plans, and we are called “right wing” for opposing this, One can only assume this only applys to us “lower” classes, and not the “elite”, she needs help from professionals clearly if she believes this really will happen.
How can we argue against these people ,or better still stop them gaining more ground?.
These people take the veritable biscuit. They lack basic education on economics, powers of imagination and critical thought. They think they will save the planet but such policies mean the end of civilisation, bedlam and scorched earth with no trees standing and just about every living thing eaten by those not killed by their fellow younger and stronger fellow human beings (they, like most of us, forget that dying at the hands of other humans is a perfectly natural death).
This woman originally started in apprenticeship in banking she then broke off to get degrees in philosophy and history. She is obviously lacking education, but not for want of opportunities, more, because she’s naturally immune to learning beyond the biannual exercises in rote memorization students usually apply to get past the next round of tests.
Since this happened a long time ago, her mind has meanwhile again broken free of any factual knowledge inadvertenty gained in this way and reverted back to the excitable female teenager she never meant to stop being.
Surely “green intellectual” is an oxymoron?