One Nation to oppose Labor's rushed hate Bill

14 January 2026

Labor’s proposed law to combat antisemitism could see a person jailed for up to five years for saying Australia’s the greatest country in the world.

One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson said Labor’s Bill, to be debated at an early sitting of Parliament next week, would be an unworkable mess.

“We don’t need new laws to protect Australians from antisemitism,” Senator Hanson said. “We need to enforce existing laws, something the Albanese government – to its eternal shame – didn’t do to protect Jewish Australians from antisemitism.

“This bill has been very rushed, with only a day or so allowed for Parliamentary debate and a snap Senate committee inquiry that’s barely hours long. I’m reminded of the many changes made to legislation to address the problem of immigration detainees, and how Labor repeatedly got it wrong. I have no confidence this legislation – which amends the criminal code along with 15 other laws and eight regulations, and throws in a $1 billion gun buyback – will be any better. It will be a mess. Australians could be stripped of their freedom of speech and opinion, and their ability to express pride in their culture and nationality.

“This bill is fraught with all sorts of potential unintended consequences, which is always what happens when you use subjective language in legislation that is open to differing interpretations. For example, you could even go to prison for saying Australia’s the best country in the world because it could be interpreted as ‘disseminating ideas of superiority’.

“One Nation is going to oppose this bill. We will not support punishing law-abiding firearm owners as a scapegoat for Anthony Albanese’s failure to check rising antisemitism; we already have the toughest gun laws in the world.

“We will not support a vaguely-worded law that could put Australians in jail for making a patriotic statement. I very much fear Australia is heading down a path where we become like the United Kingdom, where police come to people’s homes and take them to jail for a social media post. I know Albanese would love that, because he’s so terrified of free speech, but One Nation will not stand for it.

“One Nation is prepared to act decisively to protect Australians from radical Islamic terrorism, but this isn’t the way. I call on all of my fellow members of Parliament to oppose this legislation until we can get it right.”

ENDS