14/09/2026
One of the reasons we oppose 'hate speech' legislation so fiercely: it relies on vague, subjective language that's ripe for weaponisation.
FIANZ's own 2024 report defines "hate speech" to include using "any other term meant to provoke a strong reaction."
Picture how that plays out in court. A religious person's strong reaction becomes the evidence that a "hate crime" occurred.
This isn't hypothetical. In the UK, Hamit Coskun burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate and was attacked by a man with a knife. He was convicted of a public order offence. The fact that he was attacked with a knife was stated by the Judge as evidence he was likely to provoke... a strong reaction. It took an appeal court to rule that a bystander's reaction can't be what decides someone's guilt.
Our laws cannot be written so that the strength of someone's reaction becomes the test for criminality.
