The Liberals have arrived at the free speech debate.
That’s good. Better late than never.
For the first time in a very long time, the party is lining up on the right side of the culture wars.
That’s after years of cultural war denial.
In Parliament next week, the Liberals are poised to vote down Labor’s ‘hate speech’ laws – the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026.
For a party that has struggled to define a woman and has sat on the sidelines while Australians faced legal action over topics such as biological reality and free speech, this week’s foray into the fight is refreshing.
The Liberals have recognised that this bill will likely give hate preachers a loophole while criminalising mainstream Australians for ‘harassing’ or ‘intimidating’ them.
You can’t make this stuff up, but it is typical of the left. Never waste a crisis to advance your agenda of shutting down speech you hate.
After years of leaving the victims of our existing terrible ‘hate speech’ laws to languish, the Liberals have begun to step up.
Are they spooked by polling showing One Nation eating their lunch?
Is it because their ‘renegade’ conservatives – Matt Canavan, Alex Antic, Andrew Hastie, Jactina Nampijinpa Price, Henry Pike, Garth Hamilton, Ben Small and others – are starting to break the shackles of political correctness and speak out, defying their leader?
It’s probably all the above.
Those of us who have been fighting alone from the fringes suddenly find the major conservative party taking baby steps towards being conservative again.
After the ‘renegades’ moved, even Sussan Ley managed to name the problem that led to the Bondi massacre: ‘radical Islam’.
‘Across more than 500 pages, the term ‘radical Islam’ is not mentioned once.
‘If the Prime Minister cannot bring himself to name the problem, he cannot be expected to solve it.
‘Parliament can and should be able to criminalise antisemitic extremist hate preaching while upholding free speech.’
The afore-mentioned renegades are having some wins.
They dragged Ley and the so-called Liberal ‘moderates’ to dump Net Zero, the most insane economic policy ever pursued by Australian politicians.
This week they didn’t wait for Ley.
Pike, Small and Hamilton were out of the blocks quickly pointing out that Labor’s bill would perversely punish people who called out the hate preachers, not punish the hate preachers.
Hastie, Canavan, and Price followed.
Ley followed them all.
But what is remarkable is the party as a whole seems to be lining up to vote down the latest incursion on Australian’s freedoms.
Is this a defining moment?
Pike posted clips of British police officers arresting people for tweets, so insane are the laws in the Mother Country.
None of this is new, but for some reason Pike felt emboldened.
I hope this means Liberals will start posting reels about Australians facing court under our existing flawed ‘hate speech’ laws.
One Nation, the Libertarians, and Family First have been vocally supporting Australians already court up in the courts over free speech.
There’s been silence from the Liberals.
The same goes for my court case which has dragged on for six years.
I’ve had no support from the Coalition, no social media solidarity, no attempts to roll back anti-free speech laws.
Most Australians are blissfully unaware that freedom of speech is already dead in this country.
Yes, Labor’s new turbo charged ‘hate speech’ laws will make it much worse because they carry jail terms.
Perhaps this was the jolt the Liberals needed to get into the debate.
Let’s hope the Liberals hold their nerve next week.
Let’s hope they then start working on rolling back the rest of our ‘hate speech’ laws so freedom of speech can be restored.
The Bondi massacre response did not need ‘hate speech’ laws which the left has used as an opportunity to further clamp down on the freedoms of mainstream Australians.
As Alexandra Marshall pointed out on X, it is unlikely these new ‘hate speech’ laws which elevate ‘hate speech’ to a criminal offence with jail terms, suddenly appeared out of nowhere after Bondi.
All that was needed was for politicians to find the courage to use existing laws which already criminalise speech that incites violence.
And if they were inadequate, the focus of next week’s Parliamentary sitting should have been on closing loopholes, not giving freedom of speech a card which says: ‘Go directly to Jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.’
But for two years, Labor have allowed hate preachers and protests featuring sympathy for Hamas to run unchecked.
No one should be surprised Bondi happened.
It’s beyond stupid a law now sits before the Parliament to jail Australians who criticise Islamic terrorism.
It’s almost like Australia’s radical left has a death wish.
But at least this time the Liberals are in the fight.
Lyle Shelton is National Director of Family First and the party’s lead candidate for the NSW Legislative Council.
