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Hate speech laws ‘don’t deliver everything we wanted them to’: home affairs minister
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, says the hate speech laws – which the government has been forced to split – don’t do everything the government had initially intended. In splitting the bill, the government has dropped anti-vilification provisions that had no support from the Greens or the Coalition.
Certainly there’s parts of it that they had called for that they’re now not supporting. And I would find it bizarre if their original call to split the bill was so that they could oppose it twice. Like that would just be an extraordinary situation if that’s where all this goes. Everything they’ve been calling for says they should now be turning up and voting for it …
They [the bills] don’t deliver everything that we wanted them to. That’s the simple fact. That’s what happens when part of the legislation is withdrawn.
We welcome the invitation as we do all the efforts of the Trump administration to bring about peace in the Middle East. We need to see an end to the conflict there for humanitarian assistance to flow and for that part part of the world to be rebuilt. In terms of the specific request, we will talk that through with America to understand what this means and what is involved.
They are the sovereign powers. That is who Australia recognises. That is the fundamental issue here. In terms of tariffs, we don’t support tariffs and we have been consistent in our position with the United States about opposing tariffs. We won’t get into a running commentary about the relationship between the United States and Europe.
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2026/jan/19/federal-parliament-returns-gun-control-measures-hate-speech-laws-anthony-albanese-labor-sussan-ley-coalition-greens-trump-board-for-peace-ntwnfb
Author : Krishani Dhanji
Publish date : 2026-01-18 20:28:00
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