Poisoned Crumbs: human rights and the LGBTIQ+ community after Bondi
Although prominent LGBTIQ+ organisations have endorsed the government’s plan to combat antisemitism and hate, the proposed new laws actually pose grave risks to rights and freedoms within the queer community.
In the wake of December’s horrific terror attack against attendees of a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi, governments nationwide have rushed to announce policy changes that purport to respond to the violence. Most recently, this week the Federal Government unveiled proposed legislation, the omnibus Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 (Cth).
The Bill combines a range of measures designed to reduce the risk of future violence –including a national gun buyback scheme and increased background checks for gun licences – alongside several initiatives purportedly designed to address hate. The government appears intent on ramming the laws through with incredible haste, with Albanese recalling parliament early to consider the legislation from this Monday 19th January.
To date, mainstream LGBTIQ+ organisations have endorsed this legislation. They have uniformly backed the bill, asking only that the protections—primarily the creation of a new offence of ‘promoting or inciting racial hatred’—be expanded to also protect LGBTIQ+ people.
National lobby group Equality Australia has said that ‘strengthening protections against antisemitic hate speech is vital, but those protections must apply to all forms of hate’. Health organisation Thorne Harbour Health said that the organisation ‘welcomes the government’s commitment to strengthening Australia’s hate speech and anti-vilification laws’, but called for the laws to apply to LGBTIQ+ communities. Just Equal has weighed in with even more inflammatory rhetoric: ‘[t]he Federal Government’s legislative reaction to Bondi was because of a mass shooting. Do we need a similar massacre of LGBTIQA+ people before this legislation is broadened to include us?’
By contrast, legal and human rights experts have responded to the mooted legislation with deep unease. While all agree that stopping hate is laudable, the Bill has been criticised for its ill-considered measures that will unjustifiably trample human rights.
Constitutional scholar Professor Anne Twomey has noted that the new offence of ‘promoting or inciting racial hatred’ is ‘extremely broad’, and may not be constitutionally valid because of the way it impinges on the freedom of political communication.
Ben Saul, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, has raised concerns that parts of the Bill are inconsistent with Australia’s international human rights law obligations.
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance urged parliamentarians to vote against the Bill on the basis that it ‘undermines core principles of press freedom and freedom of artistic expression and poses a threat to our democracy.’ Meanwhile, the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has said that the legislation ‘threatens basic rights’, and that yet the parliamentary inquiry process is a ‘charade’.
Yet, from our (often white-led) queer organisations, there has been radio silence on the human rights concerns with the Bill. The fact that almost every LGBTIQ+ organisation – groups who are frequently at loggerheads – is in lockstep in saying ‘yes and’ to these draconian laws is staggering.
In the aftermath of the Bondi terror attack, the tragedy has been weaponised to push for the stifling of pro-Palestine protests and voices. As Remah Naji notes, instead of prompting careful consideration of ways to address antisemitism and other forms of racism and religious intolerance, the national conversation has quickly become a discussion about pro-Palestine activism. The focus has been on peaceful protest and the Arabic word intifada, despite no evidence connecting these to the Bondi tragedy. As Naji says, ‘[t]his shift did not happen. It was made to happen’. The tragedy at Bondi has been exploited by the pro-Israel lobby to stifle legitimate and necessary public discussion of Israel’s ongoing and rampant breaches of international law. Indeed, Sydney woman has already been arrested for wearing a jacket with the phrase ‘globalise the Intifada’.
If passed, the new laws will expand the definition of vilification offences to include ‘inciting hatred of’ or ‘disseminating ideas of superiority over or hatred of’ a person or group because of their ‘national origin’. There is a real risk that these laws will be used to criminalise criticism of the state of Israel or the political ideology of Zionism.
This risk should greatly alarm LGBTIQ+ people, who are deeply entrenched in the fight for Palestinian liberation from unlawful Israeli occupation. Queers include Palestinians, and queer Palestinians have been at the forefront of the Palestine liberation movement. As author Dr Sa’ed Atshan notes, his queer Palestinian body is testament to the fact that the anti-imperialist struggle and the queer liberation struggle are fundamentally connected.
In Australia, some of our most lauded contemporary writers are queer Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians. Trans poet Hasib Hourani’s debut collection rock flight (Giramondo), a searing testament to the displacement of the Palestinian people, won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry at the 2025 NSW Literary Awards. Acclaimed queer poet Omar Sakr, winner of the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, has already faced institutional cancellation for speaking out against the genocide. How might Albanese’s mooted new laws imperil such LGBTIQ+ writers?
These laws have other potential impacts on LGBTIQ+ people—especially those who are also Muslim, Arab and Middle Eastern. No doubt, sections of the queer community will be targeted under extraordinary new powers for the Home Affairs Minister to designate organisations as ‘hate groups’. As we have seen in the UK, where Palestine Action Group has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation, the potential designation of Australian-based free Palestine bodies as ‘hate groups’ is no idle threat. Why have ‘mainstream’ queer organisations not been alarmed by this potential criminalisation of pro-Palestine community members?
By supporting the Bill, queer organisations are also supporting the scapegoating of migrants, and ushering in laws that rights groups say will dangerously lower the threshold for refusing or cancelling visas on the basis of speculation that individuals ‘might’ engage in conduct such as ‘inciting discord’. These grounds will also apply to anyone applying for a temporary safe haven visa. Are we to accept that the risks this will this pose for the over 500 LGBTIQ+ refugees and people seeking asylum in Australia currently being supported by Many Coloured Sky? If the legislation is passed, their visas could be permanently revoked with a stroke of the Home Affairs minister's pen. Surely this cannot be worth it in the name of ‘queer’ rights.
The aim to protect Jewish people from the risk of future violence is of vital importance. The desire to protect LGBTIQ+ people from a resurgent neo-Nazi and far-right movement is entirely understandable. But these proposed laws should strike fear into the heart of anyone who cares about human rights.
As queers, our hope lies in government commitment to the consistent application of human rights, not ‘pick me’ identity politics that see us on the beneficial side of draconian laws (while we’re popular enough to be on that side). There will always be a large discretion in how these laws are used. It’s not hard to imagine who these laws will impact upon the most. And it doesn’t take a leap of the imagination to see these laws inhibit LGBTIQ+ protest.
That our leading LGBTIQ+ advocacy groups would support the marginalisation of some parts of our communities speaks volumes about whose interests they represent. This is contrary to the proud history of the Stonewall Riots, led by Black trans woman Marsha P. Johnson. The willingness of LGBTIQ+ organisations to beg for the poisoned crumbs of such regressive legislation is a betrayal of that history of intersectional activism.
Rather than mourning our exclusion from the Bill, the LGBTIQ+ community must reject it outright. We must instead insist upon respect for human rights and the protection of all members of our community, and fiercely stand up for protest. It is also a time for our communities to consider the mandate of white-centric lobby groups who have resolutely failed to consider the needs and safety of the entire LGBTIQ+ community.
Gemma Cafarella is a barrister and the president of Liberty Victoria.
Sam Elkin is the author of Detachable Penis: A Queer Legal Saga.