We called for three amendments to the Government’s Crimes and Summary Offences Amendment Bill 2025, to remove confusing terminology, ensure it covers a wider range of groups, and explicitly allows ‘opposing Nazi ideology’ as a reasonable excuse.
Our submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Measures to combat right-wing extremism in NSW focused solely on the provisions of the Government’s Crimes and Summary Offences Amendment Bill 2025, which makes amendments to the existing offence of displaying Nazi symbols, to more broadly capture ‘indicating support for Nazi ideology by invoking imagery or characteristics.’
We made three calls for reform, including:
- Removing the phrase ‘by invoking imagery or characteristics that a reasonable person would consider to be associated with Nazi ideology’ because it is confusing, and because in 2026 a reasonable person may not be aware of the breadth of targets of Nazi ideology, including LGBTQ+ people, people with disability and other ethnic and national minorities
- Ensuring that the aggravated offence, where the conduct is undertaken on or near a Jewish place, also applies to places associated with other communities targeted by Nazis, and
- Introducing an amendment, based on provisions in Victoria and elsewhere, to ensure that displaying Nazi symbols and imagery where it is done reasonably and in good faith in opposition to fascism, Nazism, neo-Nazism or other related ideologies is protected.
