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Australia - Community Welcomes Government’s Tough Stance on Hate Crime |
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Australia - After years of inaction, the Victorian Government announced this week it would strengthen the laws against racially motivated crime.
On Tuesday, Attorney-General Rob Hulls said the Sentencing Act would be amended so judges were required to take into account whether the motive of the crime was hatred or vilification.
This amendment will bring Victoria into line with NSW, Western Australia and South Australia. The Government is also considering introducing a specific hate crimes law.
Hulls announcement was made in light of international condemnation of violent attacks on Indian students studying in Melbourne, which have left a number of young men seriously injured.
The attacks were widely condemned, including by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull in parliament on Monday.
Hulls said: “Obviously Victorians have a right to feel safe in their community and we abhor any kind of violence.
“We’ve been working on this for quite some time.”
Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) president John Searle welcomed the changes.
He said the JCCV had been campaigning for years for harsher penalties against perpetrators of hate crimes and would like current racial vilification legislation reviewed.
He condemned the Indian assaults in the strongest possible language, saying they were no different to anti-Semitic attacks.
“The parallels are very clear, these appear to be racially motivated attacks,” Searle said.
“Whether they are attacks committed on Jewish people because they are Jews, or Indians because they are Indian ... it is unacceptable,” Searle said.
“It is unacceptable to have attacks that are committed purely because of the race of the victim.”
The JCCV president also continued the push for Victoria Police to establish a hate crimes unit -– similar to that in NSW.
“I would be very concerned if the police were refusing to acknowledge that these may very well be racially motivated attacks,” he said.
“We called, a while ago, for the establishment of a hate crimes unit and I have maintained those calls. It is something I will take up again with the new chief commissioner.”
The wider multicultural community is supporting the JCCV in its push for a police hate crimes unit.
Ross Barnett, executive officer of the Ethnic Community Council of Victoria, said the organisation did not support the police’s current approach to hate crimes.
“We do believe there is a need for police to have a desk or unit to deal with crimes that are racially based,” Barnett said.
The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) also condemned the Indian attacks, with Victorian president Stefan Oberman saying the group was standing by its fellow students.
Oberman attended a rally in Melbourne’s CBD on Sunday run by the Federation of Indian Students of Australia.
He said he had also spoken with the federation’s president Amit Menghani to express “solidarity with the students of the Indian community”.
In addition, Jewish MP Mark Dreyfus welcomed Hull’s announcement, saying the Jewish community, through the work of community organisations and crime victim Menachem Vorchheimer, have contributed to the Victorian Attorney-General’s decision.
The Government’s sentencing amendment means that if the Ocean Grove footballers, who assaulted Vorchheimer -– an Orthodox man walking home from synagogue with his children in 2006 -– were tried again, their penalties could potentially be harsher.
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