Two separate issues are being run together, mhaze.

First: whether declaring an entire religious community "the greatest enemy to this nation and Western civilisation" should meet the legal threshold for serious vilification. That's a debate about proportionality.

Second: whether enforcement is politically selective. That's a debate about consistency.

On the first point, Australian law has long treated public incitement against identifiable groups differently from ordinary political speech. This isn't a ten-year-old novelty. The Racial Discrimination Act amendments in the 1990s and state vilification laws have existed for decades. The threshold has always been higher than "offensive," but lower than an explicit timetable for violence.

On the second point, if you have concrete examples where "Death to Jews" or "Hitler should have finished the job" were publicly uttered and not prosecuted despite meeting the statutory elements, then that's a serious enforcement concern. But that's an evidentiary claim, not a rhetorical one.

Selective enforcement would be a problem. The existence of a law applied consistently is a different question.

If your argument is that no group-based vilification should ever be criminal unless it includes an immediate call to violence, that's a coherent US-style First Amendment position. But that's not the framework Australia has operated under for decades.

The real question is whether the threshold is proportionate and applied evenly - not whether speech has ever been unlimited here. It hasn't.

"if you have concrete examples where "Death to Jews" or "Hitler should have finished the job" were publicly uttered "

So much of what JD writes is him saying he's ignorant of this or that well established fact.
On October 9, 2023, during a pro-Palestinian protest outside the Sydney Opera House, participants chanted phrases including "Gas the Jews!" , "Death to Israel", "** ** (system won't let me quote the profanity) the Jews!", and "Where's the Jews?". This rally was organized by the Palestine Action Group Sydney. On November 22, 2023, in Double Bay (Sydney), graffiti reading "Bring back Hitler. Finish the job" was scrawled in a public area.



"As for "censors are never the good guys" - history is more complicated than slogans. "

What do you say when the whole issue is summarised in one pithy quote that you don't like? Call it a slogan and try to skate over it.

"Laws against inciting racial violence were introduced after very real episodes of extremist mobilisation."

I'm sure you got lots of examples. So show us.

Excellent, mhaze! Now let's slow this down.

You've cited:

- Offensive chants at a protest
- Graffiti in Double Bay

They're ugly incidents. The question isn't whether they're reprehensible. It's whether they resulted in charges - and if not, why not.

In the Opera House case, police investigated. Some reported chants were disputed or unclear on review. Charges were laid where evidence met the threshold. In other instances, identifying specific individuals beyond reasonable doubt in a moving crowd proved difficult.

That's not proof of ideological favouritism. It's an evidentiary constraint.

If you can point to cases where:

- identifiable individuals
- clearly met the statutory elements
- and prosecutors declined to act despite sufficient evidence

then you'd have a serious selective-enforcement argument.

Absent that, it's a suspicion, not proof.

//I'm sure you got lots of examples.//

Indeed I do.

Australia's racial vilification provisions in the late 1980s and 1990s expanded following organised neo-Nazi activity and racially motivated intimidation, including groups like National Action. These weren't abstract fears. Legislatures were responding to real-world group-based targeting.

You may disagree with where the legal threshold sits. That's a legitimate debate.

But these laws weren't invented in a vacuum. They were enacted in response to movements that used collective demonisation as a tool of intimidation.

If your position is that no group-based vilification should be criminal unless it includes an explicit and immediate call to violence, say so clearly. That's a coherent position. It just isn't the framework Australia has historically adopted.

JD.... show examples
Mhaze... here are examples.
JD... no those examples don't count because....well just because

That's not what I said, mhaze.

You provided examples of offensive incidents. I asked a narrower question:

Were identifiable individuals who clearly met the statutory elements not prosecuted despite sufficient evidence?

That's the selective-enforcement claim you're making. It requires more than pointing to something ugly and saying "no one went to jail."

In large protest settings, two things matter legally:

1. Can specific individuals be identified beyond reasonable doubt?
2. Do their words meet the statutory threshold for serious vilification or incitement under the relevant Act?

If either element fails, prosecution fails.

If you have a case where both elements were satisfied and prosecutors declined to act, that would support your argument. If not, then what you have are incidents that may not have met evidentiary or statutory thresholds.

That's not "those examples don't count." It's applying the legal test you're criticising.

Hi JD,

The new 'Hate Speech' laws in Queensland are turning into a real kerfuffle, the LNP government now saying the new law will only apply to two specific phrases; "from the river to the sea" and "globalise the intifada", any other words or phrases will require new legislation. They have dropped the idea that the Attorney-General of the day would be given the power to add additional words or phrases by decree at their discretion (imagine Pauline Hanson as the Qld Attorney-General). Fortunately there was widespread community condemnation of the original proposal from legal, political, religious and civil libertarian people, the only real gung-ho support came from the Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies. Democracy almost won out, but there was a victory of sorts, next time we might not be so fortunate.