Australia’s two federal combating antisemitism bills, the New South Wales laws providing the means to shutdown street protests and move on stationary public assemblies, along with the envoy’s plan to combat antisemitism and the Royal Commission into the same prejudice, have all been set in place following two ISIS-fuelled killers murdering 15 people at Bondi Beach six weeks ago.

While some of these measures were drafted in a hurry immediately post-Bondi in a theatrical attempt to prevent what had already occurred, much of the “combating antisemitism” smorgasbord of laws that serve to clamp down on free speech and the right to political communication in general, appear to have been waiting in the wings for the right political moment to enact.

These dramatic changes that have been foisted upon the country’s public square have been central to a broad campaign that the Zionist lobby has been progressing both locally and throughout the Western world, which is difficult to pin down as most of this advocating takes place behind closed doors, while when featured in the media, these positions are increasingly reflected as the norm.

The Zionist lobby is also known as the Israel lobby. Political Zionism advocates for the establishment of a Jewish state on Palestinian land, which is today Israel.

A key outcome of the doctrine of Zionism is the displacement and genociding of Palestinians. And it is these truths, and the fact that the Gaza genocide is in progress, that make it necessary to progress the lobby’s agenda right now.

But while the Albanese government is implementing the envoy’s plan and a Royal Commission into antisemitism, which both include a definition of antisemitism that serves to block criticism of Israel at the behest of the lobby, the scope of the federal hate laws further reveal desperate Labor and Liberal parties attempting to shore up power in the face of a drastically shifting political climate.

McCarthyite Zionism
While the Israel lobby has long been understood to have an excessive influence upon the US political establishment, the sway of the Zionist lobby in Australia had not been common knowledge among the broader public until Gaza, as over the past 26 months of the mass slaughter and starvation programme, the lobby’s propaganda machine has been actioned in an attempt to hide this.

As the internet filled with footage of Israeli state actors perpetrating horrific acts in the Gaza Strip in late 2023, the Australian public sphere became a place to attack constituents for speaking out about this worst atrocity since the genociding of Jewish people during the Second World War, and the key way to silence these critics was to charge them with antisemitism — the hate that stoked the Holocaust.

The central target of the local Zionist lobby has been the Palestine solidarity movement, which has been a loud secular voice sprung from a diverse constituency.

Yet, federal and state Labor leaders have been labelling these people, who have been calling for an end to the practice of exterminating humans to obtain land, as outright antisemites and further implied they’re somewhat terroristic.

Assisting in the progression of the Zionist lobby’s hasbara mission, a documentary about rising antisemitism was aired last year, then a series of staged antisemitic crimes swept Sydney streets, rallies against Israel’s barbarity in Gaza have been framed as antisemitic, Jewish voices decrying Israel have been labelled self-hating, while attempts to remove Palestinian voices are underway.

According to US professors Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler, the Israeli state and the Zionist lobby commenced framing criticism of Israel as antisemitic in the late 1960s.

This idea is predicated upon Israel being a Jewish state. It denies the fact that many Jewish people globally don’t adhere to the doctrine of Zionism. And it rests on a flimsy link that only holds because of the force of the lobbyists.

Getting our hasbara on
The Zionist lobby got a foot in the door when PM Anthony Albanase appointed arch-Zionist Jillian Segal to the newly created position of Australian Special Envoy on Antisemitism in July 2024.

This had appeared to be spurred by the moral panic around antisemitism, however it has since come to light that the envoy programme exists across the Western world, with the first US envoy appointed in 2004.

Segal released her Plan to Combat Antisemitism in July 2025. Albanese implemented it straight after Bondi.

At its heart, the plan inserts the IHRA definition of antisemitism that blocks criticism of Israel into every level of Australian government and all its institutions. Further aspects involve the monitoring of tertiary institutions and the media for antisemitism or rather, anti-Israel sentiment.

The IHRA working definition of antisemitism comprises of two lines and 11 examples of hatred towards Jewish people, seven of which involve criticising Israel.

The body that produced it has never officially adopted it. However, as one of its drafters has been warning over the past decade, the Zionist lobby has been weaponising the definition to silence anti-Israel criticism globally.

The determination to hold a Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is the result of an all-pervasive campaign to see it established post-Bondi massacre, with the suggested reason being to understand how such a terrorist action was able to come to fruition.

Further moral panic
However, the criminal case against one shooter rules this out, so the inquiry will likely serve to stoke further moral panic.

The NSW government commenced seriously stamping out protest in April 2022.

So, the blanket ban on protests, or the public assembly restriction declaration regime rolled out post-Bondi, can be understood as not only placating the Zionist lobby, via the silencing of Palestine solidarity rallies on Gadigal land in the Sydney CBD, but it’s also as a continuation of the closing of the public sphere.

The 50 pages of hate crime laws the Albanese government whipped out of its back pocket last week, appeared so broad that the suggestion is the measures were in the works long before the antisemitic attack in Bondi on 14 December 2025.

ASIO boss Mike Burgess hinted at a need for these last year, so as to stamp out groups, like the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network and Islamic group Hitz ut Tahrir, as they had both been understood to be hovering just beneath the threshold of criminal activity.

So, broad is the reach is the new listing prohibited hate group regime that the major concern right now is that they might be applied to stamp out pro-Palestinian sentiment and protest in the public square to again placate the Zionist lobby.

But further, these laws sitting on the books could likely be used by a future “true blue” führer, so that their opposition can be eradicated on taking office.

The fallacy of necessitated free speech denial
NSW premier Chris Minns’ favoured mantra over the period of the Gaza genocide — or the rise in antisemitism in Australia if one is being “politically correct” — has been along the lines of “the reason NSW does not have free speech protections like they do in the United States, is that this state has a multicultural society and therefore, divergent voices must be tempered”. Yet, this is a lie.

During the 1890s drafting of the Australian Constitution, those involved determined not to enshrine rights in the founding document, as it might result in discriminatory laws already on the books that specifically applied to First Nations people and Chinese people becoming invalid, former High Court Justice Micheal Kirby has noted on occasion.

This was just prior to the 1901 federation of Australia, which was when various pieces of legislation were passed in order to progress the White Australia policy. So, rights were initially denied in this country to maintain a form of white supremacy.

The premier is not only progressing this line when the moral panic around antisemitism is in full flight, but he is also suggesting that the right to free speech should not be protected in NSW, over and over again, after NSW MP Jenny Leong introduced the Human Rights Bill 2025 last October, which seeks to protect free speech, or “freedom of opinion and expression”, among other rights.

The failure to protect free speech in this country was initially about maintaining power when attempting to establish an ethnostate. But the ongoing denial of rights protections since Australia embraced multiculturalism commencing in the 1970s, has really been about politicians maintaining power, and not an attempt to save various ethnic groups living here from annihilating each other.

The idea progressed by Minns is that the broad free speech protections in the United States, which are contained in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, would be a problem in our community because it is multicultural.

However, while the US has traditionally been understood to have been a melting pot of different ethnicities, what is operating as societies in both countries today are based upon multiethnicities, and they’re pretty much the same.

The progression of the “combating antisemitism” laws and policies right now is all about placating the Zionist lobby, while Israel takes as many pounds of flesh as it desires upon occupied Palestinian territory, in order to prevent the ongoing mass civil society outcry over this ethnic cleansing, the mass starvation and mass murder, along with the genocidal tactics that are ongoing in the Gaza Strip.

Yet, the federal listing of prohibited hate group regime also provides the ability to the major parties to criminalise their political opponents as hate groups — think, the Greens — at a point in time when the long-term capture of holding government office by the majors is now under threat.

Paul Gregoire is a Sydney-based journalist and writer. He is the winner of the 2021 NSW Council for Civil Liberties Award For Excellence In Civil Liberties Journalism. Prior to Sydney Criminal Lawyers®, Paul wrote for VICE and was the news editor at Sydney’s City Hub.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

I’ve seen some Australians expressing confusion as to whether or not they can still legally criticise Israel online after new “hate speech” laws were passed on Tuesday under the pretence of combatting “antisemitism”.

The answer is yes, and you definitely should keep opposing Israel and its genocidal atrocities.

I am worried that these new laws may indirectly have a bit of a chilling effect on pro-Palestine activism due to Australians not understanding these new laws and what people are allowed to do without being jailed.

So let’s clear this up thoroughly so we’re all on the same page.

To be perfectly clear: it is still legal for Australians to oppose Israel and to associate with pro-Palestine groups – and we should. What’s changed is that now those groups can be classified as “hate groups” and banned, similarly to how Palestine Action has been banned in the UK.

But this hasn’t happened yet, and hopefully never will. We need to push for these new laws to be repealed, because they look guaranteed to be abused at some point in the future.

Repeal the Speech Suppression Laws | The Information Rights Project https://t.co/DsLIVJvGk4

— 💧Mary Kostakidis (@MaryKostakidis) January 21, 2026

Know your rights, Australians:

It is still legal to criticise Israel. So we should criticise it as much as possible, because we don’t know how much longer we’ll have that right.

It is still legal to associate with pro-Palestine groups. So we should do so at every opportunity, because we don’t know when they’ll start listing them as “hate groups” and imprisoning anyone who continues to associate with them.

Unless you are in certain parts of Sydney while the post-Bondi protest ban remains in effect, it is presently fully legal to hold pro-Palestine marches. So attend as many as you are able, because you don’t know when they’ll be shut down altogether.

Oppose Israel’s abuses . . .                              Video: Caitlin Johnstone

It is still legal to say that Israel is a genocidal apartheid state, and to share information and opinions about its abuses. So we should do so as much as we can, because we don’t know when that right will be taken away.

It is still legal to state the fact that Zionism is a racist and murderous political ideology and that everything we’ve seen in Gaza is the result of Zionists getting everything they want. So we should say it frequently, because that right could vanish at any time.

It is still legal to say “Fuck Israel, free Palestine.” So we should say it loud and say it often, because we don’t know how much longer we’ll be allowed to do so without getting thrown into prison.

Fuck Israel, free Palestine. Say it loud and say it often, because you won’t have the right to say it much longer.

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) January 10, 2026

The Israel lobby is working frenetically to crush free speech in Australia, and the swamp monsters in Canberra are either actively facilitating this agenda or doing far too little to stop it.

The more aggressively they work to take away our right to oppose Israel, the more aggressively we need to oppose both them and Israel.

We’re not just fighting for Gaza anymore, we’re fighting for our own civil rights, and for our children, and for our grandchildren. They’re actively assaulting our ability to speak critically of power and make this nation a more tyrannical place.

The only appropriate response to this is ferocious defiance.

Our future depends on it.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australia’s Labor government has successfully passed a “hate speech” bill that’s plainly aimed, at least in part, at suppressing pro-Palestine organizations as “hate groups”.

Free speech advocates are sounding the alarm about the new laws, saying their extremely vague wording, lack of procedural fairness and low thresholds for implementation mean groups can now be banned if they make people feel unsafe or upset without ever actually posing any physical harm to anyone.

For me the most illuminating insight into what these laws are actually designed to do came up in an ABC interview with Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on Tuesday.

Over and over again throughout the interview Rowland was asked by ABC’s David Speers to clarify whether the new laws could see activist groups banned for criticising Israel and opposing its genocidal atrocities in a way that causes Jewish Australians to feel upset feelings, and she refused to rule out the possibility every single time.

Australia’s hate speech law            Video: ABC 7.30

“Let’s just go to what it means in practice: would a group be banned if it accuses Israel of genocide or apartheid, and as a result, Jewish Australians do feel intimidated?” Speers asked.

Rowland didn’t say no, instead saying “there are a number of other factors that would need to be satisfied there” and saying that agencies like the AFP and ASIO would need to make assessments of the situation.

“Okay, just coming back to the practical example though, if a group is suggesting that Israel is guilty of genocide, what other measures or factors would need to be met before they can be banned?” Speers asked.

“Under the provisions that are now before the Parliament, there would also need to be able to demonstrate that there are for example, some aspects of state laws that deal with racial vilification that have been met as well,” Rowland responded, again leaving the possibility wide open.

Australia’s frightening new ‘hate speech’ law         Video reading by Tim Foley

(It should here be noted that Greens justice spokesperson David Shoebridge has pointed out that “state laws that deal with racial vilification” can include “tests like ‘ridicule’ and ‘contempt’,” meaning people could wind up spending years in prison for associating with groups that were essentially banned for upsetting someone’s feelings.)

The only reason the Attorney General wouldn’t rule out the criminalisation of dissent and criticism of foreign countries and heads of state is if that’s exactly what Labor intends to cover here. pic.twitter.com/rV3e8TRB0l

— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) January 20, 2026

“Just to be clear, if a group is saying Israel is engaged in genocide, or they’re saying that Israel should no longer exist, that is not enough for that group to be banned?” asked Speers.

“Well, again, that would depend on the other evidence that is gathered, David, so I would be reluctant to be naming and ruling in and ruling out specific kinds of conduct that you are describing here,” Rowland replied.

All this waffling can be safely interpreted as a yes. Rowland is saying yes.

Speers pushed this question three different times from three different angles because it’s the most immediate and obvious concern about these new laws, and instead of reassuring the public that they can’t be used to target pro-Palestine groups and aren’t intended for that purpose, the nation’s Attorney General confirmed that it was indeed possible.

So that’s it then. Under the new laws we can expect to see the Israel lobby crying about Jewish Australians feeling threatened and unsafe by every pro-Palestine group under the sun, and then from there all it takes is the thumbs-up from ASIO to put the group on the banned list and cage anyone who continues associating with it for up to 15 years.

The bill that ended up making it through Parliament is actually a narrowed down version of an even scarier bill that was scrapped by Labor due to lack of support which went after individuals as well as groups.

The earlier version contained “racial vilification” components which could have been used to target any individual who voices criticisms of Israel or Zionism – so it doesn’t look like I’ll be doing any prison time for my writing any time soon. The new version moved its crosshairs to groups with the obvious intent to disrupt pro-Palestine organising in Australia.

And we’re already seeing the Israel lobby pushing to resurrect the laws targeting individuals. A new ABC article titled “Jewish leaders call for vilification offence to be revisited as Coalition splits over watered-down hate laws” cites Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler and Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim arguing that the new laws don’t go far enough.

So we can expect the Australian Israel lobby to both (A) push to get pro-Palestine groups classified as “hate groups” under the new laws and (B) keep pushing to make it illegal for individuals to criticize Israel in the form of new “racial vilification” laws.

They’ll keep trying over and over again, from government to government to government, until they get their way.

This comes after Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council executive manager Joel Burnie publicly stated that he wants to ban pro-Palestine protests and criticism of Israel throughout the nation, and as prosecutors drag an Australian woman to court for an antisemitic hate crime because she accidentally butt-dialed a Jewish nutritionist and left a blank voicemail.

So things are already ugly, and they’re getting worse.

It’s so creepy knowing I share a country with people who want to destroy my right to normal political speech. It would never occur to me to try to kill Zionists’ right to free speech, but they very openly want to kill mine.

They want to permanently silence me and anyone like me. I find that profoundly disturbing.

Israel supporters are horrible people. And I hope my saying that hurts their feelings.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz