I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. On Monday, Parliament will return early to debate new laws to deal with hate speech and gun ownership. The legislation has been drafted in a hurry, under mounting pressure in the aftermath of the Bondai terror attack. By support for the bill has already fractioned. The Coalition says it goes too far, the Greens say doesn't go far enough. Both want more
time to consider changes. The debate over what is and is in hate is unfolding at a time of deep political division, with consequences not just for Parliament but for Australia's cultural institutions. Today, CEO of Cheek Media and host of the Big Small Talk podcast Hannah Ferguson on the politics of hate speech and how a fight over free expression spilled into the arts. It's Saturday, January seventy Henna, thanks for joining us. It's great to have you on seven Am.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Let's start with the government's new hate speech legislation. Can you give us a sense of what it is they are proposing.
They're progressing a lot now.
It covers everything from you know, customs and migration changes too.
Basically like major anti terrorism reform.
It increases the penalties for hate crimes offenses. It ensures that defenders whose crimes were motivated by extremism had that factored into their sentencing. It creates a new offense for inciting hatred in order to intimidate all harass.
But I think there's two specific parts that have people most concerned.
One is a new federal offense for inciting hatred.
It expands and strengthens the ban on prohibited symbols, and it makes it easier for the Minister for Home Affairs to cancel or refuse a visa for people intent on spreading hatred.
And the second is a new regime for outlawing hate groups.
So they're kind of the two major aspects of this bill that are being considered highly contentious right now.
Once an organization is listed, it will be a criminal offense to be a member, to recruit for it, to donate or receive funds, or support that group in any way.
The federal offense for inciting hatred is an interesting one because it makes it illegal to publicly promote or incite racial hatred, but the test is a reasonable person test, so it's not whether someone actually experienced intimidation, fear, harassment, or that actual hatred has been proven, but whether a reasonable person from the targeting group would feel that. So that's kind of one of the aspects that I think has come up a lot in the media in the
past couple of days. And then there's the aspect with the sort of regime or scheme for prescribing hate groups, which is groups that don't fit the mold for a definition of a terrorist group but are before that when they're engaging in acts of what would be considered hate crimes under the Criminal Code.
Saying, both the Greens and the Coalitions say they won't support the bill as it stands. Why is that.
I think there's very different reasons for the Greens and the Coalition's disagreement and opposition to the bill. So we've seen from the Greens leaders like David Shubridge, Marine Ferouki and Larissa Waters who are opposing the bill because they want it to consider their sort of national framework for anti racism and expand beyond just racial issues, so into
areas like protection to the LGBTQIA plus community. We are hearing new concerns and red flags every single day, and the Greens will not be supporting this bill in its current form.
The same hateful ideology that was directed against the Jewish community at Onbi could have as easily been directed against women in positions of power or the LGBTQ community.
Whereas the Coalition is opposing the bill for different reasons. Opposition Leader Susan Lee described it as unsalvageable and said I think explicitly that the bill didn't contain reference to radical Islam.
The legislation does not address the real issues that gave rise to the Bondai attack. It doesn't address Islamic extremism, it doesn't address isis influence and shed.
The Prime Minister can't name the problem, they can't solve the problem. So we're seeing the coalition quite contrastingly appealed to only wanting the bill to actually protect certain minority groups.
Yep Assie just said very different reasons for not supporting the hate speech aspects of this bill. Is this a sign that the government hasn't done enough to bring their parliamentary colleagues along.
I think yes, it is a side of that, but we always knew that following the Bondi terror attack on the fourteenth of December, it's only been a month. It's been a Christmas period of grief and of mourning and of a lot of harm between political parties and then messaging through the media to the public. So we always do it's going to be contentious, highly politicized, and I think every party has fallen into the kind of tropes
at the Australian part public would assume of them. But I do think the government has failed on a lot of fronts. They have failed to consult the stakeholders necessary, they have failed to look at into the expert advice and there's only been a forty eight hour public consultation period for a very significant and complex piece of legislation.
So not only have they failed to bring their colleagues along, their failed to bring the country along.
If we focus on the coalition, they've been highly critical of the government for not recalling parliament right after Bondai.
The first thing that needs to happen urgently is for the parliament to be recalled.
I haven't heard the Prime Minister to give a date. I haven't heard that.
Now they're saying they can't support the bill because they are too rushed. So this is a very very rush process.
From what we have seen so far, it looks pretty unsalvagable.
What does their response over the summer signal about how they're likely to approach next week?
The Coalition is really right now running our political game of making a lot of noise but no clear points. They are going to flip flop all over the place because they are rapidly losing support not only to Labor
and the Greens, but to one nation as well. So it's really, I think a race to the bottom, one actually representing the Australian public and having reasonable conversations and instead forsuably from my perspective, my personal opinion is it the Coalition right now just trying to find fights and stoke division, which is exactly the opposite of what the country needs right now.
And to that point, Seasonally wants this to be about radical Islam and anti Semitism. Only. Is there risk that Labor will fold on that approach to these laws in the same way they folded to the demands for a Royal commission.
Absolutely.
I think one of the hallmarks of Anthony Alberanizi's Prime ministership has been a leader that is really just leaning into what the conversation that's dominating the media of the time dictates that.
He should do.
Even with this announcement of a royal commissioner, he announced a federal review into our intelligence agencies and then backflips despite consistently saying we were not going to hold a royal commission. So I think the worry here is that he is vowing to pressures, actually stitching to his values, despite having such a strong majority in Parliament.
So are these laws doomed to fail given where we're at at the moment?
Absolutely?
I think to rush through such complex legislation makes such significant changes not only to hate speech legislation, but also to gun reform, to migration. There are so many different moving parts of this bill that arguably could be unconstitutional, but lawyers experts haven't been given the time for peruse and provide submissions to the still despite it being such
a complex piece of legislation. So I think right now they are doomed to fail because they do not have party support outside of Labor, and they haven't consulted the necessary stakeholders.
To actually ensure success and the goal of the bill is.
Really social cohesion and to reduce extremism and reduce division, and continues on this path, it's going to be the exact.
Opposite coming at from Bondai to Adelaide and the problem of weaponizing cultural sensitivity. And if we brought in things out a little bit and talk about the climate in which this legislation is being introduced into. You were set to appear at Adelaide Writers Week. How did you first hear that Randa Abdolphatar was uninvited?
Yeah, so last Thursday, I was actually still on break overseas traveling and I received an email from the Adelaide Festival Board with an attached statement informing all participants that doctor Randa Abdolphatar had been removed uninvited from the festival. Now, I quickly went online did some searchers, expecting to find some clear information as to why had she been uninvited,
what were recent comments made? There was no actual quotes in the statement, there was no specific references to comments that were made, and there was this really odd conflation that I read between doctor Abdolfhatar, her voice as a Palestinian author, and the Bondi terror attack. While denying there was connection now and the whole statement felt very funny
to me. So after receiving that email from the Adelaide Festival Board and kind of reviewing the material of having a look online, I decided that the only option for me was to pull out of the festival, given that I didn't understand the context and that I believe this to be a racist act of censorship. So I immediately emailed the board, raised my concerns and pulled out of the two sessions I was set to participate in next month, and.
You weren't alone in pulling out. What did you make of the mass boycott?
I actually thought it was an amazing moment.
I think that over the last two years there's been a real divide in our responses to you know, what I would describe as Israel filmside against Palestinians. I think to see the silencing, the suppression of a Palestinian author by a festival board was concerning. And to see the Australian you know, writing an arts community quite broadly showed support for doctor Abdulfatawa was a beautiful thing because it was an act of solidarity and an act of protest in one.
The death Australian Premiere backed the board's decision and took it even further, comparing around as a heerence to booking a far right Zionist in the aftermath of a Zionist killing Muslims.
Can you imagine that as Premier of this state, I would actively support a far right Zionist going to Writers Week and speaking hateful rhetoric towards other people?
Of course I wouldn't.
The reverse has happened in this instance, and I'm not going to support that either.
Randa is now laun's defamation proceeds because of this extraordinary attack on her character. What does it say to you, Hannah, that we have a political leader ultimately in charge of the event's budget making a comment like that.
It is hard for me not to see it as the continued, you know, lobbying pressure placed on Australian institutions. And it is really hard for me to see this as anything other than an act of censorship and racism.
And I think the Premier, you know, I'm seeing a lot of the murder comedia cover this by only quoting the South Australian Premier's references to its like platforming a far right Zionist at the festival without actually acknowledging that the real concern and imputation here is that doctor Randa Abdolphattal might have held the same views as those who committed the Bona terror attack, which just isn't the case and actually is so blatantly offensive and disturbing for a
premiere to be making. And so I think we actually need to sit with the fact that we have the highest official in South Australian making these comments at a press conference, you know, quite Willie Nillick, and that that is deeply irresponsible and that she deserves an apology.
You've touched on a little bit, Hannah, But what are the powers that play here? Why do we keep seeing this type of thing happening in our cultural institutions?
I mean, over the last two years in particular, we have seen, you know, from my perspective, over and over again, the Zionist lobbies at play here launching coordinated campaigns against particular voices in our media and political landscapes, and politicians are folding to the pressures.
And so I think consistently that has been the recurring theme that needs to be named.
How do you think this whole cyber will shape next year festival and the programming decisions at other arts festivals. Could it have a chilling effect?
Yeah, I think that that is the biggest risk we're facing is that instead of you know, having arts festivals see this result and say we need to actually diversify our offerings, diversify our panels, diversify and experiences we're offering to audiences who have a passion thirst for.
Hearing from different voices.
We will lifely see some festivals take the approach of not inviting diverse voices and diverse authors to speak and platform in Palestinian voices in particular. And the worry from my perspective is that instead will continue to see many of the kind of white, centrist, safe, polite conversations that have dominated at the Australian media landscape for decades.
But I also think.
When we're talking about the idea of a chilling effect, what's interesting is that we always kind of have this perspective that that effect will take place on the festival, that it will send to a white voices, that it will actually remove diversity from these arenas.
What we never really ask is why this doesn't have a chilling of effect on the diversity of the board that now has to be rehired. Who programs the festival?
Will alwais ADLB invited that to be the director in twenty twenty seven and.
Will she take that position.
I hope that one of the outcomes from this cancelation and kind of horrific week of unfolding news is that boards moving forward reconsider how they meant decisions, who is placed on them, and how they approach these contentious and conflicting issues.
And what does it say about our ability to have a mature conversation As we're about to embark on a royal commission that is potentially going to be very divisive. What does the events of that, like writers Waken, the events before that in other cultural settings say about our ability to have these conversations?
You know what, I.
Think that I have been someone who in the past, you know, for the years I've been kind of entering this new media landscape, I have been very negative about the media and politics, and you know, looking forward trying to remain optimistic, it is quite difficult, I actually think, you know, and I'm sure doctor Admiral Fatal might have very different views to me, having been on the receiving
end of such harm by the media as well. I think the solidarity and the acts of protest from so many writers who work for Mastheads and It's would have been a significant risk to them to boycott or pull out from the event. I think there is an actual positive here that so many people stood together and made clear statements that it wasn't acceptable, and I think that is a beautiful thing from many parts of the media.
But I also think it speaks to the fact that so much of the political and media landscape right now is leaning into the inflammatory and running unfair headlines that take out of context particular authors, views and language, and that we are living in dangerous times where social media makes inflammatory headlines and clickable moments the dominant narrative rather than actual, nuanced conversations that focus on productivity and how we move forward together.
Hanna, thank you so much for coming on seven Am.
Thank you so much for having me.
Seven Am is a daily show from Solstice Media. He's made by Atticus Bastow, Ariel Richards, Chris Dangate, Daniel James, Crystal Keller, Nicole Johnston, Sarah mcvee, Travis Evans and Zaltenfio, Ruby Jones is on Sir Comment and we'll be back at the end of March. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of En belowe Bordio. This has been seven am. Thanks so much for listening.