Why JK Rowling says she should be arrested

Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.

Oh, now it makes sense.

Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday, the fifth of April.

I'm Zara, I'm Sam.

In today's deep dive, we're going to speak about the hate crime laws that have author JK. Rowling telling her fourteen million followers that she should be arrested. The laws aimed to protect people against hate crimes, but they've also attracted some criticism, both in Scotland and.

Across the world.

We'll tell you everything you need to know in today's deep dive, But first Sam, it's making headlines.

The National Anti Corruption Commission says it's conducting fifteen corruption investigations. The Commission hasn't provided much detail around the focus of the probes, but it did confirm five a part of joint investigations with other agencies. The regulatory body has received over twenty seven hundred referrals of suspected corruptions since it

Spending on transport increased by twelve point three percent in the twelve months to February. According to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Transport was the biggest contributor to the overall increase in household spending, which overall grew by three point six percent in the past year.

The Queensland Government has announced its expanding the protected areas of the Great Barrier Reef. Around one hundred and forty additional islands have been added to the marine park, with a combined total land size of one three hundred and ninety hectares. It will ensure endangered and at risk ecosystems and habitats in the sea and on land will be included in conservation efforts. Queensland's Environment Minister Lianne Lenard said the project will quote ensure our wildlife will thrive.

And the good news Australian researchers have been chosen by NASA to study how plants could grow on the Moon. A group of Researchers from Ozzie Universities, including the University of Adelaide and Latrobe, will send plants to space with NASA's Artamus three mission and monitor how they fare on the lunar surface. Researchers say they're hoping to gather data about how plants respond in an off earth environment to inform the design of future space crops.

Hey there, I'm just popping in here. My name is Sira and I'm the sales manager at TDA. I help organize the sponsorships on the podcast every day and that helps fund the journalism you hear. If you want to support us, the best way to do that is by clicking follow on Apple or Spotify. It really helps new audiences find us. Thank you for your support and now back to the deep dive.

Last week, new laws came into effect in Scotland and they're aiming to target hate speech. Specifically, under the new laws, it's illegal to incite hate against people based on age, disability, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or for being intersex. Now, it's fair to say that the new laws have attracted quite a fair bit of criticism.

So SA in today I wanted.

To go through the laws, what they are, what they're aiming to achieve, the passage of the legislation, it's been a hot minute and what people are saying about it.

And are these laws new to Scotland's in the UK, Like is this the first time they've had hate laws or is there a bit of a history there.

No.

I mean that's a two pronged question. So to answer it, firstly, no, it's not a new law. So this legislation was actually passed back in twenty twenty one. It's taken until now for it to come into effect though, so that's why we're talking about it today. These laws also an't the first time that hate crimes have been legislated in Scotland, so that's happened before. Inciting racial hatred has been outlawed

So give me a sense of how many hate crimes there were in Scotland.

Yeah, look, I think that this is like an imperfect science to talk about. We know with any kind of reporting on crime that there's a lot that goes unreported. We can only go off what is publicly available. In Scotland, we know that in twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three there were five thousand, seven hundred and thirty eight charges to hate crimes. Again, it's also kind of hard to compare this to other jurisdictions because there are differences

So now back to the law itself.

I think that this is important to understand because I think sometimes it can be fairly subjective what counts as a hate crime. What one person considers a hate crime can arguably not be seen the same by another. So the threshold that the legislation sets out is that a person commits an offense if they communicate material or behave in a manner that quote a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive with the intention of stirring.

Up hatredly quite interesting language to put in stirring up, and.

That's a direct quote. It's everywhere, and it's such an interesting term. And obviously that there is a penalty attached to if you are found guilty of committing a hate crime, and the maximum penalty there is a prison sentence of seven years.

Now, typically when we talk about these types of laws, on the other end of the spectrum, there's always people who talk about freedom of speech and how to capture the balance between hate laws and restricting what someone can say and ensuring that people can say what they want in a functioning society. Yeap, did the legislation touch on that tension? Yeah?

Did so.

Lawmakers who were responsible for creating this legislation say, obviously they were responsible for creating it, that it adequately balances free speech with protecting people against hate speech. So they say that this has been achieved in a number of ways. Firstly, if a person is charged with hate crimes and they can prove their actions were reasonable, that counts as a defense.

It's not just what you say say. Yeah.

So, according to the first Minister, who is the leader of Scotland his name is Humsu Yusuf, the law quote protects the most vulnerable and marginalized in our society whilst also safeguarding freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

And would expect that from the first Minister his government introduced this law.

He's obviously he's also worked really closely on it because he was in the Justice portfolio run it actually passed, so he's been like really involved with it the whole way through.

Okay, And so what have his opponents said about this law?

Yeah, so there are a few different camps who oppose it for different reasons. So the first is the Scottish Conservative Party, whose leader Douglas Ross called the legislation dangerous and he labeled it a threat to free speech.

The heat clay market will come into force on epul Fool's deep but it is no joke. The Scottish Conservatives are paused at the time and still do and it is soul flawed that whatever its intentions, and it is likely to create more division.

Separately, there have also been concerns raised by Scottish police. They said that they were expecting an influx of online abuse complaints. So according to the BBC, and this was given directly to them, police have received more than three thousand hate crime reports since the new law was introduced on Monday, so a week ago. And just again to give you a reference, in the whole year of twenty twenty two to twenty three, there were five seven hundred and thirty eight charges.

Okay, and those are chargers. Three thousand reports in a couple of days.

We don't know how many of those ever amount You assume.

That that's going to overtake that number pretty quick.

Yeah, So that's where some can from police remains and the passage of the law, and the reason it took so long was so that it would give the police longer to prepare for how they were going to deal with this influx. Then there have also been some high profile critics of the legislation, people including Elon Musk and JK.

Rolling.

Okay, so there have been people who've clicked on this podcast to listen to it because we've got the author of Harry Potter in the title. And this is where she answers the conversation. What have JK. Rolling and Elon Musk actually said.

So we'll get Elon Musk out of the way first, because I mean, he hasn't said heaps, but he did weigh in. He said that the laws are an example of why it's so important to preserve freedom of speech.

But then JK. Rolling and look, she lives in Scotland.

Ok So she has a fair bit to do with Yeah, and she's had a lot to say. So in her words, she believes that the legislation is and our quote here wide open to abuse by activists. She alleges that freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Skottland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal. So that bit about the accurate description of biological sex that JK.

Rowling's talking about there.

So that's a term to used by a group including Rolling, who describe themselves as gender critical feminists. Other people would describe them as anti transactivists. We're not going to weigh in on that either way. But in a very long social media post, Rolling listed a number of trans women, some of them who are high profile TV personalities and activists,

So she's kind of putting out a challenge to authorities there.

And to her fourteen million followers.

Right, okay, so is she in handcuffs?

She's not.

The police have said that while they've had referrals about Jake Rolling, that they won't be taking action against her, and speaking to the BBC, the first Minister in Scotland, I think, tried to use this as an example of how he could provide further examples of how this law will work.

So he said to the BBC.

Jk Rowling's tweets may well be offensive, upsetting and insulting to trans people, but it doesn't mean that they meet a threshold of criminality of being threatening or abusive or intending to stir up hatred. So there the First Minister is trying to very clearly designate where the law will be used and where it won't be Obviously, this is just one.

Very high profile case that JK.

Rowling has herself asked for the police to weigh in on. Each case won't look the same, but it's definitely a fascinating piece of legislation and the time it's taken and the response it's gotten, it'll be really interesting to see what happens from here.

A very interesting discussion there, and it'll be interesting to see and to track those numbers in terms of how many hate crimes are reported and subsequently how many charges are laid in Scotland and how that weighs up in terms of the previous year's records, to look at the impact of those laws. Thanks for that, Zara, and thank you for joining us on the Daily OHS this morning