The federal government wants to shut down Islamist and far-right extremists with a new regime for listing hate groups, which would operate nearly identically to the terror listing scheme that outlaws the Islamic State, al-Qaida and Hamas.
The changes to clamp down on groups like the Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir and the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network are overdue, according to one leading terror researcher, because those radical groups have managed to operate just inside the limits of current hate laws.
The federal home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said the soon-to-be-introduced legislation, being created after the Bondi antisemitic terror shooting, would seek to outlaw hate groups that currently fall short of the threshold of terrorism laws.
“We want those organisations to not operate,” he said on Tuesday. “They hate Australia. We don’t see why they should be operating in Australia.”
The new restrictions will sit within the government’s broader plan to toughen hate speech laws, which were announced by the prime minister last Thursday.
Other actions in the plan include: an aggravated hate speech offence for preachers and leaders who promote violence; increased penalties for hate speech promoting violence; making hate an aggravating factor in sentencing crimes for online threats and harassment; and developing a narrow federal offence for serious vilification based on race or advocating racial supremacy.
Federal law, in addition to outlawing terrorist acts, forbids directing the activities of a terror group, recruiting for a terror group, being a member of or training with a terror group, dealing with funds from or to a terror group, or providing support.
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Burke said on Monday the new form of listing would cover groups that did not currently meet the bar for listing as a terror organisation, but which spread hateful conduct. He said he had specifically asked his department, in writing the laws, “to check it against previous behaviour of Hizb ut-Tahrir and the National Socialist Network”.
The Asio director general, Mike Burgess, has raised concern about both groups. In a recent speech to the Lowy Institute, Burgess claimed both groups had an “insidious strategy”, saying Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir “wants to test and stretch the boundaries of legality without breaking them”, while the neo-Nazi organisation the NSN “deliberately stops short” of promoting violence.
Burke said on Monday, referencing both groups: “Their behaviour needs to be unlawful. Their behaviour needs to be enough that we can proscribe the organisation and prohibit their activity in Australia.” He claimed the groups have “gone right to the limits of the law” but avoided prosecution.
On Tuesday, asked to expand on how the new listing scheme would work, Burke said the consequences of listing “would effectively be a very close to exact match” to that of the terror listing.
“The intention of the legislation is to be able to stop them from operating,” Burke said.
Dr Josh Roose, an associate professor of politics at Deakin University and expert on extremist groups, said current laws had a “significant blind spot” allowing such groups to continue.
“These are groups that deliberately avoid crossing that threshold into violent action. It’s implied in the language but not necessarily overt,” he said.
“Where you’ve got people deliberately spreading hate, and time and time again seeking to target and dehumanise certain groups, there’s a case for them being outlawed.”
Roose said both Hizb ut-Tahrir and the NSN had been cunning in skirting current laws and that there was “significant scope” for targeted reforms to capture their behaviour. However, he said the threshold for listing a group on the hateful organisations list must remain high, so it could not be abused by future governments seeking to restrict their political critics.
“Australia has historically exhibited a high level of restraint in proscribing certain groups,” he said. “The current circumstance [antisemitism] is a key driver of something that could have been considered a while ago.”
Welcoming action against such groups, Roose also warned that specific individuals operating outside established groups, or those acting as extremist “influencers” online, should also be addressed by new laws.
“You’ll see influencers pop up where organisations are banned,” he claimed.
There are currently 31 groups on Australia’s listed terrorist organisations schedule, mostly Islamist terror organisations including al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic State. It also includes rightwing groups The Base, Terrorgram, Sonnenkrieg Division and the National Socialist Order – an American organisation also known as Atomwaffen Division, which is distinct from the Australian-based National Socialist Network.
Burke noted there were constitutional limits the government’s legislation must operate within but said Labor was committed to lowering the threshold to take action against such conduct.