Dan Ryan

Well, it pared down from what was initially proposed.

They were going to introduce very wide-ranging laws against racial vilification, which would have potentially expanded that to other categories as well.

So, you know, you couldn't say things about a variety of different protected classes.

but now they have the power to essentially outlaw certain political groups if particular criteria are satisfied.

They say they've put safeguards in place for that so there will only be exercise in sort of certain limited circumstances, but we've never really had anything quite like that before.

If an organization and members of an organization have engaged in what is defined as hate crimes, then – and there's a recommendation from the intelligence agencies and there's real harm, which is defined in the legislation, which –

which is likely to occur, then even though the organizations have not breached any existing criminal or other law, then it would be possible for those organizations to be outlawed.

The two examples that they give are something called the National Socialist Network, which is this kind of people who are purportedly Nazis and running around pretending to be that.

So obviously, you know, kind of objectionable groups.

And another one is an Islamic group called Hizb ut-Tahrir.

They're the two off the bat that they are saying will be banned under this legislation.

Yeah, it would be banned.

They've introduced additional changes in the immigration law, which would allow people to be expelled from Australia if certain criteria are met.

It would be a criminal offense to be a member of those groups, which would bring people

you know, jail time of, I think it's up to 15 years.

So quite serious and draconian penalties would apply to those.

It's one thing to ban an organisation which is actively engaged in sort of terrorist activities.

But this is a slightly different law that's being introduced, which would apply even when there isn't necessarily a criminal act that has taken place.

I think the underlying cause of what occurred in Bondi and underlying cause of the sort of ethnic tensions that are playing out on the street has been the problems with our immigration program in Australia.

Vast numbers of people that have come here in huge numbers that haven't had time to properly assimilate or have come from cultures where there are longstanding animosities against other ethnic groups, which played out in Australia.