How the pro-Israel lobby pushes for anti-democratic laws in Australia
Pro-Israel groups have consistently lobbied for laws that stifle free speech, analysis shows
In this third part of our series, the making of Australia’s police state, we explore the role pro-Israel lobby groups have played in pushing for laws at federal and state levels that undermine free speech and basic democratic rights.
Analysis of parliamentary submissions across numerous pieces of legislation show that pro-Israel lobby groups have consistently sought to expand the scope of counter-terror, hate speech and anti-protest laws. Their efforts have helped to push laws to the point where legitimate political expression becomes caught up in criminal legislation.
Lobbying efforts are often done through public submissions to draft legislation and parliamentary inquiries, as well as direct consultation with powerbrokers within both Labor and the Coalition.
Not every wish expressed by pro-Israel lobby groups becomes law, but their consistent efforts in pushing for tougher laws have nevertheless yielded results, to the detriment of democratic rights in Australia.
Below is a sample list of submissions by pro-Israel lobby groups to key anti-democratic reforms that have shaped legislation.
If you missed the first two parts of this series, you can catch up on part one here and part two here. You can also read up on our explainer on Australia’s pro-Israel lobby groups here.
ECAJ lobbying at the Commonwealth level
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) is the peak elected body of the Australian Jewish community, although it is important to stress they are not representative of the entire Jewish community. Indeed, the Jewish Council of Australia has labelled ECAJ a right-wing Zionist group, with the organisation consistently pushing a pro-Israel position in public discourse and in its engagements with the political establishment.
Our analysis of parliamentary submissions has found that ECAJ and its constituent state-level organisations consistently push for the expansion of hate speech laws that encroach on political expression.
The following is a timeline of such efforts.
2006:
A report by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) into the effectiveness of a federal anti-terror law noted that out of all the submissions received by the Commission, ECAJ’s was the only one in favour of making “glorification or encouragement of terrorism” an offence.
What does this mean? The definition of “glorification or encouragement” would have been so broad and vague that the ALRC warned it represented “an unwarranted incursion into freedom of expression and… freedom of political discourse”.
Was it adopted? No.
2010:
ECAJ pushed for the ‘intent’ condition to be removed in the offence of urging violence against protected groups under a Commonwealth hate crimes law.
What does this mean? Normally, the law says it’s not enough for someone to say something that sounds supportive of violence – there needs to be proof that the person intended for violence to occur. For example, expressing support for resistance against violence oppression versus directly calling on people to carry out attacks. This distinction exists to protect legitimate political expression, i.e. the former. Under ECAJ’s recommendation, however, a person could be held criminally responsible for a wide range of statements, regardless if that person intended to deliberately inspire violence.
Was it adopted? No. This demand would be met, however, 14 years later with the passage of the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024, detailed below.
2024:
ECAJ described the draft of the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024, one of the initial federal hate crime bills made in response to the October 7 attacks, as being a “modest step in the right direction” that “does not go far enough”.
Their main demand was to criminalise hate speech to the extent of “promoting, advocating or glorifying, rather than inciting” violence against a group. In other words, to broaden the crime to include mere rhetoric, even if no violent act occurs.
They also recommended that prosecutors should not need to establish what a person intended or hoped would happen as a result of their speech, instead that the speech alone would suffice as an offence.
What does this mean? As with past attempts, ECAJ sought to lower the threshold of what counts as hate speech in order to cast a wider net, ensnaring activities that could be considered legitimate political expression. Additionally, ECAJ pushed to have the ‘good faith’ defence removed. This defence would protect people from being charged for hate speech if they were making statements in ‘good faith’, such as for legitimate artistic or academic purposes.
Was it adopted? Despite some of their recommendations not being adopted into the final text of the Bill, ECAJ celebrated its passage. It represented a victory for ECAJ because lawmakers adopted their main inclusion of “promoting, advocating or glorifying, rather than inciting” violence.
One of their main recommendations, the creation of a ‘serious vilification’ offence (meaning to incite or promote general hatred rather than violence), was not adopted in this Bill. This offence would be introduced in legislation a little over a year later, with the support of ECAJ, as part of the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026. However, the serious vilification offence component of that bill did not get passed.
2025:
Following the Bondi attacks last December, the federal government rushed through the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026, drawing condemnation from rights groups and experts for being overly broad and draconian.
The new laws gave the federal government extraordinary authoritarian-like powers to proscribe organisations as hate groups as it sees fit, and fulfilled a longstanding ECAJ demand to lower the hate speech threshold.
Nevertheless, ECAJ and the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) pushed for even stricter enforcement and penalty regimes. ECAJ’s submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security regarding the Bill was made jointly with the government-appointed Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism (ASECA) Jillian Segal – herself a former ECAJ president. Like AIJAC’s submission, it pushed for a broader and more inclusive definition of hate crimes and hate speech than what was passed in the final Bill.
What does this mean? These recommendations included expanding the definition of ‘hate groups’ from formal organisations to something as loose as a WhatsApp group chat, and for formally listing groups that ‘promote violence’ outside of Australia as hate groups. ECAJ additionally attempted to loosen the definition of who counts as a member of these groups to include just association with a group.
The Bill also introduced new aggravated offences for religious leaders who urged violence, and ECAJ recommended reducing the threshold for these offences to the point of ‘reckless’, or implied, advocacy for violence. They also attempted to broaden the scope for who counted as a religious leader under the offence, as well as to impose mandatory minimum sentences across all offences.Was it adopted? The hate group recommendations were adopted in full. The threshold for a person counting as a member of a group was finally broadened to include informal membership, covering things like WhatsApp or Signal groups, but not supporters or participants in group activities.
While ECAJ was partially successful in broadening the definition of ‘religious leader’, they did not succeed in having the ‘recklessness’ threshold apply in this particular circumstance. They were also unsuccessful in having the mandatory minimum sentencing requirements adopted to any offences in the Act.
Lobbying at the state level
ECAJ and its constituent state bodies have consistently supported the post-2023 and post-Bondi reforms, and lawmakers have referred to their close consultation with these and other Zionist groups in the design of these policies. The only criticism of recent anti-protest laws from pro-Israel groups was that the anti-democratic measures did not go far enough.
Victoria 2022: AIJAC advised the Victorian government to follow UK counter-extremist policy by shifting the focus away from far-right and neo-Nazi ideology toward Islamist and “extreme left, extremist environmentalist (and) anarchist” ideology. The advice suggests a determination from the pro-Israel lobby to weaponise legislation designed for actual extremism to target those openly critical of Israel.
While this exact framework was not explicitly adopted, an ASIO-developed Religiously Motivated Violent Extremism/Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremism framework – which bears a lot of similarities to that proposed by AIJAC – was adopted by Victoria Police in 2022.
Victoria 2024: The Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) supported a Victorian Bill introducing new hate speech offences, but took issue with a defence included in the Bill for legitimate political expression, noting hopes that “...this defence does not become a catch-all measure that renders these new laws unworkable”.
New South Wales 2025: The “fabricated terrorist plot” in Dural was promptly followed by the rushed passing of a suite of anti-protest and hate crime laws. While the laws had been in planning from the previous month, in consultation with the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (NSWJBD), the NSW government used the opportunity provided by the Dural hoax to quickly pass them, with little public consultation.
Victoria 2025: JCCV CEO Naomi Levin criticised a Victorian anti-protest Bill for being insufficient and too difficult to enforce. Levin had previously welcomed the announcement of these laws, adding that “the JCCV will also continue to call for protest permits”, which is a clear endorsement of enhanced police powers. The Bill bans face coverings and masks at protests, as well as locks and other devices protestors can use to attach themselves to things as an act of civil disobedience.
New South Wales 2026: Held in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, the majority of the public submissions to a NSW government inquiry into the use of antisemitic slogans were expressly against the banning of phrases such as “globalise the intifada” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. Despite this, the inquiry supported the banning of the former phrase, with the backing of pro-Israel groups such as ECAJ, AIJAC and NSWJBD.
These groups all detailed a much more expansive list of phrases they felt should be proscribed beyond the two considered by the inquiry, including “death to the IDF”, which the NSWJBD framed as antisemitic, and a warning against the use of the phrase “free Palestine”.
New South Wales 2026: In February, the NSWJBD’s submission to an inquiry titled ‘Measures to combat right-wing extremism in New South Wales’ explicitly endorsed the state’s 2025 three-part hate crimes package as well as the post-Bondi terror attack emergency anti-protest laws. These laws gave the government broad discretion to blanket ban public demonstrations, but were struck down by the Supreme Court in a recent constitutional challenge. The submission made a direct appeal for enhanced police powers, and “calls on the state government to ensure NSW Police are empowered and equipped to enforce such laws”.
When the emergency anti-protest powers were extended beyond their initial term in January, NSWJBD president David Ossip welcomed the decision.
Queensland 2026: The Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies’ (QLDJBD) President Jason Steinberg welcomed Queensland state legislation banning the phrases “globalise the Intifada” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, while ECAJ, via submission, also welcomed the Bill but went further in recommending the expansion of offences, such as, once again, lowering the threshold of hate speech from ‘inciting’ to merely ‘promoting’. ECAJ also recommended that the definition of ‘public space’ in which an offence could be prosecuted be loosened to include private and member-only meetings and events, such as closed-door union or activist meetings. This recommendation was not adopted in the final act.
Concluding thoughts
Itemised as separate instances of legislation, it would appear that pro-Israel lobby groups do not always or entirely succeed at having their recommendations adopted. But viewing it as we have outlined – a timeline spanning two decades – we can see a clear pattern that emerges.
Pro-Israel lobby groups have consistently and repeatedly sought to shift the needle on free speech by:
lowering thresholds of what is considered legally criminal speech e.g. from ‘inciting’ to ‘promoting’ violence and scrapping ‘intent’ protections
removing traditional defences in criminal law like ‘good faith’ arguments, thus expanding scope to target artists, academics and journalists
calling for mandatory minimum jail sentences, which is a measure akin to dictatorships and serves as a powerful deterrent against political dissent.
Failure to achieve their maximum demands in one piece of legislation evidently does not prompt pro-Israel lobby groups to reconsider. They persist, with the next legislation – whether at state or federal level – surfacing almost like-for-like demands to lower thresholds on hate speech and remove legal defences. Overall, they have largely succeeded in helping to gradually chip away at free speech – efforts that accelerated after the commencement of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and show no signs of abating.
Beyond the lobbying efforts that appear on public record, many of these cases illustrate the lengths to which Labor and the Coalition are willing to go to satisfy the demands of the pro-Israel lobby. ‘Emergency’ legislation rushed through with little or no public consultation – as occurred after the NSW Dural bomb hoax and the Bondi terror attack – is an example of how the establishment parties prioritise the wishes of lobbyists over the freedoms of Australians.
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That took a lot of deep research thank you.
Next time you can add all the migration act changes passed in January 2026, and the terrorism listing of Hamas, Hezbollah, as well as legislation to make IRGC a state sponsor of terrorism.
Also the move to criminalise hate speech in a way that categorises antizionism as hate speech will return to parliament at some point. Community needs to oppose criminalisation of hate speech because expanding police powers into this realm entrenches racism and injustice; it won’t improve it. Hatred is better dealt with by civil laws, including upstream by social media and media companies, and must stay aligned with Australian law that provides robust public interest exceptions for good faith political commentary and human rights advocacy.