Palaszczuk government will implement 17 recommendations to counter ‘devastating effects of vilification’ The Palaszczuk government will introduce legislation into Queensland parliament to ban Nazi swastikas as part of a suite of changes to strengthen the state’s response to hate crime and vilification. The legislation would make it a criminal offence to display symbols promoting hatred and causing fear. However, there would be an exemption for Hindus, Buddhists and Jains for whom swastikas are religious symbols. There will also be an exemption for when hate symbols are used for educational purposes. The state’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said late last year police seized a Nazi flag flown near the Brisbane synagogue and that months earlier a train carriage in the suburbs was graffitied with Nazi swastikas. “Nazism is evil. Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. We will not do nothing and allow this angle to grow,” Palaszczuk said in parliament on Thursday. “… They deserve to be punished. Their crimes are not harmless, nor are their ideologies. They ought to be called out …” The Palaszczuk government has accepted all 17 recommendations of a parliamentary report that advised hate crime laws should be strengthened to curb “the devastating effects of vilification”, and will introduce a bill into parliament during the second half of the year.
via guardian: Queensland to ban Nazi swastikas and strengthen hate crime laws