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The federal government's hate speech laws, devised in response to the Bondi Beach terror attack, have passed the House of Representatives with the support of the Liberals and are set to pass the Senate later today.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was forced to split the gun control and hate speech reforms into separate packages after both the Coalition and the Greens spoke against the combined proposal.
The bill passed the lower house this afternoon by 116 votes to seven, with 27 MPs abstaining – including most Nationals MPs.
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Those who voted against the bill were independents Dai Le and Andrew Wilkie; Queensland LNP MPs Llew O'Brien and Colin Boyce; Bob Katter; former Nationals leader turned One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce; and Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie.
Albanese had met with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley to work through changes to the bill to secure Liberal support.
Among the changes secured by Ley was the requirement that the opposition leader be consulted on the listing of extremist organisations.
Despite demanding a swift response to the Bondi attack, many senior Coalition figures baulked at the laws, saying they had been devised too swiftly and citing free speech concerns.
The Nationals decided to abstain from voting in the lower house, though former leader Michael McCormack voted in favour of the legislation.
The Nationals will move amendments in the Senate but will vote against the bill if their demands are not met.
The bill will still almost certain to pass the Senate with Labor and Liberal support, even if the Nationals vote against it.
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Late changes to get bills passed
Nine newspapers reported this morning that some Labor MPs were worried about the government's decision to drop racial anti-vilification elements from the legal package in order to get it through parliament.
"When the government put forward those laws, we heard all kinds of free speech advocates say, oh, but what if it captures this kind of language and that kind of language?" The Age and Sydney Morning Herald chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal told Today.
"So the government's pulled that section of the bill."
Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth said the government was focused on passing workable laws.
"We need to get laws through the parliament. It's a numbers issue," she told Today.
"And so if you have both the opposition saying that we will not support racial vilification laws and the Greens not supporting, then you can't bring it into law."
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