Far-left party The Greens have publicly rejected the federal government’s controversial “hate speech” bill along with the Coalition, Christian and Muslim leaders, One Nation, nationalist activists, and civil libertarians.
Labor will use its lower house majority to pass the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 on Monday, but needs either Coalition or Greens support in the Senate.
Opposition leader Sussan Ley called the bill “unsalvageable” after a number of influential Liberal MPs came out against it, prompting a plea from Jewish community peak body the Executive Council of Australia Jewry (ECAJ), which helped draft the legislation, for her to support the legislation despite its flaws.
The Greens are ready to work with Gov to pass gun laws next week.
The rest of the omnibus bill however needs too much reworking to meet community concerns.
We need to keep all people in the community safe from discrimination & hatred, but good laws don’t come from rushed work.
— Larissa Waters (@larissawaters) January 16, 2026
The Greens said earlier this week they wanted the proposed “hate speech” laws broadened to include protections for homosexuals and all religious groups, not only Jews, but leader Larissa Waters declared on Saturday her party would oppose the legislation.
“It’s clear that the amount of negotiations and legal analysis required to produce a good outcome can’t be done in the extremely tight timeframe the government has created,” Ms Waters said.
“It may be simpler to start afresh with a bill that aims to protect everyone from hatred and discrimination. We need to keep all people in the community safe from discrimination and hatred, and good laws don’t come from rushed work.”
The Greens would still work with the government to pass the gun law reform elements of the bill, Ms Waters said, but could not support the rest of the legislation “in its current form”.
“We can’t combat hate if we don’t combat it for everyone,” she said.
Ms Waters comments came after Christian bishops co-signed a letter along with Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist leaders opposing the bill due to “adverse implications for religious freedom and freedom of expression”.
No Jewish religious leaders signed the letter, but the conservative Australian Jewish Association broke away from other Jewish community groups to oppose the bill, saying the proposed new laws would not prevent a repeat of the Bondi Islamic terrorist attack, and risked making anti-Semitism worse.
🚨David Shoebridge says the Greens can’t support amending the hate speech bill because of the ‘overreaching’ terms in the legislation, arguing it would require ‘surgical’ changes to become viable.
More than 7,000 submissions were lodged on the bill within the allotted timeframe. pic.twitter.com/DUbL7PCTq5
— Australians vs. The Agenda (@ausvstheagenda) January 17, 2026
Labor MPs have also expressed concerns about Mr Albanese’s attempts to rush the laws through the early sitting of parliament, with one calling it a “shit show”, The Daily Telegraph reported on Friday.
Labor may now lean on parliament’s intelligence committee to persuade the Coalition to support the bill in the Senate, and Jewish Liberal MP Julian Leeser has called on colleagues to support the bill, The Australian reported.
Mr Leeser told a meeting of Liberal MPs on Friday that if they opposed the legislation and there was another terrorist attack on the Jewish community the Coalition would “cede the moral high ground” to Labor, a Coalition MP said.
The “hate speech” laws have been described as “draconian” by free speech advocates, and are stricter than those in place in the UK which have resulted in 30 arrests per day for social media posts.
The Proscribed Hate Groups component also allows the government to ban organisations that have engaged in or advocated for “hate crimes” based on past conduct and/or conduct that was not illegal at the time, with no criminal prosecution or procedural fairness required.
Header image: Larissa Waters (Facebook).
