The NSW Parliament got behind the Coalition\u2019s efforts to amend the Crimes Act in a way that allowed NSW Police to prosecute those publicly threatening or inciting violence but prevented this law from being weaponised by private citizens.
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Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said the Government\u2019s poor drafting could have had an adverse impact by allowing private prosecutions by people trying to shut down free speech rather than protecting people from threats and calls to violence.
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\u201cWe supported legislation that would allow NSW Police, and not just the DPP, to prosecute public threats or inciting of violence on the grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex or HIV\/AIDS status,\u201d Mr Speakman said.
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\u201cWe had moved amendments that would allow Police to do so, while stopping private prosecutions, which the Minns Government voted down before being forced into accepting something similar by the Legislative Council.\u201d
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Shadow Attorney-General Alister Henskens said Minns Labor Government\u2019s proposed legislation could have resulted in the opposite effect of what was intended and further inflamed tensions within the community.
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\u201cOur intention was always to support a law that would promote community harmony and ensure that people don\u2019t feel fearful in their own community,\u201d said Mr Henskens.
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\u201cHowever, without our amendments, people could have faced private criminal prosecutions from a person motivated to use the law to create disharmony in the community.\u201d
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\u201cThanks to our approach, it is easier for Police to use powers to bring a case while avoiding a situation where private individuals may have been targeted by others who might simply disagree with them.\u201d
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\u201cThe Parliament has also passed an amendment that will see a statutory review of these laws in two years, to ensure that they are working as intended.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The NSW Parliament got behind the Coalition\u2019s efforts to amend the Crimes Act in a way that allowed NSW Police to prosecute those publicly threatening or inciting violence but prevented this law from being weaponised by private citizens.\u00a0Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said the Government\u2019s poor drafting could have had an adverse impact by allowing private … Continue reading “Coalition fixes Labor\u2019s hate speech legislation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24332,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24331\/revisions\/24332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}