By Christine Chen
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia passed tough anti-hate crime laws on Thursday, including mandatory minimum sentences for terror offences and displaying hate symbols, in a bid to tackle a recent surge in antisemitism.
The laws will impose minimum jail sentences between 12 months for less serious hate crimes, such as giving a Nazi salute in public, and six years for those found guilty of terrorism offences.
“I want people who are engaged in antisemitism to be held to account, to be charged, to be incarcerated,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who had initially opposed mandatory minimum sentences for hate crimes, told Sky News.
The government’s hate crimes bill was first introduced to parliament last year, creating new offences for threatening force or violence against people based on their race, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin, political opinion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.
Recent months have seen an escalation of attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars of Jewish community members across the country, including the discovery of a caravan laden with explosives with a list of Jewish targets in Sydney.
Albanese has been criticised by the centre-right opposition party for being weak on crime and failing to address the rise in antisemitism.
The Liberal-National coalition began calling for mandatory minimum sentences to be added to the hate crimes bill last month.
Home Affairs minister Tony Burke, who introduced the amendments enabling the provisions late on Wednesday, said the changes were the “toughest laws Australia has ever had against hate crimes”.
The state of New South Wales, where most of the antisemitic attacks have taken place, said on Wednesday it would also strengthen its hate speech laws to reflect those already in place in Western Australia and Victoria.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
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