Waleed Aly:
Let’s wrap, shall we? 1300 222 774, our wrappers are in attendance. Emma Dawson, executive director of the Chifley Research Centre. And Colleen Harkin, director of the schools programme at the Institute of Public Affairs.
Colleen Harkin:
Good morning to you both.
Waleed Aly:
Welcome to both of you.
Emma Dawson:
Hello. Happy new year.
Colleen Harkin:
Yeah.
Waleed Aly:
And to you, and to you both.
Colleen Harkin:
Yes.
Waleed Aly:
Nothing much has happened this week?
Colleen Harkin:
No, not at all. Quiet week.
Emma Dawson:
No.
Waleed Aly:
Where do you want to start? Hate speech is the most immediate.
Emma Dawson:
It is.
Waleed Aly:
Perhaps we should start there.
Emma Dawson:
Yeah. Yeah.
Waleed Aly:
I was just reflecting with Patricia Karvelas before the news that I don’t really remember a moment like this where opposition calls for laws in a strident way, laws are introduced. The government introduces those laws, finds that nobody inside or outside of politics seems to like them very much. And then the opposition says they’re unsalvageable and we need time, having said it was all urgent, and backs away from its own previous positions. It’s a mess to me.
Emma Dawson:
And one that I would say was entirely predictable, really.
Waleed Aly:
The mess was predictable.
Emma Dawson:
The mess was entirely predictable, Waleed. I think when you… This is just an example of why we should not be rushing to make really serious laws in the wake of unimaginable tragedy and anger in the community. It is absolutely absurd that the opposition has said, “Well, we want to see rapid action on this.” And then said, “No, actually, we can’t go there at all.” But their position, the position of people like Andrew Hasty and others in the party is consistent with they’ve been for a long time. It’s not that long ago that the then Attorney General, George Brandis, stood up in parliament and said people do have the right to be bigots. The opposition has long been opposed to strengthening provisions under the Racial Discrimination Act against hate speech. They’re actually reverting to the position they’ve held for a long time.
What it would seem to be, and I think you made this point yourself today, is that they simply seem to want something that will just focus on antisemitism, and that’s not how legislation works. Actually, it is important to take us back. The government’s done what every mainstream newspaper and the opposition and others called for, screamed for, for weeks. And said, “Right, we’ll bring parliament back. We’ll get this thing done.” Lo and behold, it is fraught with danger to try to-
Waleed Aly:
It does have to have done that badly though, hasn’t it?
Emma Dawson:
Yeah.
Waleed Aly:
The legislation has drafted… I was speaking to Anne Toomey, constitutional lawyer, yesterday. I trust her expertise.
Emma Dawson:
Yes.
Waleed Aly:
She drove a truck through it.
Colleen Harkin:
It’s terrible legislation. Everything about it-
Emma Dawson:
Which, again, is not surprising given the time-
Colleen Harkin:
Yeah, because it was rushed, right? And to your point, we ought never be in a situation where legislation is specific to one incident because of course the Jewish community is at the forefront of what’s happened, and it’s terrible, but we can’t legislate just for the Jewish community. Our legislation has to apply to all people and consistent with our Australian values.
Emma Dawson:
And the constitution.
Colleen Harkin:
And the constitution, right? And our respect for the rule of law and all of those sorts of things. You’re right, you can drive a truck through the legislation. It criminalises opinion. It has the capacity for shutting down your political opponents. It penalises people when there’s actually no victim. There’s so much about it that is incredibly dangerous from a… We could turn into a police state quite readily.
Emma Dawson:
We’ve been having this debate over Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act for as long as I have been involved in public life and politics. And the fact that people… What happened in Bondi was horrific. And as we both said before Christmas, our thoughts, our position, our sympathy very much is with the Jewish community at this time. And I do think that we have seen a rise in antisemitism and really open attacks on people equating being Jewish in Australia with somehow being responsible for the actions of the Israeli government. That’s been terrible.
But the thought, the idea that event and the outcry that followed it was somehow going to shift everyone’s long held positions, and very reasonable constitutional and ethical concerns about how we police, not just speech, but it gets to the point where you’re actually starting to police thought.
Colleen Harkin:
Correct.
Emma Dawson:
And we do need to take a step back.
Colleen Harkin:
Yeah. And some of the most atrocious things. The hate preaching would still be protected.
Emma Dawson:
Well, yes. As the Prime Minister said, if what you want to see, why there’s a reason for religious exemption, read the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, all those ancient texts.
Waleed Aly:
I’m actually not convinced about that aspect of it, that the hate preachers would be protected. I think you’re referring to the religious text exemption.
Emma Dawson:
Yes.
Colleen Harkin:
Yeah.
Emma Dawson:
It’s different.
Waleed Aly:
It’s a really interesting provision because it talks about that, but it uses the word that you are not guilty of offence if the speech consists only.
Emma Dawson:
Only of reading out the text.
Waleed Aly:
Now, there are questions about what counts as a text and-
Colleen Harkin:
Well, that’s the whole… The judges are going to have to become theologists and interpreting the Quran and the Bible and any other [inaudible 00:05:05].
Waleed Aly:
But the word only might be doing a lot of work there.
Emma Dawson:
I think it is.
Waleed Aly:
And I feel like that’s been left out of the whole conversation.
Emma Dawson:
I think it is.
Colleen Harkin:
I think the [inaudible 00:05:11] thing is the issue is penalising thought as well. I mean, you can’t legislate away hate.
Emma Dawson:
No, we’ve said that before.
Colleen Harkin:
And as apparent as it might be, you’re entitled to hate something or someone or some… You know what I mean?
Emma Dawson:
It’s not very healthy for you to hate someone.
Colleen Harkin:
No. No, but that’s not the point.
Waleed Aly:
Is it a legislative matter?
Colleen Harkin:
[inaudible 00:05:30].
Waleed Aly:
Let’s take some calls, because we do have people who want to weigh-in on this. 1300 222 774. Greg has called in from Windsor and has been waiting a while. Hello, Greg.
Greg:
Hi, [inaudible 00:05:41]. Firstly, before I ask you to help me understand a few things, I just want to say thank you for a great summer of radio of unbiased and great analysis. So, thank you.
Waleed Aly:
Would you just want to keep going, Greg?
Colleen Harkin:
Greg, your checks in the mail.
Waleed Aly:
We’ve got time. I can clear the rest of the rundown. It’s fine. [inaudible 00:06:01] What would you like to say or ask?
Greg:
Okay, sorry, Waleed. Please help me understand why we’re voting for two propositions at once. I believe we lost the voice for exactly the same reason. Most people wanted to see recognition of indigenous people, but a lot of people didn’t want to see the administrative power that went with it. And we’ve done the same thing here. We’re conflating two completely different propositions. Help me understand why that is, other than the political wedging.
And my second one, help me understand why hate speech, hate speech is not hate speech, regardless whether it comes from a Roald Dahl book, the Quran, or the Christian versions of the Bible, whatever. I go back to 2011, 2001, 9/11, the Muslim population in Australia was crucified. Sorry, that’s not meant to be a part-
Waleed Aly:
Understand, yeah.
Greg:
After what happened. And so, it doesn’t matter who it’s about. Hate speech is hate speech, it doesn’t matter where it comes from. We live in a secular society, so please help me understand why that’s not happening.
Waleed Aly:
Just before I hand it over to our wrappers, Greg, just to be clear. When you talk about conflating issues, are you talking specifically about putting the hate speech and the gun reform stuff together, or do you mean conflating issues even within something like the hate speech part of it?
Greg:
No, no. Specifically, sorry, the gun laws. There are two issues. You’re giving the opposition an excuse to vote no, like they did with the voice.
Waleed Aly:
Yeah, yeah, just wanted to clarify that. Yeah, understand. All right. Let’s see. All right. Colleen, what do you think?
Colleen Harkin:
Well, I agree, because I don’t agree with the gun law changes either. [inaudible 00:07:42] Because we all think about… You can put a gun on a table and it’s not going to do anything, it’s the person who does something with it and what their intent is. There are thousands of law-abiding Australians who own guns, use them for farming, recreational shooting, whatever. The gun is not the problem. The problem is the [inaudible 00:07:59] ideology that it’s used for.
Waleed Aly:
Sure, but this is banning specific kinds of guns [inaudible 00:08:03]-
Emma Dawson:
Specific kinds are done. And let’s be clear here. If the shooters at Bondi had access to the kinds of semi-automatic weapons that they have in the USA, the death count would have been much, much higher. And it would have been much lower-
Colleen Harkin:
The issue there is [inaudible 00:08:18]. If the issue is not the gun, the issue there is a failure in securities, because that guy should never been able to get a gun.
Emma Dawson:
He should never be able to [inaudible 00:08:22]… I think the changes to gun laws are pretty sensible. And I think the fact remains, if a person has ill intent, murderous intent in his heart, he could do a lot [inaudible 00:08:35] less with a knife than they can with a gun. We’re going to disagree on the gun laws. I think they should carve them out and pass them.
Colleen Harkin:
No, but the issue there is that it is the intent. And we do have the laws and they haven’t been implemented. And all of this stuff has been allowed to fester. We’ve had this conversation thousands of times. Everyone in the whole world is talking about what’s been allowed to fester. And we do have the laws that Cambly implemented, and it was a security failure that the guy got a gun in the first place. [inaudible 00:09:02]-
Emma Dawson:
Probably why the Prime Minister’s initial position was to just have a very short, sharp review of security failures led by Dennis Richardson.
Colleen Harkin:
And that’s what should have happened.
Emma Dawson:
Yeah. Having been pushed into this wider process, we’re now facing all of these predictable problems. One thing I really… I haven’t heard anyone point this out, and I’m sure people have and I’ve just been in a summer bubble. But the Bondi Massacre was 20 years and three days to the day after the Cronulla riots. I was first at this desk in ABC Melbourne 20 years ago talking about the aftermath of the Cronulla riots when we were having, I would say, a similar conversation. But the vilification then was towards a different group of people. There is very much a picking and choosing who’s a worthy victim here by some on the opposition side, I would say. As I said earlier, they want to make a law just to protect one part of the community.
Colleen Harkin:
Well, I said earlier that all legislation should be applied to all people.
Emma Dawson:
It wasn’t directed to you, Colleen.
Colleen Harkin:
No, it should apply to all people. And that’s why this hate speech law is such a basket case is because there’s a focus on one area of the community, and that is always going to be fraught with danger. We, as a community, have to apply the law equally. And so, the other thing, that component of this is that we’re all talking about social cohesion.
Emma Dawson:
Yeah.
Colleen Harkin:
What does that mean? What are we cohering based on what?
Waleed Aly:
Yes.
Colleen Harkin:
And that’s a conversation that under these hate speech laws would be a very problematic thing to have. Because I might talk about immigration, and that might be interpreted as hating immigrants. Which I don’t, and that’s not my intention of the conversation. But I should be entitled to talk about, what are our immigration policies and who are we letting in, and why? And what are the basis of our nation? What is our culture? I know I don’t, for a long time, don’t use the term multicultural. I use the term multi-ethnic. But we have a culture and we must maintain it. But what is that anymore in Australia? What are we basing it on?
Waleed Aly:
Do you have a view… I want to get to another call quickly, so just briefly. Do you have a view on Greg’s point though about the omnibus nature of this?
Colleen Harkin:
Oh, yeah. That’s part of the problem with it. Yeah, sure. Piling everything into one piece of legislation is always a bad idea.
Emma Dawson:
Look, to be fair, what the prime minister’s done is gone, okay, you’re all demanding this. You’re literally screaming for this all over Christmas. Here you go. And lo and behold, you’ve all got problems with it. Is it now time to take a step back? I think it is. There’s been a bit of show rather than tell by the [inaudible 00:11:37]-
Colleen Harkin:
It should be removed and it should be much more considered.
Waleed Aly:
It is interesting though, because the argument that is not about wedging. And I suspect there is a lot of political wedging going on there, but the argument that’s not about that. Is, well, hang on, all of this is necessary. And so, you shouldn’t have the ability just to say we want to do one necessary bit and not the other.
Emma Dawson:
No, you shouldn’t.
Waleed Aly:
You should accept all of it. Now, then you have arguments about, are these the right laws and amendments, and so on? I can see the ghost of that argument. I don’t know that’s actually what’s gone on, but I can see why.
Emma Dawson:
But it’s emerging again now. And where we end up is back where we’ve been for the last 20 years with this conversation. And with respect, [inaudible 00:12:14] these are ancient fights as well.
Waleed Aly:
May I just interrupt, because I’d like to get some more calls there at the very least. Saul has called in also from Windsor. A lot of Winsorians. Is that the right word? Hello, Saul.
Saul:
Good morning, Waleed. This bill is way too important to fail, but in its current form should not be supported. It should not even be put forward. What needs to happen is the Prime Minister needs to fess up, admit that he can’t sniff the air properly. He’s got it wrong just as he got it wrong with the NZYQ and the follow-up and the legislation there. He’s got to use next week bringing the parliament together to actually say, “We’re not presenting it. We’re now going, and we’re going to work together to go forward.”
There are too many problems inheriting the bill which you and Colleen and others have identified. We need the change, but there are things that just haven’t happened. Port Arthur, 30 years ago, the recommendations of that have not been fully adopted. One of those was the implementation of a national gun register.
In 2017, we had the Christchurch terror attack on Muslims, by an Australian of all things. We’ve had fire bombings since then of synagogues. Mike Pezzullo said only the other day, “This legislation should have been two years ago, not two and a half years after October 7.” This has gone on unchecked. Governments have to be accountable, but they’ve also got to get it right. That’s what we voted them for.
Waleed Aly:
Can I just ask you one question? I hear everything you said there, and the idea of consultation and developing this in a bipartisan way, or multipartisan way, I suppose. With full consultation across the community, that all sounds appealing. I just wondered two things with that. One is, what do you do though when you’re being told this is urgent and you must do it now, A? And then B, what do you do when it seems like there’s just fundamental philosophical disagreement about what it should look like?
You’re seeing right now from the opposition, for example, a mixture of this is too tough and not tough enough. You’re seeing people who want it expanded, you’re seeing people who want it shrunk. Do you think the consultation would overcome that, or do you think we’re dealing with just such philosophical intractability here that there’s no feasible path through?
Saul:
Bad legislation would do more harm than good.
Waleed Aly:
Oh, I understand that point. Yeah. I’m just interested in the path to good legislation though.
Saul:
Yeah, no, but Mike Pezzullo also said that the people that we’ve got behind the government and the public service are good people, but they will take months to bed this all down and get it right. It’s not as though any of this is going to be even immediate. We’ve already sent the signals to hate groups to disband, because just by being a member under this proposed legislation would be enough to put them behind bars. There’s too many things that they’ve got wrong. And a carve out of the religious texts, the problem there was they basically gave a pathway for hate preachers of any persuasion as to how to walk around the legislation.
Waleed Aly:
Okay. Saul, thank you for that. I better get a riggle on and see what our wrappers make of that.
Colleen Harkin:
I’m in full agreement with him. The carve outs are very problematic. For me, the big ticket item is that we do need a Royal Commission. It needs to be considered. But we actually… The review is, where did we fail? Because we do have the legislation in place. There are lots of things that we could have done beforehand. I think Australians are generally in shock and they want to see something done. What that is, is this knee-jerk fast reaction that is inappropriate. And I think it makes people feel like, well, at least somebody’s looking at something, but it’s not the right thing to be doing. The Royal Commission should be looking at all of our security measures. Where have we failed? What could we have done differently?
Waleed Aly:
Which you will be doing.
Colleen Harkin:
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s where the focus should be.
Waleed Aly:
You don’t think the hate speech part of it… Because it’s doing two things, security apparatus and then anti-Semitism [inaudible 00:16:53]-
Colleen Harkin:
Sure. But we actually already have the legislation in place, we just haven’t implemented it.
Waleed Aly:
You’re talking about the hate speech legislation. No, but the argument is there are gaps in it. For example, it doesn’t-
Colleen Harkin:
But inciting [inaudible 00:17:02] violence is already there.
Waleed Aly:
But the gap they’re trying to get to is the level of incitement, that legal test is so high that it doesn’t stop the processes of radicalization that occur below it. Because you have organisations, and they’ve specified to Hezbollah here and neo-Nazi organisations that know exactly how to instigate hate that might lead to violence without crossing that legal threshold. That’s one of the things they want to expand. Is your position, Colleen, that’s just not right?
Colleen Harkin:
Look, Emma was just about to say this for note.
Emma Dawson:
You’ve made a really important-
Colleen Harkin:
You can’t squeeze every tiny thing. You can’t legislate for any crazy person who [inaudible 00:17:45]-
Emma Dawson:
This is the point, right? Well, the point Waleed just made is correct. If that is the intention of this bill to look at where are people possibly being radicalised into violence that is not covered, that is a legitimate question for the legislative process. What is not a legitimate question is, can we create a law that will stop people saying things that I personally find offensive? No, you can’t. And this goes to the debate this week around the Adelaide Writers Week and Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has said some things that are very, very offensive to the Jewish community, deeply hurtful, but should be allowed to say them because they do not come anywhere near breaching hate speech laws or-
Waleed Aly:
Well, that depends on how you define hate special laws.
Emma Dawson:
Exactly. Right?
Colleen Harkin:
How do you define hate?
Emma Dawson:
It’s personal.
Colleen Harkin:
You can’t.
Emma Dawson:
If people in the Jewish community-
Colleen Harkin:
But we can’t legislate against a feeling.
Emma Dawson:
… want to legislate in a way that will prevent Randa Abdel-Fattah, for example, saying, as she said, Zionists have no right or claim to cultural safety, that’s not possible. We’re not going to get to a point where you can criminalise somebody’s politically held opinion. What we can do is focus on, what are the pathways to radicalization? What are the security gaps? That is a very different conversation. These two conversations are conflated in the wake of a horrendous tragedy because of a lot of grief and anger in the community, and that is the worst backdrop against which to be trying to legislate around these issues.
The challenge for us is, over 20 years or more we have seen this polarisation in Australia on the rise. Historically, Australia has been a lot less susceptible to this kind of division than have many countries from which most Australians have come. First Nations people exempted. And I think the Australian community at large finds it bewildering that this has taken hold, but it has. And it has taken hold over many decades. It is this idea that it’s just happened in the last two years is nonsense. It’s been a live debate that I have been involved in now for over two decades, as has Waleed, as has have others. And we all need to take a step back and ask ourselves, do we want to be the kind of country that brings in this personal hate, hatred and language of fear and language of oppression towards one another in Australia? Or do we want to discuss this as there are bigger global issues at play, and how do we navigate being Australians together? And I think that’s where [inaudible 00:20:16] most Australians are.
Colleen Harkin:
I think that’s the actual point is, what is being Australian these days? I agree with you. It has been [inaudible 00:20:23]-
Emma Dawson:
We need an episode of the minefield on this next one.
Colleen Harkin:
… simmering for a long time, but it has gone on steroids in the last couple of years. And I think the average Australian is looking at this and saying, “We just don’t want these ancient tribal wars on our streets,” because that’s what it is. The average Australian doesn’t have much of a connection with the Jewish or the Muslim community. Statistically, they’re not here in huge numbers.
Emma Dawson:
Well, the Muslim community is about 10 times bigger than the Jewish community.
Colleen Harkin:
But I think what’s happened is [inaudible 00:20:52]-
Emma Dawson:
Practise whatever religion you want, that’s what Australia is about.
Waleed Aly:
Sorry, I just want Colleen, just let you finish.
Colleen Harkin:
Practise whatever religion you want, that is what Australia is about, but that doesn’t give you the right to want to see a person of another faith killed, murdered, marginalised, whatever it is.
Emma Dawson:
It doesn’t matter how big your community is.
Colleen Harkin:
It’s the compliance with Australian values, that’s what we’ve got to actually bring back into court. Because that’s why we’ve been a successful multi-ethnic society.
Waleed Aly:
It is now… It’s just gone half past 10:00, which means we need to wrap up. But to finish, let’s finish in the traditional fashion. Recommendations for weekend reading, watching, doing.
Emma Dawson:
Can’t go past Goolagong on the ABC.
Colleen Harkin:
At the ABC, but I can’t remember the last time I recommended something.
Emma Dawson:
It’s excellent. And I think for young people today to get an idea of Evonne Goolagong’s life and how she became an international tennis champion, it’s a really good little biopic. I think it’s just three episodes. They’re on Sunday nights or on iView. So check it out.
Waleed Aly:
They reconstructed Wimbledon’s-
Emma Dawson:
They did.
Waleed Aly:
… centre court in the suburbs of Melbourne.
Emma Dawson:
Oh, they did.
Colleen Harkin:
Oh, really?
Waleed Aly:
Yes.
Emma Dawson:
It’s an amazing story.
Waleed Aly:
Amazing.
Colleen Harkin:
Wow.
Waleed Aly:
I just want to visit the set.
Emma Dawson:
I know.
Waleed Aly:
[inaudible 00:21:59] for anything else. Okay.
Colleen Harkin:
I have another Aboriginal, and I need some help with this. On Facebook, in my feed, a guy came through called Mason Keagan, bush legend. And it’s fantastic. It’s just one or two minutes of information about Australian animals. Really terrific, interesting stuff. But my son laughed at me. I said, “Have a look at this, this is wonderful.” And he laughed at me and said, “Mum, that’s AI.”
Waleed Aly:
AI.
Emma Dawson:
It’s AI.
Colleen Harkin:
And so, from a intellectual content point of view, it’s fabulous, but it also is really scary looking at how sophisticated that presentation is. Because apparently he’s not real, and he’s got 100,000 followers. And it’s terrific. Doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a fabulous thing to follow and watch and learn from.
Waleed Aly:
Well, how would you know that, Colleen?
Colleen Harkin:
I didn’t know.
Waleed Aly:
No, but how do you even know the information from what you-
Colleen Harkin:
Correct. And now that my son has said to me, “Look at this,” and I’m a bit more aware of, I think it probably is-
Emma Dawson:
Then you start questioning the actual content then.
Colleen Harkin:
But I’d be looking at it for ages thinking this is sensational. Who is this guy? And the sophistication of the AI is brilliant, but it’s scary at the same time.
Waleed Aly:
It is great.
Colleen Harkin:
The content is wonderful.
Waleed Aly:
I’m terrified of it.
Emma Dawson:
So am I.
Waleed Aly:
And after all, I might be AI.
Colleen Harkin:
Well…
Emma Dawson:
We’re all going to be made redundant very, very soon.
Waleed Aly:
Well, that’s all… Hey, the Labour government that you’d be aligned with them, I think it’s going to be wonderful. Here you go, I’ll let you sort that out at caucus.
Emma Dawson:
There are many different… I’m not in caucus, but there are many different views.
Colleen Harkin:
I like AI. I think it’s fabulous, but it is pretty scary.
Waleed Aly:
Oh, yeah.
Colleen Harkin:
The potential [inaudible 00:23:26].
Emma Dawson:
It needs to be regulated, definitely.
Waleed Aly:
Oh, it has to be regulated.
Colleen Harkin:
Oh, there you go. Regulate everything.
Waleed Aly:
Emma’s at war with her own son.
Colleen Harkin:
No, no, no. Big government. No.
Waleed Aly:
Thank you to both of you.
Emma Dawson:
Thank you.
Colleen Harkin:
Thank you.
Waleed Aly:
For dropping in. It’s been good fun. Emma Dawson, executive director of the Chifley Research Centre. And Colleen Harkin, director of the schools programme at the Institute of Public Affairs. Our wrappers as we wrap things up on a Friday. It’s 28 minutes to 11. Thank you very much for your-
This transcript with Colleen Harkin talking on ABC Melbourne Mornings from 16 January 2026 has been edited for clarity.
