NSW school staff face the sack for violating state or federal “hate speech” laws even if they haven’t been convicted, Premier Chris Minns has announced.
Mr Minns said on Tuesday the changes addressed a “gap in existing guidance”, would apply to the state’s more than 3,000 government, independent and Catholic schools, cover conduct in or outside schools, and will come into effect immediately.
The legislation will allow the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) to take action if school staff, including teachers and principals, were considered to have breached the state’s new racial hatred laws, or federal equivalents, even if the bar was too low for criminal prosecution, ABC News reported.
Education Minister Prue Carr said students and parents will be able to complain to NESA to have alleged hate speech investigated.
“[Hate speech laws] are an important principle and should apply across the board, not just in relation to marches in the city or social media posts,” Mr Minns said.
“We’re not going to wait for a police prosecution and then a court case. If it’s clear to NESA that there’s been a breach, then sanctions will apply.”
Mr Minns denied the laws were in response to the case of a private Islamic school principal, Sheikh Abdulghani Albaf, who was stood down from his position at New Madinah College in Young for allegedly sharing social media posts saying “Zionists should burn in the pits of hell”.
“If your child is going to be sent to any school in the state, that there’ll be rigorous rules in place about tipping hatred into their ears, and we don’t think this puts an unfair burden on teachers,” he said.
NESA will require all school to prohibit hate speech in their codes of conduct for all people employed at the school, and a review is also underway into whether the “fit and proper person” test for school leadership is “fit for purpose”.
The Opposition is also set to introduce legislation to change the legal definition of anti-Semitism used in all NSW public service codes of conduct, including schools, require the courts to consider it in racial hatred cases, and ban the government from funding anti-Semitic organisations, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The proposed definition from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) has also been pushed by the federal government’s Special Envoy on Combatting Anti-Semitism, but critics say it conflates criticism of Israel with criticism of Jews.
Universities would be able to adopt a different definition used by Universities Australia.
Liberal leader Kellie Sloan said the change would show anti-Semitism has “no place in our public institutions, our universities or our community”.
“There should be no ambiguity when it comes to confronting anti-Semitism,” she said.
Header image: Left, Chris Minns and Prue Car. Right, Kellie Sloan celebrates India’s Republic Day (Facebook).
