Australia’s Hate Laws are a Gift to Extremists

Over 160 years ago, John Stuart Mill described silencing opinions as a “peculiar evil”, a warning that speaks volumes to today’s belief that moral ills can be decreed out of existence. In Australia, that temptation has now taken legislative form and risks handing extremists exactly what they seek.

In the wake of the attack on Jewish communities at Bondi Beach, the Australian government has rushed through the most intrusive hate speech laws in the Western world. They assert that by widening speech offences and the powers attached to them, regulators will be able to step in time before rhetoric spirals out into violence against Australia’s faith communities.

But if this is truly about protection, why are religious leaders resisting it? It all comes down to freedom.

In a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed by 27 senior clerics, they argue that the bill defines hate so broadly that ordinary sermons and scriptural interpretation could be treated as criminal speech, judged not by whether they intend to cause harm but by how they are received. That would make religious teaching hostage to those inclined to take offence. 

For all its good intentions, a law that makes people hesitate before expressing a belief for fear of doing something illegal intrudes on freedom of conscience itself. That is not just a theological concern, but a constitutional one too, given Australia’s long-standing protection of religious freedom.

The bill also risks stifling the very dialogue that defuses offence before it hardens into hatred. As an evangelical Christian minister in the United States, I see this daily. America’s religious diversity rests on an unflinching commitment to freedom of belief. It is built not by suppressing difference, but by protecting the liberty to disagree openly and respectfully. That is why freedom of speech and religion are inseparable, not to license offence, but to secure the conditions in which mutual respect can survive.

Yet it is through this vector of offence that I see Australia’s hate speech laws becoming a tool of extremism. Offence is an exceptionally malleable threshold for intervention. Once elevated into law, it can be exploited to initiate complaints that trigger investigations, public scrutiny and legal cost, regardless of intent or outcome. That dynamic rewards those most willing to claim injury. Extremist groups are adept at doing precisely that, presenting themselves as silenced or persecuted while drawing authority into private disputes. 

Comparable laws elsewhere show how quickly this logic is abused. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, introduced in the name of religious harmony, has been repeatedly used to blackmail, extort and eliminate rivals, often with violence following. Australia may not want to replicate that system, but adopting a law that treats offence as a legal trigger creates the same vulnerability to misuse.

That said, I understand the impulse behind regulation. The spread of hateful speech is a real problem, and tensions can arise even where none is intended. Having recently convened an international interfaith conference in Washington focused on religious freedom and the role of spiritual diplomats in advancing peace, I was struck by how much this work depends on frank speech, mutual restraint and earned trust across difference. That is precisely why religious liberty matters. It draws disagreement into the open, where it can be tested, answered and defused, rather than driven underground into grievance.

It’s also why religious freedom features so prominently in the work of the United Nations, civil society organisations and governments engaged in conflict prevention. It’s also why mediation efforts in conflict-affected regions such as Nigeria, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia often operate through interfaith structures, where moral authority carries more weight than formal enforcement.

That dynamic helps explain why so much effective counter-extremism work operates beyond the courtrooms. The Muslim World League offers a case in point. Under the Secretary-General Dr Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, the League has focused on drawing firm doctrinal and moral boundaries from within Islam, rather than inviting the state to police belief. Its Charter of Makkah, endorsed by more than 1,200 Muslim leaders, stands as one of the most significant contemporary Islamic statements on coexistence, explicitly rejecting extremism. The League has pursued the same approach in its engagement with Jewish communities, including leading the historic delegation of senior Muslim leaders to Auschwitz and uniting to confront antisemitism. These efforts succeed precisely because they rely on moral authority and direct engagement. But once the threat of legal sanctions enters the picture, that basis of trust is quickly undermined.

That contrast is what makes Australia’s choices so consequential. Its social media ban is already being emulated elsewhere, and its approach to hate speech is being observed as Ireland, Poland and the European Union move to enact their own legislation. If Australia’s law is to be replicated then it must be precise, narrow and respectful of religious liberty. Otherwise, the West will import a flawed model that empowers domestic extremists.

In the end, the fight against hate will not be won in courts, but through the harder work of community life, where religious leaders and educator are free to confront belief openly. Hand that task entirely to the state, and that’s how we end up with fortified synagogues and streets charged with unresolved grievance.