You either have free speech or you don’t...

How subjective “hate” laws give Canberra dangerous new powers while hollowing out freedom of speech

Note: Tonight we are in the Senate debating the governments "Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026” or as many call it the “anti free speech bill”. It doesn’t look like I will get to speak as there are about 10 speakers in front of me and the government will forcibly cut off all debate in less than one hour and force a vote. So I have decided to send you my full speech on Substack.

I do not support this bill in any way shape or form, not as a whole, not in part, not sliced, diced or dressed up with comforting language about “safety”.

The very last thing this country needs is Canberra granting itself yet more power, especially when that power is built on the wonderfully elastic endlessly subjective concept of “hate”.

Hate is not a legal standard. It is a feeling. It is an opinion. It is a political weapon. And history tells us that when governments are given the power to decide what counts as “hate”, that power is never used narrowly, cautiously or temporarily. It expands. It metastasises. And eventually it turns on ordinary citizens.

What is more dangerous than what this bill claims to stop is what it allows the government to declare.

Today extremist Islamic groups will be banned for hate. Tomorrow it will be any group unfashionable enough to disagree with the latest ideological fad coming out of inner city universities, activist NGOs, or the ABC editorial room.

How long before holding a biblical worldview on sex, gender and marriage is deemed hateful? How long before saying that mass immigration and enforced multiculturalism have been a detriment rather than a positive becomes a criminal liability? How long before dissent itself is rebranded as extremism?

Laws like this can and will be abused. Laws like this will eventually be expanded. Hate is subjective. Freedom is not. You either have freedom, or you don’t. And Canberra has been nibbling away at our freedoms like termites in a weatherboard cottage, while most in this place cheer from the sidelines like applauding seals.

That is precisely why I introduced to this 48th Parliament a constitutional amendment to enshrine freedom of speech in the Australian Constitution, so that no government, no minister, and no activist court can redefine fundamental liberties on a whim. Free speech should not depend on who is in power or what ideology is fashionable. It should be permanent, protected, and beyond the reach of this and any other Parliament’s worst impulses.

Which brings me to the Liberal Party. They are a disgrace.

According to their own website they claim to believe in the most basic freedoms of parliamentary democracy, the freedom of thought, worship, speech and association. They are meant to hold Labor to account. They are meant to defend liberal values. Instead they have perfected the art of being Labor Lite.

And we all know where that has led them, declining in the polls, bleeding support, and a public that is utterly sick of this rubbish.

How is it that they did not immediately reject this bill? At some point, Australians are entitled to ask a very simple question, what exactly is the difference anymore?

This bill is a smokescreen, it sells the comforting illusion of safety while aggressively undermining liberty. We do not need more laws to stop terror attacks. We need the courage to enforce the laws we already have.

The legislation being rushed through this place tonight would not have stopped Bondi. And disarming law abiding Australians has never stopped terrorists, criminals or extremists, it has only made decent people more vulnerable.

The threats to freedom of speech in this country keep coming, one after another, always justified by fear. We have seen the misinformation and disinformation bill. We have seen the hate crimes bill of 2025. We have seen social media bans, online age verification schemes, and now this rushed hate speech legislation.

Each one chips away at liberty. Each one moves the line. Each one conditions Australians to accept less freedom and more control.

The real solution is not censorship. The real solution is not silencing dissent. The real solution is to stop importing people into this country who do not share our Western Christian values and then acting shocked when social cohesion collapses.

But it is abundantly clear that the Albanese Government has no interest in that conversation. They would rather police speech than borders. They would rather silence Australians than confront the consequences of their own policies.

I will not support that, I will not be complicit in it, and I will not apologise for defending freedom in a Parliament that seems increasingly hostile to it.

Freedom is not hateful.

But authoritarianism always is.

Senator Babet, Senator for Victoria, United Australia Party.