- The Guardian
- Issue #2133
Hate symbols and terror offences in Australia will now be subject to mandatory sentencing with new laws, which could bring prison terms ranging from one to six years after the Albanese government sided with the Coalition.
Under the new laws, displaying hate symbols or performing a Nazi salute is now punishable by at least one year in prison. Other penalties include a minimum of three years for financing terrorism, and six years for committing or planning terrorist acts.
In the past, the Labor Party has opposed mandatory prison sentences on the grounds that they do not reduce crime, undermine the independence of courts and are often applied in a discriminatory way.
Liberal Senator James Paterson accused the government of having to be “dragged kicking and screaming to finally introduce tough legislation.”
Performing the Nazi salute and displaying Nazi symbols, such as the swastika, have been banned since last year and carry a maximum one-year in prison. The new law makes the prison term mandatory.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the new law was about whether Parliament believed it was acceptable to advocate, threaten or commit violence against another person because of who they are, who they pray to or who they love.
But, of course, this new law is about none of these things. It’s attempting to justify Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. One such appeaser is Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles who equates criticism of Israel’s murder of 60,000 defenceless Palestinians with antisemitism. Says Marles, “Questioning the right of Israel to exist strikes at the heart of global Jewry. It is antisemitic”. Israel’s PM, Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
As to Donald Trump’s declaration that the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza to make it into “the Riviera of the Middle East”, Ben Saul, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism, warns, “It is not too late to arrest the early signs of imperial darkness of the kinds that dominated the world in the colonial era or consumed it from the early 1930s. Countries like Australia must courageously push back and recalibrate our relationship with the US as needed.
“We should never accept a lawless, violent world of unbridled hegemonic power.”
PARASITE OF THE WEEK: is the USA’s Musk-led razor gang setting the pace in cutting government programs. US unions representing government workers are suing President Donald Trump’s administration in an effort to stop the country’s foreign assistance agency being closed down.
The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency launched an assault on the US Agency for International Development (USAid) last week, blocking staff from using internal systems and placing thousands of workers on administrative leave.
The Trump administration slashed the workforce from more than 10,000 to fewer than 300 employees.
The American Foreign Service Association and American Federation of Government Employees responded by filing a lawsuit against Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, USAid, the State Department and the Department of Treasury to seek an injunctive relief “to immediately cease actions to shut down USAid’s operations.”
In the lawsuit, the unions wrote: “These actions have generated a global humanitarian crisis by abruptly halting the crucial work of USAid employees, grantees, and contractors. They have cost thousands of American jobs. And they have imperilled US national security interests.”
