ECAJ statement on the enactment of the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2025.

The ECAJ has wel­comed the enact­ment of the Crim­i­nal Code Amend­ment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2025 ear­li­er today. The Act impos­es min­i­mum manda­to­ry penal­ties for cer­tain hate-relat­ed crimes, includ­ing six years for ter­ror­ist offences, three years for financ­ing ter­ror­ism and one year for dis­play­ing hate sym­bols.

“We com­mend­ed the Fed­er­al Oppo­si­tion for putting for­ward this pro­pos­al on Jan­u­ary 20, and we also now com­mend the gov­ern­ment for its deci­sion to accept and imple­ment the pro­pos­al”, said ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim.

“The bipar­ti­san­ship on this impor­tant issue sends a pow­er­ful and much-need­ed mes­sage of zero tol­er­ance to poten­tial per­pe­tra­tors of these offences.”

“We have seen too many exam­ples of such behav­iour going unpun­ished, such as the dis­grace­ful anti­se­mit­ic threats and hatred that fea­tured at the Syd­ney Opera House steps on 9 Octo­ber 2023. No one was even charged, let alone con­vict­ed.”

“More recent­ly there have been sim­i­lar instances of such behav­iour in Syd­ney and Perth where per­pe­tra­tors have been con­vict­ed and giv­en only a token fine. That is also unac­cept­able because per­pe­tra­tors come to regard such fines as mere­ly the cost of “doing busi­ness” and not as a real deter­rent. If there is to be any hope of stamp­ing out this hate­ful behav­iour and the appalling anti­se­mit­ic vio­lence it has spawned in recent times, prison sen­tences and fines are called for.”

“Between the manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tence and the statu­to­ry max­i­mum, there will still be ample room for judges to exer­cise their dis­cre­tion based on the spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances of each case. Now, how­ev­er, that dis­cre­tion will need to be exer­cised with­in para­me­ters that reflect com­mu­ni­ty expec­ta­tions and stan­dards”