And there we have it, the government’s contentious hate speech and gun control bill has been passed into law by parliament, with jeers from the government as the Labor opposition ultimately voted against the laws.
While voting for the second reading of the bill as flagged earlier this week, all 30 Labor MPs in the chamber voted against the ultimate third reading of the bill to cries of “shame” from the LNP government benches.
All 52 LNP MPs voted for the bill’s passage, as did the state’s two Katter’s Australian Party MPs. Greens Maiwar MP Michael Berkman, independent Noosa MP Sandy Bolton and Labor-turned-independent Stafford MP Jimmy Sullivan also voted against the bill.
Labor’s Jonty Bush, Barbara O’Shea, Jennifer Howard, Mark Furner and Shane King were not present for the vote.
The laws, amended by the government today to enshrine two contested pro-Palestinian phrases instead of handing the attorney-general powers to ban any phrase, sparked significant criticism from civil society groups across the political spectrum.
Labor had raised concerns about the bill’s rushed process and its failure to go far enough on gun reform, and said it would ultimately back the bill at the second reading without clarifying how it would vote at the ultimate third-reading stage.
Debate on the bill extended across the entirety of this week’s three-day parliamentary sitting, with Labor MPs reiterating concerns about its impact on free speech.
Government MPs used the week to highlight Facebook posts from Cairns Labor MP Michael Healy which they claimed were antisemitic and were grounds for Opposition Leader Steven Miles to sack him from the shadow cabinet as a leadership test.
Responding to debate before the vote, Police Minister Dan Purdie sought to portray the government’s eleventh-hour decision to write the slogans (“from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada”) as a strengthening, rather than responding to concerns.
“We are taking decisive action to enshrine the phrases in legislation, because Labor simply cannot be trusted not to repeal the regulations and remove these prohibitions when they return to government,” Purdie said.
He also made reference to a submission to parliamentary scrutiny of the bill from an anonymous Labor preselection candidate who said they were unsuccessful because they would not say they were pro-Palestine.
“So, while the member [Healy] still remains a member of Labor’s leadership team, the question still remains – is it a requirement to be a Labor Member of Parliament in Queensland, that you have to have antisemitic views?”
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