Dear Committee,
The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) welcomes the opportunity to share its analysis of the Fighting Antisemitism and Keeping Guns out of the Hands of Terrorists and Criminals Amendment Bill 2026 (the bill).
The IPA notes the Queensland government’s claimed determination to pass the bill in response to the rise of antisemitism in Australia. Specifically, prior to its introduction, the government asserted that it was creating new offences to ban phrases such as “globalise the intifada” and “from the river to the sea”.
However, the bill does not specifically ban these phrases. Rather, it confers broad powers upon a government minister to ban phrases at their discretion. In this way, the bill repeats the failures of the recently passed federal Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Act 2026 (Cth) through its limitless scope and lack of specificity.
While the promotion or advocacy of violence of any kind is abhorrent and should unequivocally be condemned, the proposed approach will not address the underlying problem, namely that people harbouring these views have been allowed to enter our country and sectarian attitudes have been allowed to fester under a policy of multiculturalism. Moreover, the attempt to stop antisemitism by giving a minister within the government the power to ban specific phrases will do little to prevent people from privately subscribing to the ideology or adopting alternative phrases to express the same ideas.
The bill sets a dangerous new precedent of authorising a government by declaration to outlaw
words, amounting to a significant threat to freedom of speech and public debate. IPA research
finds:
- The bill confers extraordinary power on a single Minister that opens the door to overreach.
- The ambiguous and subjective standards for unlawful phrases would enable the government to criminalise political speech.
- The safeguards will be ineffective at limiting the Minister’s power.
