The Bill will fundamentally rework and expand hugely hate speech laws as well as having the 2026 equivalent of the 1950s ban of the Communist party which was struck down by the High Court. It is simply performative politics.
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The atrocities at Bondi necessitate a response that will address the causes of violence and increase harmony. The NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Liberty Victoria and Queensland Council for Civil Liberties condemn the proposed Bill due to its remarkable impact on human rights and civil liberties, and because there is no evidence that it will make any of us safer.
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Justice Wilson’s report was published in June 2023. Whilst your government has been in office for only just over 12 months, we have no doubt that the bureaucracy has been working on this topic since the report was released. In our submission this matter requires urgent attention.
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The QCCL does not endorse the tenets of national socialism in any way. However, we have concerns about members of a criminal law enforcement agency taking action to ‘disrupt’ the lawful conduct of members of the Australian community because the conduct is denominated a ‘threat to social cohesion.’
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Acknowledging then that the government has a legitimate interest in combating fire ants, that interest must be weighed against the fundamental interests protected by the right to privacy and particularly access to private property in the form of a person’s house.
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Issues relating to free speech have become more intense in recent years, given the increasing moral panic about social media and related issues.
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It is positive to see that reviews and inquiries into Australia’s surveillance landscape have reached similar conclusions to our own - that is, surveillance power lack proper transparency and oversight, and that is particularly concerning given Australia’s lack of enforceable human rights laws.
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"It is unjust to treat equals unequally; it is equally unjust to treat unequals equally." – Aristotle The “Adult Crime, Adult Time” legislation is unjust as it treats children equally to adults with whom children are unequal.
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Our central submission is that the current definition should not be expanded. Terrorism should not be seen as a ‘catch-all’ term for serious crimes. The criminal law, with its established principles of criminal justice and procedure, already accommodate crimes which may constitute terrorism. Any further extension of the definition of terrorism would intervene in this system. It would enlarge the application of a wide set of powers that are both repugnant to civil liberties and inconsistent with these established principles of criminal justice
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It is submitted that the entire scheme of Controlled Operations in the PPRA should be incorporated into the Bill for the same reasons that the Controlled Operations regime was originally incorporated into the PPRA.
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In democratic polities, intelligence organisations have been permitted to operate in secret and without the public accountability mechanisms that apply to police because they neither produce evidence, nor exercise coercive powers. Division 3 departs from this principle. It empowers ASIO, at the request of a cabinet minister, to force a legally innocent person to answer questions
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There is a clear link between access to information and the capacity of citizens to secure basic rights.[1] In particular it is clear that if citizens are to be in a position to participate fully in a democracy it is necessary that they have access to the knowledge and information to do so.[2] The Council’s view is that a representative democracy necessitates an informed citizenry. For this reason, freedom of information must be granted to the maximum extent possible.
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In our modern era, social media is absolutely essential to freedom of speech. Both children and adults have a right to freedom of speech. No doubt the right of children to speak is not as broad as that of an adult. No doubt, children are entitled to protection from some of the harms that might flow from freedom of speech. But they do have a right to access social media to communicate with their friends and to seek information.
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Sex offender registries create a false sense of security because most perpetrators of sex offences are known to their victims or their families. In 2015 around 75% of sexual assault victims knew their offender, while one third of victims were assaulted by a family member
The Council accepts that it is a fundamental human right of all persons particularly children to be protected from sexual assault. However, proposals such as Daniel’s law are most likely to have the opposite effect and do harm to innocent people such as victims”, says QCCL President Michael Cope
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In our submission no changes should be made to the rights of victims which undermine the rehabilitation of the prisoners. The only consequence of that would be to create more victims, which surely is not the intention of the review let alone the government.
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“The Segal report is a rather woolly document - long on assertions and claims for power to be given to the Envoy but short on argument and facts.”
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“Inconvenience or offence, as opposed to violence, experienced by some people cannot justify a law which needlessly exposes some of the most disadvantaged people in our community to the loss of liberty and the heightened risk of serious injury or death” said Mr Cope
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This letter responds to our letter of 16 April 2025. We are disappointed the Minister has doubled down on this anti free speech position. Unlike the Minister we are consistent eg we opposed the laws banning the swastika
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