Free Speech, Faith, and the New Hate Laws: Why This Debate Matters

Opinion - Mark Neugebauer

When moral and religious speech is assessed by perceived harm rather than violence, core freedoms come under pressure. Australia’s new hate legislation forces that question, and why it challenges conservatives, Christians, and civil libertarians alike.

Australia’s Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 has ignited fierce debate, often framed as a conflict between protecting minorities and ensuring public safety.

That framing misses the deeper issue. This legislation arises in a context of genuine concern about antisemitism, extremist violence, and the real harm such ideologies have caused, both historically and in contemporary society.

At heart, this debate is about where the state draws the line between criminal acts and protected beliefs, and whether that line is shifting in ways that should concern anyone who values free speech, civil liberties, and limited government.

For Christians, conservatives and classical liberals, these questions cut beyond party politics. They are philosophical, legal, and theological in nature.

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The concern outlined above is not abstract. It is grounded in a specific mechanism within the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026.

Under the Bill, the government introduces a new framework allowing organisations to be designated as prohibited “hate groups”. Crucially, this designation does not require proof that an organisation has engaged in violence, prepared for violence, or directly advocated violent acts.

Instead, an organisation may be listed if it is assessed as having engaged in, assisted, or advocated conduct that promotes hatred or hostility toward a protected group, and if the executive considers the listing reasonably necessary to prevent harm.

This represents a clear departure from Australia’s long-standing counter-terrorism model, where proscription powers were tied tightly to violence or direct advocacy of violence. Here, the trigger shifts from demonstrable criminal conduct to evaluative judgments about ideology, advocacy, and perceived harm.

Importantly, listing decisions occur through executive action rather than a criminal conviction, and operate through administrative mechanisms rather than the safeguards of a full criminal trial.

This change does not criminalise belief as such. But it does lower the threshold at which the state may intervene, moving from violence-based criteria toward broader assessments of non-violent expression and association.

It is this shift in threshold, rather than any single application of the law, that raises the deeper questions explored below.

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Could a bill like this have been enacted earlier? Yes, governments had that capacity as far back as 2005.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Australia significantly expanded its counter-terrorism framework. During that period, ASIO assessed groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose ideologies were regarded as extreme or illiberal, yet did not meet the Criminal Code threshold for terrorist proscription.

That threshold was intentionally narrow:

• engagement in violence, or

• direct advocacy of terrorism.

Parliament could have lowered that bar at any time. It chose not to.

This was not because governments were powerless, but because they exercised restraint, recognising the dangers of granting the state authority to ban organisations on the basis of ideology rather than violent conduct.

The 2026 Bill represents a departure from that approach, introducing a “hate group” framework that does not require proof of violence.

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Some might argue that if such laws had been introduced earlier, in 2005, for example, they would have been justified.

For those committed to free speech and civil liberties, however, the year is beside the point.

The underlying question remains the same:

Should the state have the power to prohibit ideas, beliefs, or associations that have not crossed into violence?

Within common-law traditions, the answer has historically been cautious and restrained.

The principle has been simple:

• punish crimes,

• prevent violence,

• defend public order,

• but do not police belief.

That restraint is now under strain.

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From a Christian perspective, the concern is not abstract.

Orthodox Christian teaching includes beliefs such as:

• marriage as the union of a man and a woman;

• sex as biologically male or female;

• moral objections to aspects of contemporary gender ideology;

• the importance of sex-based protections for women and girls.

These convictions are:

• ancient rather than novel;

• non-violent in character;

• widely held across cultures and societies;

• foundational to Christian moral anthropology.

The concern is not that Christianity is suddenly illegal, it is not.

The concern is the chilling effect produced by regulatory mechanisms that operate below the level of criminal prosecution: complaints, tribunals, investigations, and administrative sanctions.

When speech is assessed by subjective interpretations of emotional or psychological harm, counter-cultural beliefs become increasingly vulnerable to challenge, even when expressed without hostility or coercion.

It is important to be precise about scope. The federal 2026 legislation is directed primarily at race, national and ethnic origin, with a particular focus on antisemitism and neo-Nazi ideology. It does not directly regulate Christian teaching on sex or marriage.

Those matters are already addressed largely through state-based anti-discrimination and vilification regimes, some of which have been further expanded in recent years.

The concern raised here is not about immediate application, but about precedent: once the state establishes a framework for restricting non-violent belief or association at the federal level, the logic of that framework can be extended.

History suggests such powers rarely contract; they more often broaden in scope over time.

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These concerns are not merely theoretical. State-based anti-discrimination and vilification regimes already provide insight into how speech regulation operates in practice.

Cases involving figures such as Kirralie Smith and Bernard Gaynor arose under existing laws, not under the new federal hate framework. While legally distinct, they illuminate the same underlying tensions.

In these matters:

• speech lawful to some was characterised by others as vilification or intimidation;

• perceived impact was weighed heavily, sometimes over stated intent;

• advocacy on contested moral issues became subject to prolonged legal and administrative scrutiny.

These cases do not establish that Christian belief is unlawful. Nor do their outcomes speak uniformly in one direction. What they demonstrate is how speech regulation functions at the margins, and why expanding such frameworks at a federal level raises reasonable questions about scope, consistency, and precedent.

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Western legal tradition has long recognised a critical distinction:

Moral teaching is not incitement to violence.

Christian moral teaching:

• proposes norms;

• invites persuasion, disagreement, and debate;

• explicitly rejects coercion and physical harm.

By contrast, doctrines that mandate violence, authorise punishment for dissent, or call for killing in the name of belief are criminal by nature and should remain so.

If a legal system loses the capacity to distinguish between:

“Marriage is between a man and a woman”

and

“Kill the unbeliever”

then the problem is not religion. It is a failure of legal clarity.

Christian doctrine rejects violence. Conflating moral disagreement with danger is both legally incoherent and morally risky.

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A core conservative insight bears repeating:

Bad precedents outlive bad actors.

Once the state claims authority to suppress ideas in the name of social harmony:

• future governments inherit that power;

• definitions tend to expand;

• enforcement reflects the political culture of the moment.

What is framed today as a safeguard against extremism may tomorrow be applied to ordinary moral disagreement. This is why free speech protections matter most when speech is unpopular, not when it is widely affirmed.

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This debate is not about endorsing extremist groups or denying anyone safety or dignity. It is about limits.

Specifically:

• limits on executive power;

• limits on ideological regulation;

• limits on punishment absent violence.

A pluralistic democracy is not defined by its ability to suppress bad ideas, but by its capacity to defeat them openly, without adopting coercive tools that erode its own foundations.

Protecting people from violence is essential. Protecting society from ideological overreach is equally so.

If Australia weakens these boundaries, the consequences will not be confined to any one community.

Free societies are measured not by how they treat popular ideas, but by how carefully they restrain power when confronting unpopular ones.

You can hear more on this topic as I discuss it with Michael Arbon, Advisor to Senator Ralph Babet, below.