Former Liberal MP and current Libertarian candidate Craig Kelly has pledged to introduce a Bill repealing Australia’s new hate speech laws on his first day in the Senate, should he be elected.
Kelly has also called for a referendum to amend the Australian Constitution, proposing a provision similar to the U.S. First Amendment to enshrine free speech protections.
“I’ll be fighting for a referendum to amend our Constitution to insert an equivalent provision to the U.S. First Amendment to protect freedom of speech, thereby making laws such as the hate speech legislation unconstitutional,” Kelly said.
“If you believe in freedom of speech, the Libertarians are the party you should be supporting.”
Criticizing the new legislation, Kelly labelled it a “Trojan Horse” designed to suppress free speech. “We already have laws against making threats of violence or inciting violence, so the provisions in this Bill ‘against threatening to use violence’ are mere duplication—a smokescreen or Trojan Horse,” he argued.
Kelly outlined several key concerns with the new law, including a shift in language from “threatening to use violence” to “threatening to use force,” the inclusion of protections for groups distinguished by political opinions, the removal of a “good faith” defence, and the introduction of mandatory jail sentences.
He described the law as an iron boot stamping on freedom of speech. “If you now say something like, ‘We must fight against the totalitarian aims of the Marxists that have infiltrated our bureaucracies and want to censor free speech, sell us out to the globalists, and force Australians to undergo compulsory medical interventions’—by saying ‘we must fight,’ that could easily be deemed as ‘threatening force.’”
Kelly also noted that the mandatory sentencing component could see individuals imprisoned for seven years over what he described as a “mere technical breach” of the law.
“So with the potential of facing seven years in jail for expressing a political opinion, this law becomes an iron boot stamping on freedom of speech,” he said.
Kelly has maintained that such “Hate Speech” legislation is a “menace to democracy,” warning that censorship only allows hate to fester in darkness. The real solution, he said, is allowing bad ideas to “clash head-on with good ideas in the rough and tumble field of open debate.”
