Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 - Second Reading Speech
I speak in debate on the Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 and support the intelligent and considered contribution of my colleague and The Greens justice spokesperson, Ms Sue Higginson. Firstly, I acknowledge that members are here in terrible, unthinkable circumstances.
Two men who were radicalised extremists, antisemites under the banner of ISIS—whether formally recruited or inspired is yet to be determined—took guns that were legally owned by one of the killers and opened fire on a peaceful Jewish celebration at Bondi Beach on the evening of Sunday 14 December. Fifteen innocent people were killed and another 40 were injured, with some still in critical care. So many lives were forever changed, scarred by these acts of evil. So too did Sydney and our State forever change as a result of these horrific acts.
Now the Premier has chosen to recall Parliament to pass what he said initially would be a bill to tighten gun laws to help prevent another mass shooting in this State. The Greens support the tightening of gun laws. However, this bill goes much further than that. The Premier has chosen to use this terrorist attack to launch his own attack on one of the most fundamental aspects of any healthy democracy: the right to peacefully assemble, for people to turn out in nonviolent, peaceful protest. In the days after the terrorist attack, the Premier, deliberately and without any proof, linked it to the vocal, visible support for Palestine and criticism of the actions of the Israeli Government in Gaza. He said:
When you see people marching and showing violent bloody images, images of death and destruction, it's unleashing something in our community that the organisers of the protest can't contain.
He went on:
The truth of the matter is, we can't risk another mass demonstration on that scale in NSW. The implications can be seen, in my view, on Sunday.
Many of the speeches in this place today have echoed those sentiments—again, without any proof—as though everyone here were an expert on terrorism and religiously motivated violent extremism. At least one member of this House from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party said that the people, including many Jewish Australians, who marched across the bridge and have gathered on weekends in Hyde Park to plead for an end to the genocide—an end to the war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of people, including innocent children—have blood on their hands. That is the very last thing that we as elected members should be saying right now. It is incredibly dangerous. The shifting of blame onto the type of people who left their warm homes on that rainy Sunday to march for human rights and against war is the very type of behaviour by elected members that drives further division and more violence in our communities.
I have been to some of those rallies, including the wonderful, peaceful, love‑filled March for Humanity across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in August, along with upwards of 100,00 Sydneysiders—potentially 200,000 or 300,000—and those who travelled from the regions to be there together, in the pouring rain, to take a stand to urge that more be done to stop the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian children, women and men in Gaza at the hands of the Netanyahu Israeli Government. That does not make them antisemites or extremists, and it certainly does not make them responsible for the terrorist attack on Sunday 14 December.
The people who marched for humanity on 3 August 2025 across the Sydney Harbour Bridge did so out of compassion for others. They marched against violence. They marched against war. They marched to support many members of the Australian Muslim community, to express their horror at the genocide committed by the Netanyahu Israeli Government in Gaza; the relentless bombings of hospitals and aid workers and journalists; the withholding of aid and deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people, including children; and the fact that world governments could not or did not stop any of it.
The Premier stated that people were marching with "violent bloody images, images of death and destruction … unleashing something in our community that the organisers of the protest can't contain". The only images that fit that description at the marches and rallies I attended were handmade placards with photos of the bloodied dead bodies of babies and children violently killed by the bombs dropped by the Israeli Government. They were terrible images, shocking and distressing to look that. I guess the people marching were trying to make a point. Following the logic of his own statement, perhaps the Premier should have been working on Netanyahu a bit more to get him to stop dropping bombs. Instead, the Premier wants to stop Australians from coming together peacefully to voice their opposition to the dropping of bombs.
More than 22 years ago, in March 2003, almost 500,000 people—I was one of them—turned out to protest against Australia joining George Bush and Tony Blair in a war waged against Iraq on dubious, later to be found false, intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. That is what the people of this country do; we peacefully and non‑violently protest against wars and atrocities—like we did against the Vietnam War—and we should be able to continue to do so. The 2003 protest against the war in Iraq occurred after the Labor Government under Bob Carr introduced the Terrorism (Police Powers) Bill in 2002. Importantly, at the time, then Premier Carr said:
… we need to remain calm in the face of terrorism and not surrender unnecessarily civil liberties that are part of the fabric of our working democracy.
Unfortunately, that is what we may be doing here today, under the Minns Labor Government. The worst part of it is that we would be doing so with absolutely no proof that the extraordinary powers in this bill to stop protests for up to 90 days at the one time will make the people of this State, including the Jewish community, any safer at all against another terrorist attack. If the Government knows something that other members of this Parliament do not, then perhaps now is the time to let us know.
Here is what has been publicly released about the Bondi terrorists—and I have searched, but it does not include anything about them having attended any protests. That could come up, but at this point there is nothing there. The released information includes that the elder shooter applied for a firearms licence in 2015, which lapsed after he failed to provide a photograph. It includes the younger shooter coming to the attention of ASIO in 2019, having been seen in the company of men linked to an IS terror cell, including one man who was jailed for seven years because of his plans to establish an Islamic State terrorist insurgency group in Australia and another who was an active IS youth recruiter. It includes applying for a gun licence in 2020 and finally being granted in 2023, to the father, who then purchased six guns. All that, incidentally, was well before 7 October 2023 and well before the March for Humanity or the other weekly protests in Hyde Park. Details have also emerged of photos taken of them firing guns somewhere in regional New South Wales. This year ASIO declared the threat level of the likelihood of a terrorism event in Australia as "probable". That means there is a greater than 50 per cent chance of an onshore attack or attack planning in the next 12 months. Incredibly, Federal and State Governments are now assessing whether criminal intelligence gathered by security agencies could be used when making assessments about applications for gun licences At the moment it is currently only determined on a person's criminal history.
In 2022 the Victorian Parliament held an inquiry into extremism in that State. It found that racism and racist scapegoating, Islamophobia and antisemitism are common elements of far-right extremist ideologies, messaging and activities. That is not new, or hopefully not contested, information for most of us, so why did the Premier not mention the March for Australia protests as potential risks? They were clearly promoted and attended by white supremacists, racists and antisemites. Instead, he blamed the mums and dads and kids who are horrified at war, genocide and the killing of innocents—the people who marched for compassion. Why did he not say anything after Sunday 14 December about the appalling neo-Nazi display that was able to recently take place outside Parliament with the police watching on?
At this critical time, we must ensure that our efforts to combat antisemitism are done in a way that does not further divide our increasingly fragile social fabric. We must ensure that it is not done in a way that allows other drivers of extremism and other potential violent terrorists to escape scrutiny. Do members honestly think there is not a scenario where another horrific terrorist act could have occurred in Sydney in recent years? It could have been a very different terrorist attack, like the hate-filled, evil attack that occurred in Christchurch in March 2019 when a 28-year-old white Australian male went on a shooting spree, murdering 51 people and injuring 40 others—Muslim—at a mosque in Christchurch or, heaven forbid, a terrible attack on our public transport network.
The royal commission that was held into that Christchurch attack found that the killer displayed racist behaviour from a young age. Remember, he grew up in Australia. His life experiences appeared to have fuelled resentment, and he became radicalised, forming extreme right-wing views about people he considered a threat. Eventually that turned to violence, and he spent a long time planning and preparing for the attack, just like those two killers on Sunday. The head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, when releasing this year's threat assessment outlook, said:
At the height of ISIL and al-Qa'ida, offshore groups or individuals were inspiring and directing attacks in Australia.
Now, extremists are self-radicalising, 'choosing their own adventure' – and often their own unique, blended belief system.
At the height of ISIL and al-Qa'ida, individuals would usually be radicalised over an extended time period.
Now, the process can take days and weeks rather than months and years.
At the height of ISIL and al-Qa'ida, individuals would often be influenced by family members or associates who held extremist views.
Now, the most likely perpetrator of a terrorist attack is a lone-actor, from a family previously unconnected to extremism.
At the height of ISIL and al-Qa'ida, extremism tended to be concentrated in major cities.
Now, extremism is much more diffuse – and much more diverse.
We are seeing an increase in issue-motivated extremism, fueled by personal grievance, conspiracy theories and anti-authority ideologies.
This means you cannot assume there is a single 'type' of terrorist threat, or even a 'most likely' motivation for a terrorist attack.
Yet members in this place and the Premier have already worked it all out. They have jumped on pro-Palestinian sentiment as the cause of the horrific terror attack because it suits them politically. Mike Burgess also said:
The impacts of social media, mental health, the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories, ubiquitous encryption, growing grievance and the radicalisation of minors all require whole of government, whole of community, whole of society responses.
You cannot arrest your way to social cohesion.
You cannot regulate your way to fewer grievances.
You cannot spy your way to less youth radicalisation.
Instead we have this hastily pulled together legislation, which will have far-reaching consequences. It is extraordinary listening to members' contributions today. There is a hell of a lot I disagree with, but we all agree that this is an outrageous, hastily pulled together bill on very significant issues that we should have had a lot more time to deal with and that the community should have been consulted about.
Our State has changed forever because of the despicable acts of two racially and religiously motivated, antisemitic and violent extremists who opened fire on hundreds of innocent people on Sunday 14 December 2025. As lawmakers of this State, our response must be to support the Jewish community in its grief by doing more to genuinely combat antisemitism, along with other racially and ideologically motivated extremism. But we must protect our democracy while doing so. We must come together and work towards peace, to understand each other and accept our differences. We must teach tolerance, compassion and respect.
We are so lucky to live in Australia, free from war, famine, tyrannical leaders and violent, disparate terrorist groups who have total disregard for humanity. We are so lucky to live in a democracy. It is far from perfect, but it is pretty bloody healthy, comparatively. When it is under attack, we realise just how pretty bloody wonderful it is. A healthy democracy means being able to engage in nonviolent protest, to rally on the streets, to criticise the Government and to criticise other governments. The parts of the bill that restrict peaceful protests put our democracy at risk. That is a very dangerous thing right now, and it is why The Greens cannot in all conscience vote for the bill.