Category: MIL-OSI

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Australia’s Labor government has successfully passed a “hate speech” bill that’s plainly aimed, at least in part, at suppressing pro-Palestine organizations as “hate groups”.

Free speech advocates are sounding the alarm about the new laws, saying their extremely vague wording, lack of procedural fairness and low thresholds for implementation mean groups can now be banned if they make people feel unsafe or upset without ever actually posing any physical harm to anyone.

For me the most illuminating insight into what these laws are actually designed to do came up in an ABC interview with Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on Tuesday.

Over and over again throughout the interview Rowland was asked by ABC’s David Speers to clarify whether the new laws could see activist groups banned for criticising Israel and opposing its genocidal atrocities in a way that causes Jewish Australians to feel upset feelings, and she refused to rule out the possibility every single time.

Australia’s hate speech law            Video: ABC 7.30

“Let’s just go to what it means in practice: would a group be banned if it accuses Israel of genocide or apartheid, and as a result, Jewish Australians do feel intimidated?” Speers asked.

Rowland didn’t say no, instead saying “there are a number of other factors that would need to be satisfied there” and saying that agencies like the AFP and ASIO would need to make assessments of the situation.

“Okay, just coming back to the practical example though, if a group is suggesting that Israel is guilty of genocide, what other measures or factors would need to be met before they can be banned?” Speers asked.

“Under the provisions that are now before the Parliament, there would also need to be able to demonstrate that there are for example, some aspects of state laws that deal with racial vilification that have been met as well,” Rowland responded, again leaving the possibility wide open.

Australia’s frightening new ‘hate speech’ law         Video reading by Tim Foley

(It should here be noted that Greens justice spokesperson David Shoebridge has pointed out that “state laws that deal with racial vilification” can include “tests like ‘ridicule’ and ‘contempt’,” meaning people could wind up spending years in prison for associating with groups that were essentially banned for upsetting someone’s feelings.)

The only reason the Attorney General wouldn’t rule out the criminalisation of dissent and criticism of foreign countries and heads of state is if that’s exactly what Labor intends to cover here. pic.twitter.com/rV3e8TRB0l

— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) January 20, 2026

“Just to be clear, if a group is saying Israel is engaged in genocide, or they’re saying that Israel should no longer exist, that is not enough for that group to be banned?” asked Speers.

“Well, again, that would depend on the other evidence that is gathered, David, so I would be reluctant to be naming and ruling in and ruling out specific kinds of conduct that you are describing here,” Rowland replied.

All this waffling can be safely interpreted as a yes. Rowland is saying yes.

Speers pushed this question three different times from three different angles because it’s the most immediate and obvious concern about these new laws, and instead of reassuring the public that they can’t be used to target pro-Palestine groups and aren’t intended for that purpose, the nation’s Attorney General confirmed that it was indeed possible.

So that’s it then. Under the new laws we can expect to see the Israel lobby crying about Jewish Australians feeling threatened and unsafe by every pro-Palestine group under the sun, and then from there all it takes is the thumbs-up from ASIO to put the group on the banned list and cage anyone who continues associating with it for up to 15 years.

The bill that ended up making it through Parliament is actually a narrowed down version of an even scarier bill that was scrapped by Labor due to lack of support which went after individuals as well as groups.

The earlier version contained “racial vilification” components which could have been used to target any individual who voices criticisms of Israel or Zionism – so it doesn’t look like I’ll be doing any prison time for my writing any time soon. The new version moved its crosshairs to groups with the obvious intent to disrupt pro-Palestine organising in Australia.

And we’re already seeing the Israel lobby pushing to resurrect the laws targeting individuals. A new ABC article titled “Jewish leaders call for vilification offence to be revisited as Coalition splits over watered-down hate laws” cites Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler and Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim arguing that the new laws don’t go far enough.

So we can expect the Australian Israel lobby to both (A) push to get pro-Palestine groups classified as “hate groups” under the new laws and (B) keep pushing to make it illegal for individuals to criticize Israel in the form of new “racial vilification” laws.

They’ll keep trying over and over again, from government to government to government, until they get their way.

This comes after Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council executive manager Joel Burnie publicly stated that he wants to ban pro-Palestine protests and criticism of Israel throughout the nation, and as prosecutors drag an Australian woman to court for an antisemitic hate crime because she accidentally butt-dialed a Jewish nutritionist and left a blank voicemail.

So things are already ugly, and they’re getting worse.

It’s so creepy knowing I share a country with people who want to destroy my right to normal political speech. It would never occur to me to try to kill Zionists’ right to free speech, but they very openly want to kill mine.

They want to permanently silence me and anyone like me. I find that profoundly disturbing.

Israel supporters are horrible people. And I hope my saying that hurts their feelings.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The federal Coalition is dead, with Nationals leader David Littleproud on Thursday morning declaring it “untenable” after Liberal leader Sussan Ley stared down the Liberals’ minor partner.

This followed all Nationals frontbenchers resigning from the shadow ministry on Wednesday night, in protest at Ley’s retaliation against three Nationals senators, Bridget McKenzie, Ross Cadell and Susan McDonald, breaking shadow cabinet solidarity.

“We can not be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley”, Littleproud told a news conference early Thursday.

“No one in our ministry could work in a Sussan Ley ministry.”

This leaves the Liberals alone as the opposition, with the Nationals as a crossbench party with no role in the official opposition.

Littleproud said the parties would be “two different armies” going forward for “the time being”.

The crisis dramatically increases the threat to Ley’s leadership, which was already unstable and not expected to last. Although Littleproud would not acknowledge it, the Nationals are encouraging a change in the Liberal leadership.

Most immediately, Ley will have to reshuffle her frontbench with Liberal members only.

Littleproud said the “sovereign position of the National party had been disrespected” and the three senators had been “courageous”.

“We were not going to stand by and have three of our senators be made scapegoats. We were going to stand with them because they did the right thing.”

The senators voted against the government’s hate crimes legislation, which passed with Liberal support. Their action was in accord with the Nationals’ decision to oppose the legislation. The Nationals disagreed in particular with the bill’s provision to enable the banning of hate-spruiking organisations. The party argued it was too wide and would endanger free speech.

Ley insisted there had been a shadow cabinet decision to obtain changes to the bill and then support it. Littleproud said a final decision on the legislation had not been made by the shadow cabinet or the joint parties.

Littleproud accused Ley of mismanaging the situation.

He stressed he had warned Ley of the consequences if she accepted the three senators’ resignations.

He spoke to her again early Thursday morning before announcing the decision. She held to her position.

This is the second break in the Coalition since the election.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Nationals break Coalition, declaring it ‘untenable’ and blaming Ley – https://theconversation.com/nationals-break-coalition-declaring-it-untenable-and-blaming-ley-274025

By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

The signing of a new agreement on New Caledonia’s political and financial future has triggered a fresh wave of reactions from across the French territory’s political chessboard.

The Elysée-Oudinot agreement was signed on Monday, January 19, in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron as well as most of New Caledonia’s politicians.

But the pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), the largest component of the pro-independence movement, had chosen not to travel to Paris.

The new deal, signed by parties represented at New Caledonia’s Congress (its local parliament), including members of the moderate pro-independence PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie), who have split from FLNKS, all signed the agreement.

PALIKA and UPM are formed into a Parliamentary caucus called “UNI” (Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance).

The Elysée-Oudinot text was described as being a “complement” bearing “clarifications” to a previous agreement project, signed in July 2025 in the small city of Bougival, west of Paris.

The FLNKS, even though it initially signed the Bougival text, rejected it in bloc a few days after returning to New Caledonia.

As French President Macron called all politicians back to the table to refine the July 2025 talks, FLNKS announced it would not travel to Paris, saying the project which would serve as the basis for further talks did not meet their short-term goals of full sovereignty.

They said the Bougival text and all related documents were in substance “lures” of independence and that they regarded the French state as being responsible for a “rupture of dialogue”.

As the Bougival initial text, its Elysée-Oudinot complement maintains the notion of creating a “state of New Caledonia”, its correlated “nationality” and introduces a new set of commitments from France, including a package to re-launch the local economy, severely damaged as a result of the riots that broke out in May 2024.

The new text also mentions granting more powers to each of New Caledonia’s three provinces (North, South and the Loyalty Islands group), including in terms of revenue collection by way of taxes.

This, the FLNKS protested, could erode the powers of New Caledonian provinces and reinforce economic and social inequalities between them.

Reacting to the signing in Paris in their absence, the FLNKS, in a media release on Wednesday, condemned and rejected the new text “unequivocally”.

FLNKS President Christian Téin, in the release, said the new agreement endorses a “passage en force” (forceful passage) and is “incompatible” with the way the FLNKS envisages Kanaky’s “decolonisation path”, including in the way it is defined under the United Nations decolonisation process.

It also criticises a document signed “without the Indigenous people” of New Caledonia.

The pro-independence party also expressed its disapproval of what it calls a “pseudo-accord”.

“We will use every political tool available to us to re-alert, again and again the public”, FLNKS politburo member Gilbert Tyuienon told public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie La Première at the weekend.

French Minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou had reiterated, even after the signing in Paris, that the door remained open to FLNKS.

In reaction to the signing, other parties have also expressed their respective points of view.

“Why didn’t they come [to Paris] to defend their positions, since they were invited?” Southern Province President (pro-France) Sonia Backès wrote on social networks.

“Does UNI not represent the Kanak people too?” she added.

French Minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou said this new set of agreements reflected a “shared will to look at the future together”.

“Now the territory can walk on its two legs”.

Some of the pro-France parties, who want New Caledonia to remain a part of France, have however acknowledged that even though the new documents were signed, the road ahead remained rocky in terms of its implementation in the French Parliament, through a local referendum and related constitutional amendments.

‘We’ve done the easiest part’ — Metzdorf
New Caledonia’s MP at the French National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf said a huge challenge still remained ahead.

“We’ve done the easiest, the hardest part remains . . .  This is to obtain the [French] Parliament’s support, both Houses, to enact the accords in the French Constitution.”

Following a very tight schedule in the coming weeks, the texts will be submitted to the vote of both Parliament Houses, first separately, then in a joint chamber format (the Congress, for constitutional amendment purposes).

Then the text is also to be submitted to New Caledonia’s population for approval through a referendum-like “consultation”.

In a way of foretaste of what promises to be heated debates in coming weeks, with a backdrop of strong divisions in the French Parliament, Moutchou and far-left MP Bastien Lachaud (La France Insoumise, LFI) waged a war of words on Tuesday in the National Assembly.

Responding to Lachaud’s accusations which echoed those from FLNKS, Moutchou denounced the “passage en force” claim and the absence of “consensus”.

“FLNKS was never excluded from anything. It was invited, it was approached, it was awaited, just like the other ones. It chose not to turn up,” Moutchou said.

“The politics of empty chair was never conducive to a compromise,” she said as Assembly Speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet had to call the LFI caucus back to order.

Strong financial component
Some of the financial aspects of the deals include a five-year “reconstruction” plan for New Caledonia, for a total of 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4 billion), presented to New Caledonia’s politicians by French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

This chapter also comes with revisiting previous French loans for more than 1 billion euros, which New Caledonia found almost impossible to repay (with an indebtedness rate of 360 percent).

The loans, under the agreement’s financial chapter, would be renegotiated, re-scheduled and possibly converted into non-refundable grants.

Meanwhile a two-year repayment holiday (2026-2027) would be applied, while a far-reaching reform programme is expected to be pursued.

“What people really expected was [economic] prospects. This is the main part of this accord, the economic refoundation,” commented Vaimu’a Muliava, from Wallis-based Eveil Océanien party after the Paris talks.

The new financial arrangements would also provide a much-needed lifebuoy to critically threatened mechanisms in New Caledonia, such as its retirement scheme or the power supply company.

More injections for the nickel industry
Another 200 million euros is also earmarked to bail out several nickel mining companies facing critical hardships.

This includes assistance aimed at supporting business and employment for French historical Société le Nickel (SLN), Prony Resources and NMC (Nickel Mining Company, which has ties to Korea’s POSCO).

The French government has also pledged to follow-up on a request to New Caledonia’s nickel mining and refining declared a “strategic” sector by the European Union.

“The agreement’s economic chapter was as necessary as the political one,” said New Caledonia’s President Alcide Ponga after the signing.

Another cash injection was directed to this year’s budget for New Caledonia, which benefits from a direct cash injection of 58 million euros.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zena Assaad, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, Australian National University

The United States is set to become “the world’s undisputed [artificial intelligence-enabled] fighting force”.

At least that’s the view of the country’s Department of War, which earlier this month released a new strategy to accelerate the deployment of AI for military purposes.

The “AI Acceleration Strategy” sets an unambiguous objective of setting up the US military as the frontrunner in AI warfighting. But all of the hype in the strategy ignores the realities and limitations of AI capabilities.

It can be thought of as a kind of “AI peacocking” – loud public signalling of AI adoption and leadership, which clouds the reality of unreliable systems.

What does the US AI strategy entail?

Several militaries around the world, including China and Israel, are incorporating AI into their work. But the AI-first mantra of the US Department of War’s new strategy sets it apart.

The strategy seeks to make the US military more lethal and efficient. It suggests AI is the one way to achieve this goal.

The department will encourage experimentation with AI models. It will also eliminate what it calls “bureaucratic barriers” to implement AI across the military, support investment in AI infrastructure and pursue a set of major AI-powered military projects.

One of these projects seeks to use AI to turn intelligence “into weapons in hours not years”. This is concerning, given how this kind of approach has been used elsewhere.

For example, there are ongoing reports about the increased civilian death toll in Gaza resulting from the Israeli military’s use of AI-enabled decision support systems, which essentially turn intelligence into weaponised targeting information at an unprecedented speed and scale. Further accelerating this pipeline risks unnecessary escalation of civilian harm.

Another major project seeks to put American AI models – presumably ones intended to be used in military contexts – “directly in the hands of our three million civilian and military personnel, at all classification levels”.

It is not made clear why three million civilian Americans need access to military AI systems. Nor what the impacts would be of widely disseminating military capabilities across a civilian population.

The narrative vs the reality

In July 2025, an MIT study found 95% of organisations received a zero return on investment in generative AI.

The main reason was technical limitations of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot. For example, most can’t retain feedback, adapt to new contexts or improve over time.

This study was focused on generative AI in business contexts. But the findings apply more broadly. They point to the shortcomings of AI, which are too often hidden by the marketing hype surrounding the technology.

AI is an umbrella term. It’s used to encompass a spectrum of capabilities – from large language models to computer vision models. These are technologically different tools with different uses and purposes.

Despite varying significantly in their applications, capabilities and success rates, most AI applications have been bundled together to form a globally successful marketing agenda.

This is reminiscent of the dotcom bubble from the early 2000s, which treated marketing as a valid business model.

This approach now seems to have bled into how the US wants to posture itself in the current geopolitical climate.

A guide to ‘AI peacocking’

The Department of War’s AI-first strategy reads more like a guide to “AI peacocking” than a legitimate strategy to implement technology.

AI is posited as the solution to every problem – including those which do not exist. The marketing behind AI has created a fabricated fear of falling behind. The Department of War’s new AI strategy feeds off of that fear by alluding to a technically advanced military strategy.

However, the reality is these technology capabilities fall short of their claimed effectiveness. And, in military settings, these limitations can have devastating consequences, including increased civilian death tolls.

The US is leaning heavily into a marketing-led business model to implement AI across its military without technical rigour and integrity.

This approach will likely expose a vulnerable vacuum across the Department of War when these brittle systems fail – and likely in moments of crisis when deployed in military settings.

Zena Assaad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The United States’ new military strategy is a case of ‘AI peacocking’ – https://theconversation.com/the-united-states-new-military-strategy-is-a-case-of-ai-peacocking-273803

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Markus Wagner, Professor of Law and Director of the UOW Transnational Law and Policy Centre, University of Wollongong

The renewed campaign by United States President Donald Trump to acquire Greenland has escalated, with tariff threats against European allies. Asked on Tuesday how far he is willing to go to “acquire” Greenland, Trump replied: “You’ll find out”.

This is the latest episode in a long-running effort under Trump 2.0 to remake the international order with major geopolitical implications:

• the potential rupture of NATO
• further pressure on transatlantic trade
• a shock to stock and bond markets.

There is a chance of both escalation and de-escalation when Trump holds meetings this week on Greenland with European leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

US–Greenland relations and the ownership question

Trump first floated the idea of acquiring Greenland during his first presidency, which at the time was dismissed as “absurd” and a diplomatic curiosity.

Greenland, while part of the Danish realm, is a self-governing territory with its own parliament and a right to self-determination under international law. Under a 1951 agreement, the US already has extensive rights to install and operate military bases in Greenland.
Trump’s arguments around Greenland have shifted from access to resources to defence arguments.

Trump has now explicitly linked the acquisition of Greenland to trade sanctions against eight – ostensibly allied – European countries unless they cooperate in facilitating a deal. He is using trade as a weapon.

Tariffs as foreign policy coercion

Trump announced tariffs of 10% on imports from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland beginning February 1, rising to 25% by June 1, until the “Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” has been achieved.

These tariffs are in addition to the so-called Liberation Day tariffs announced in April 2025. The legality of these tariffs under US law is currently under scrutiny by the US Supreme Court. The outcome is important: if Trump loses, he would not be able to impose tariffs over Greenland without Congressional involvement.

This is not regular trade policy. Tariffs are traditionally imposed as remedies against trade measures by other governments. Here, they are being used outside any international legal constraints as leverage to extract unrelated territorial concessions from allies. While national security exceptions exist, its use against close allies – and in pursuit of territorial objectives – pushes that exception well beyond its limits.

What is the EU’s trade ‘bazooka’?

European leaders are forced to choose between multiple unattractive options.
They strongly rejected this latest round of US coercion, emphasising Greenland’s sovereignty and self-determination.

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking in Davos, said the “endless accumulation of new tariffs […] are fundamentally unacceptable, even more so when they are used as leverage against territorial sovereignty”.

“We do prefer respect to bullies. And we do prefer rule of law to brutality,” Macron said. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was more conciliatory.

European leaders warned of a “dangerous downward spiral” in transatlantic ties and possible retaliatory measures. Such counter tariffs had already been drafted up in response to Trump’s 2025 tariff threats, up to a value of €93 billion (A$162 billion).

While such tit-for-tat trade measures are already concerning, the EU has another measure at its disposal: its Anti-Coercion Instrument or ACI, sometimes referred to as its “trade bazooka”. This was initially designed to deter economic coercion by China.

Macron has raised the spectre of using the Anti-Coercion Instrument against the US. This would allow the EU to select from a range of measures, including:

• the imposition of tariffs on US goods
• restrictions on imports and exports of good and services such as banking or insurance
• investment screening, such as preventing US investors from buying companies in the defence or energy sectors
• restrictions on intellectual property rights, which would put pressure on US tech giants.

The decision over whether to impose such measures has to be taken by EU member governments in the Council of the European Union.

In addition to the time it takes to reach such a decision (officials indicated it could take up to six months), it would also test the ability of EU leaders to resist opposition from within. Hungary’s Victor Orban, a close Trump ally, could try to play the role of spoiler. Although even for him, Trump’s power play over Greenland may be a step too far into unknown waters.

In financial markets, Europeans are also large holders of US government bonds. One Danish pension fund on Tuesday announced plans to sell off its holdings of US Treasuries worth US$100 million (A$148 million). Any broader sell-downs could put pressure on the US bond market.

For the time being, European leaders appear to want to keep the EU trade bazooka dry, indicating a path of de-escalation bordering on appeasement rather than outright confrontation despite Trump’s tactics.

If the EU retaliates, it is likely Trump will respond in kind, possibly resulting in a ratcheting up of trade measures on both sides of the Atlantic. This would have devastating consequences for consumers and exporters alike.

NATO’s greatest test

Trump’s antagonism is not just an odd foreign policy episode, but a test of the strength and depth of the NATO alliance, international legal norms, and trade governance.

The outcome of this conflict – which is entirely of Trump’s making – will signal whether the post-Cold War order can withstand transactional geopolitics cloaked as national security.

Trump has had multiple off-ramps, none of which he appears to be willing to take. His actions will determine whether the US can retain its status as a reliable superpower or will be seen as a pariah in international relations.

Markus Wagner receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence as principal investigator for the Weaponised Trade project.

– ref. As Trump’s threats over Greenland escalate, will Europe use its ‘trade bazooka’? – https://theconversation.com/as-trumps-threats-over-greenland-escalate-will-europe-use-its-trade-bazooka-273797

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Twomey, Professor Emerita in Constitutional Law, University of Sydney

What impact will the criminal hate provisions in the Albanese government’s Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026 have on the ability of ordinary Australians to protest?

An earlier version contained a criminal offence of promoting or inciting racial hatred. The government dropped this part of the legislation after both the Coalition and the Greens opposed it.

However, inciting racial hatred remains relevant to the other key provisions, which permit the banning of “prohibited hate groups”.

How can a group become a prohibited hate group?

A group can be prohibited under the new law if the governor-general makes a regulation prohibiting it. The governor-general acts on the advice of the minister for the Australian Federal Police. There are a number of conditions that must be met before a group can be banned.

First, the minister must be satisfied on reasonable grounds that the group has engaged in conduct constituting a “hate crime”, or has been associated with a hate crime, by preparing, planning, assisting, or advocating engaging in such conduct. This is the initial trigger for banning a group.

Second, the minister must be satisfied that banning the group is reasonably necessary to protect the Australian community from social, economic, psychological and physical harm.

The bill was altered to water down this requirement in two ways. It now also applies to protecting “part of the Australian community” from such harm. In addition, it says this social, economic, psychological and physical harm can simply be the continued presence in Australia of the group that has engaged in or been associated with the conduct constituting a hate crime. The minister would therefore have little difficulty being satisfied of this second condition.

The third condition is that the minister must have received advice from the director-general of security (who is the head of ASIO) recommending consideration of banning the group. The director-general must be satisfied the group has engaged in activities that are likely to increase the risk of politically motivated violence or communal violence, and has either itself advocated for or engaged in such violence, or there is a risk that it may do so in the future.

In addition, the minister must get the attorney-general’s agreement to ban the group, and arrange a briefing for the opposition leader about it. Any regulation banning a group could be disallowed (that is, overturned) by either House of Parliament.

Banning a group is therefore not easy. However, as we have seen in other countries, such protections could be overcome by appointing politically motivated cronies to positions, and contending that all opposition or dissent increases the risk of politically motivated violence and community harm.

What is a ‘hate crime’?

The key issue is whether action is a “hate crime”, as this is necessary to satisfy the initial trigger. A hate crime is defined as including acts of violence against people based on their race, colour or national or ethnic origin, or serious damage to their property. It includes threatening or advocating such violence or damage. Displaying Nazi or terrorist organisation symbols also qualifies as a hate crime.

The original bill made promoting or inciting racial hatred a hate crime. This raised concerns, due to uncertainty about the scope of the offence. While the government dropped it as a standalone offence, it slipped inciting racial hatred back in as a “hate crime” for the purpose of banning groups.

It did so by saying that a hate crime includes conduct that involves publicly inciting racial hatred that would constitute an offence against a Commonwealth law (for example, it might also breach a law about sending offensive communications by post). It would also include conduct that would constitute a specified state or territory offence. The conduct must also cause a reasonable person from the targeted racial group to be intimidated, fear harassment or violence, or fear for their safety.

This reliance on state offences makes the law very messy. This is because in the listed offences from Queensland, South Australia and the ACT, incitement to racial hatred is tied to threatening physical harm, whereas in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, no threat of harm is required. No relevant laws are listed for Tasmania or the Northern Territory. This means that whether a group can be banned on this basis may depend on where the conduct took place.

To complicate matters, the act says no crime need actually have been committed, and no one needs to have been convicted. In addition, conduct can be a “hate crime” even though it happened in the past when it wasn’t a crime. It is enough for the minister to be satisfied on reasonable grounds that the group has engaged in or been associated with the conduct constituting a “hate crime”.

This leaves it up to the minister to decide what was done and by whom, whether they had the necessary intent, whether their conduct can be attributed to the group, whether any defences apply, and whether the conditions of the law of the relevant jurisdiction have been met.

Ordinarily, we leave such assessments to independent courts and judges. For example, should a minister be the one deciding whether a defence of acting in good faith should apply, when the minister has a political interest in banning a particular group?

Would criticism of a country’s actions amount to a hate crime?

Is it a “hate crime” under the act to criticise the actions or policies of another country? Ordinarily, one would assume such criticism, which is a political communication, would not be regarded as inciting hatred against a group because of their race, colour, ethnic or national origin.

But in recent times, contrary arguments have been made.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland was asked on the ABC’s 7.30 program whether a group could be banned if it accuses Israel of genocide or apartheid, and as a result, Jewish Australians feel intimidated. She replied that a number of other factors would need to be satisfied. This would include advice by the director-general of security. She also noted it would depend on the evidence gathered.

The attorney-general was asked again whether, if protesters were saying “Israel is engaged in genocide, or condemning Israel, saying it shouldn’t exist” and it led to Jewish Australians feeling harassed or intimidated, they could be banned. She replied “If those criteria are satisfied, then that is the case”. This seems to suggest she would consider the initial trigger of engaging in a hate crime by inciting racial hatred would be satisfied by such public criticism, but that the other parts of the test would still need to be satisfied.

Concern about such an interpretation and its consequential impact on the freedom of Australians to criticise the conduct of foreign governments, led to amendments to the bill being moved in the Senate. Senator Lidia Thorpe moved several amendments to the bill, including inserting the following statement:

As per the judgement of the Federal Court in Wertheim v Haddad [2025] FCA 720, criticism of the practices, policies, and acts of the state of Israel, the Israeli Defence Forces or Zionism is not inherently criticism of Jewish people and is protected political speech, and not hate speech.

This amendment was rejected by 43 to 12, with the major parties opposing it.

This leaves uncertain what conduct is intended to be caught. Freedom of political communication by those who wish to protest against the conduct of a nation’s government could potentially be chilled.

If the minister were satisfied that such conduct did constitute a hate crime and a regulation was made that a group was a prohibited hate group, that decision might be challenged on administrative law grounds. There might also be a constitutional challenge to the relevant provisions in the act. Until then, one can only speculate about the potential impact of this new law.

Anne Twomey has received funding from the Australian Research Council and occasionally does consultancy work for governments, Parliaments and intergovernmental bodies. She also has a YouTube channel, Constitutional Clarion, which discusses constitutional issues, including this one.

– ref. Hate crime laws may have unintended consequences – including chilling free speech – https://theconversation.com/hate-crime-laws-may-have-unintended-consequences-including-chilling-free-speech-274016

By Sarah Hathway in Djilang/Geelong

A group of Australian Palestine supporters in the state of Victoria have been attacked as tensions continue over the right to protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza in the wake of the Bondi massacre last month.

As Geelong and Victoria Southwest branch members of Independent Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) were packing up their “Peak Hour for Peace in Palestine” action — the first for the year on Friday — they were attacked.

A lone provocateur, on foot, snatched a Palestinian flag from one, ripping it and clipping the activists’ ear with the flagpole, before taunting and pushing another onto the road, before fleeing the scene.

Police and an ambulance were called and an older activist was transported to hospital — they needed hip replacement surgery for a broken hip.

IPAN said the attack was “unprovoked”, given the network was “peacefully exercising their democratic, legal right to protest against the continuing genocide in Gaza”.

One IPAN member, who tried to retrieve the Palestine flag, told Green Left the attacker had called them “a bunch of terrorist bastards”.

IPAN Geelong and Victoria Southwest organiser Jaimie Jeffrey told GL that politicians and the media have whipped up a “blame game” that is “dangerously divisive”.

Blaming protest movement
“They have tried to blame the Palestine movement for the horrific Bondi massacre. This is outrageous, because the Palestine movement opposes violence, opposes all forms of racism, including antisemitism and is trying to stop a genocide.”

The group started a weekly action in April 2024 with three activists; it has now grown to a regular group of 15–20 activists flying Palestinian flags and holding signs opposing genocide and local weapons manufacturing that assists in arming Israel.

IPAN said that, before the cowardly attack, it had noticed “more supportive toots and less abuse than . . .  towards the end of last year”.

It said government and media spin about “hate speech” and “improving social cohesion” is “having the opposite effect”, by “tacitly encouraging violence against those of us campaigning to stop the genocide”.

“We have never let aggression from those who disagree with our views deter us from protesting the Israeli genocide of Palestinians or any other injustice,” IPAN said.

“We won’t be deterred after this latest incident. Because we are on the right side of history and our commitment is unshakeable.”

Tough hate speech law
Meanwhile, the Parliament in Canberra today passed the toughest federal hate speech laws in Australia’s history.

The Albanese government’s Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026 faces growing criticism over the risk of restricting the ability of ordinary Australians to protest.

Republished from Green Left.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Clarke, Research Associate, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University

Ask people how Stonehenge was built and you’ll hear stories of sledges, ropes, boats and sheer human determination to haul stones from across Britain to Salisbury Plain, in south-west England. Others might mention giants, wizards, or alien assistance to explain the transport of Stonehenge’s stones, which come from as far as Wales and Scotland.

But what if nature itself did the heavy lifting in transporting Stonehenge’s megaliths? In this scenario, vast glaciers that once covered Britain carried the bluestones and the Altar Stone to southern England as “glacial erratics”, or rocks moved by ice, leaving them conveniently behind on Salisbury Plain for the builders of Stonehenge.

This idea, known as the glacial transport theory, often appears in documentaries and online discussions. But it has never been tested with modern geological techniques.

Our new study, published today in Communications Earth and Environment, provides the first clear evidence glacial material never reached the area. This demonstrates the stones did not arrive through natural ice movement.

While previous research had cast doubt on the glacial transport theory, our study goes further and applies cutting-edge mineral fingerprinting to trace the stones’ true origins.

A clear mineral fingerprint

Giant ice sheets are messy, leaving behind piles of rock, scratched bedrock and carved landforms.

However, near Stonehenge, these tell-tale clues are either missing or ambiguous. And because the southern reach of ice sheets remains unclear, the glacial transport idea is open to debate.

So, if no big and obvious clues are present, could we look for tiny ones instead?

If glaciers had carried the stones all the way from Wales or Scotland, they would also have left behind millions of microscopic mineral grains, such as zircon and apatite, from those regions.

When both minerals form, they trap small amounts of radioactive uranium – which, at a known rate, will decay into lead. By measuring the ratios of both elements using a technique called U–Pb dating, we can measure the age of each zircon and apatite grain.

Because Britain’s rocks have very different ages from place to place, a mineral’s age can indicate its source. This means that if glaciers had carried stones to Stonehenge, the rivers of Salisbury Plain, which gather zircon and apatite from across a wide area, should still contain a clear mineral fingerprint of that journey.

Searching for tiny clues

To find out, we got our feet wet and collected sand from the rivers surrounding Stonehenge. What we discovered was striking.

Despite analysing more than seven hundred zircon and apatite grains, we found virtually no mineral ages that matched the bluestone sources in Wales or the Altar Stone’s Scottish source.

Zircon is exceptionally tough: grains can survive being weathered, washed into a river, buried in rocks, and recycled again millions of years later. As such, zircon crystals from Salisbury Plain rivers span an enormous stretch of geological time, covering half the age of the Earth, from around 2.8 billion years ago to 300 million years ago.

However, the vast majority fell within a tight band, spanning between 1.7 and 1.1 billion years old. Intriguingly, Salisbury River zircon ages match those from the Thanet Formation, a blanket of loosely compacted sand that covered much of southern England millions of years ago before being eroded.

This means zircon in river sand today is the leftovers from ancient blankets of sedimentary rocks, not freshly delivered sand from glaciers during the last Ice Age 26,000 to 20,000 years ago.

Apatite tells a different story. All grains are about 60 million years old, at a time when southern England was a shallow, subtropical sea. This age doesn’t match any potential source rocks in Britain.

Instead, apatite ages reflect the squeezing and uplifting caused by distant mountain-building in the European Alps, causing fluids to move through the chalk and “reset” apatite’s uranium-lead clock. In other words, the heating and chemical changes erased the mineral’s previous radioactive signature and started the clock ticking again.

Much like zircon, apatite isn’t a visitor brought in by glaciers but is local and has been sitting on Salisbury Plain for tens of millions of years.

A new piece of the Stonehenge story

Stonehenge sits at the crossroads of myth, ancient engineering and deep-time geology.

The ages of microscopic grains in river sand have now added a new piece to its story. This gives us further evidence the monument’s most exotic stones did not arrive by chance but were instead deliberately selected and transported.

Anthony Clarke receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Chris Kirkland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Grains of sand prove people – not glaciers – transported Stonehenge rocks – https://theconversation.com/grains-of-sand-prove-people-not-glaciers-transported-stonehenge-rocks-271310

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The federal Coalition was imploding on Wednesday night, with all Nationals frontbenchers, including leader David Littleproud, quitting the shadow ministry.

They were retaliating against Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s insistence three Nationals senators must resign for defying shadow cabinet solidarity.

The Nationals ratified the mass walkout in a special party hook up at 6pm. This followed Ley accepting the resignation of the trio – Bridget McKenzie, Ross Cadell and Susan McDonald – who voted, in accordance with their party’s decision, against the government’s hate crime bill, which passed with Liberal support on Tuesday night.

The chaos deepened further when Ley declined to accept the latest batch of resignations.

As she desperately tries to hold the disintegrating opposition together, she said in a 9pm statement,

This evening, I spoke with Leader of the Nationals, David Littleproud, and strongly urged him not to walk away from the Coalition.

I have received additional offers of resignation from National Party Shadow Ministers, which I and my Liberal Leadership Group have determined are unnecessary.

The Liberal Party supports the Coalition arrangements because they deliver the most effective political alliance for good government. I note that in David’s letter, he has not indicated that the Nationals are leaving the Coalition.

No permanent changes will be made to the Shadow Ministry at this time, giving the National Party time to reconsider these offers of resignation.

The crisis plunges Ley’s leadership into fresh turmoil, and is also putting Littleproud under pressure.

While the resignations do not automatically break the Coalition, its future appears untenable in the present circumstances. Ley sent Littleproud a message on Wednesday evening, asking him to pass it on to Nationals colleagues, in which she said maintaining a strong and functional Coalition “is in the national interest”.

Early Wednesday Littleproud warned Ley of the walkout if the Senate trio was forced off the frontbench.

The Nationals had put the Liberal leader in a diabolical position. The party’s Senate frontbenchers had defied the principle of shadow cabinet solidarity, and convention would indicate they should resign or be sacked. As Cadell told Sky early Wednesday, “I understand if you do the crime you take the time”.

But the question for Ley was: should she press the convention, or let the “crime” go unpunished, to avoid a blow up?

To turn a blind eye, however, would be seen as weakness and further harm her fragile leadership. To let the Nationals get away with their defiance would be interpreted as a dramatic case of the tail wagging the dog.

Liberals, who are now getting blowback for voting for the hate crime legislation, would have been infuriated if the Nationals had been shown lenience.

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard backed Ley, telling The Australian, “She had no choice. She behaved absolutely correctly.”

After hours of public silence in which she consulted with her senior colleagues, Ley issued a statement just before 3pm, indicating the three Nationals would pay the price for their action.

“Shadow Cabinet solidarity is not optional. It is the foundation of serious opposition and credible government,” she said.

She said shadow cabinet had on Sunday night examined the government’s hate crime legislation. “The unanimous Shadow Cabinet decision was to negotiate specific fixes with the government and having secured those amendments, members of the Shadow Cabinet were bound not to vote against the legislation.”

Ley said that when the Coalition re-formed after last year’s brief split, “the foundational principle underpinning that agreement was a commitment to Shadow Cabinet solidarity”.

She said she’d made it clear on Tuesday to Littleproud “that members of the Shadow Cabinet could not vote against the Shadow Cabinet position”.

Littleproud understood action was now required, she said.

But a letter Littleproud sent Ley early Wednesday made it clear the Nationals’ leader disputed her version of events.

He wrote that there was “also a conventíon of shadow cabinet that a final bill position must be approved by shadow cabinet”.

“This did not take place for this bill, nor was the position presented to the joint partyroom,” he said.

Littleproud wrote that, “If these [three] resignations are accepted, the entire National Party ministry will resign to take collective responsibility.

“Opposing this bill was a party room decision. The entire National Party shadow ministry is equally bound.”

In her statement Ley said the three senators had offered their resignations from the shadow cabinet, “as is appropriate, and I have accepted them”.

“All three Senators have written to me confirming that they ‘remain ready to continue serving the Coalition in whatever capacity you consider appropriate,’” and she’d asked them to continue serving “in the Coalition team”, outside the frontbench.

She’d also asked Littleproud to nominate replacements.

Last year, Ley was seen as emerging well in her post-election tussle with the Nationals, even though Littleproud extracted concessions.

Anthony Albanese, who a week ago had been on the defensive over his legislation has now had passed much (albeit not all) of what he initially wanted, and had the additional advantage of seeing the opposition thrown into chaos. The political wheel can turn very fast.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. View from The Hill: Coalition crisis explodes after Sussan Ley wields the whip against defiant Nationals – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-coalition-crisis-explodes-after-sussan-ley-wields-the-whip-against-defiant-nationals-272438

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maxime Aubert, Professor of Archaeological Science, Griffith University

When we think of the world’s oldest art, Europe usually comes to mind, with famous cave paintings in France and Spain often seen as evidence this was the birthplace of symbolic human culture. But new evidence from Indonesia dramatically reshapes this picture.

Our research, published today in the journal Nature, reveals people living in what is now eastern Indonesia were producing rock art significantly earlier than previously demonstrated.

These artists were not only among the world’s first image-makers, they were also likely part of the population that would eventually give rise to the ancestors of Indigenous Australians and Papuans.

A hand stencil from deep time

The discovery comes from limestone caves on the island of Sulawesi. Here, faint red hand stencils, created by blowing pigment over a hand pressed against the rock, are visible on cave walls beneath layers of mineral deposits.

By analysing very small amounts of uranium in the mineral layers, we could work out when those layers formed. Because the minerals formed on top of the paintings, they tell us the youngest possible age of the art underneath.

In some cases, when paintings were made on top of mineral layers, these can also show the oldest possible age of the images.

One hand stencil was dated to at least 67,800 years ago, making it the oldest securely dated cave art ever found anywhere in the world.

This is at least 15,000 years older than the rock art we had previously dated in this region, and more than 30,000 years older than the oldest cave art found in France. It shows humans were making cave art images much earlier than we once believed.

This hand stencil is also special because it belongs to a style only found in Sulawesi. The tips of the fingers were carefully reshaped to make them look pointed, as though they were animal claws.

Altering images of human hands in this manner may have had a symbolic meaning, possibly connected to this ancient society’s understanding of human-animal relations.

In earlier research in Sulawesi, we found images of human figures with bird heads and other animal features, dated to at least 48,000 years ago. Together, these discoveries suggest that early peoples in this region had complex ideas about humans, animals and identity far back in time.

Not a one-off moment of creativity

The dating shows these caves were used for painting over an extraordinarily long period. Paintings were produced repeatedly, continuing until around the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago – the peak of the most recent ice age.

After a long gap, the caves were painted again by Indonesia’s first farmers, the Austronesian-speaking peoples, who arrived in the region about 4,000 years ago and added new imagery over the much older ice age paintings.

This long sequence shows that symbolic expression was not a brief or isolated innovation. Instead, it was a durable cultural tradition maintained by generations of people living in Wallacea, the island zone separating mainland Asia from Australia and New Guinea.

What this tells us about the first Australians

The implications go well beyond art history.

Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests modern humans reached the ancient continent of Sahul, the combined landmass of Australia and New Guinea, by around 65,000 to 60,000 years ago.

Getting there required deliberate ocean crossings, representing the earliest known long-distance sea voyages undertaken by our species.

Researchers have proposed two main migration routes into Sahul. A northern route would have taken people from mainland Southeast Asia through Borneo and Sulawesi, before crossing onward to Papua and Australia. A southern route would have passed through Sumatra and Java, then across the Lesser Sunda Islands, including Timor, before reaching north-western Australia.

Until now, there has been a major gap in archaeological evidence along these pathways. The newly dated rock art from Sulawesi lies directly along the northern route, providing the oldest direct evidence of modern humans in this key migration corridor into Sahul.

In other words, the people who made these hand stencils in the caves of Sulawesi were very likely part of the population that would later cross the sea and become the ancestors of Indigenous Australians.

Rethinking where culture began

The findings add to a growing body of evidence showing that early human creativity did not emerge in a single place, nor was it confined to ice age Europe.

Instead, symbolic behaviour, including art, storytelling, and the marking of place and identity, was already well established in Southeast Asia as humans spread across the world.

This suggests that the first populations to reach Australia carried with them long-standing cultural traditions, including sophisticated forms of symbolic expression whose deeper roots most probably lie in Africa.

The discovery raises an obvious question. If such ancient art exists in Sulawesi, how much more remains to be found?

Large parts of Indonesia and neighbouring islands remain archaeologically unexplored. If our results are any guide, evidence for equally ancient, or even older, cultural traditions may still be waiting on cave walls across the region.

As we continue to search, one thing is already clear. The story of human creativity is far older, richer and more geographically diverse than we once imagined.

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The research on early rock art in Sulawesi has been featured in a documentary film, Sulawesi l’île des premières images produced by ARTE and released in Europe today.

Maxime Aubert receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Google Arts & Culture and The National Geographic Society.

Adam Brumm receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Adhi Oktaviana receives funding from The National Geographic Society.

Renaud Joannes-Boyau receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Humanity’s oldest known cave art has been discovered in Sulawesi – https://theconversation.com/humanitys-oldest-known-cave-art-has-been-discovered-in-sulawesi-273364