And now the cracks appear. Having called for the Albanese government to introduce tougher hate-speech laws, the Ley opposition considers the version currently proposed “unsalvageable”. The Coalition, in turn, is divided among its various factions on what their objections are. Sussan Ley is arguing stridently against the bill’s “religious text” exemption, which would save people from prosecutions for quoting scripture, insisting that it provides an unacceptable loophole. Meanwhile, Andrew Hastie says he’s “unlikely to support the bill because of its impact on freedom of speech and religion”, which sounds more an opposite concern to Ley’s.

The Nationals apparently share Hastie’s objections: Matt Canavan describing the bill as “the greatest attack on free speech since Robert Menzies tried to ban the Australian Communist Party”. Canavan is especially worried that expanding the concept of racist hate speech will be a “Trojan horse” to limit speech on “immigration, integration [and] assimilation”.

Illustration by Simon Letch

The problem is this whole endeavour sits across several contradictory philosophical fault lines. The stridency of Ley’s demands that the government toughen up on hate speech obscured the fact that the Coalition has always been sceptical of such laws. That is not to say it is insincere when it wants to police antisemitic rhetoric, especially from radical Muslim preachers. But indications are it wants to police........

© The Sydney Morning Herald