A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry will recommend banning the phrase “globalise the intifada” when it is used to incite violence, but won’t call for banning the statement outright or recommend a ban on phrases such as “from the river to sea”.
The Labor MP Edmond Atalla, the chair of the inquiry, confirmed the draft recommendations to Guardian Australia ahead of a final closed meeting on Thursday.
The NSW opposition, which has described the inquiry as “rushed” and having a predetermined outcome, has said the recommendations are confusing and seek to criminalise conduct that was already unlawful.
The inquiry will publish its report to the state government on Friday, in time for legislation to be voted on after parliament returns next week. It was only open for public submissions for three weeks, and more than 500 individual submissions will not be published.
The inquiry’s deputy chair, the Labor MP Hugh McDermott, said amendments could be made after the meeting by the Labor-majority committee. He defended the decision to hold the inquiry over the holiday period, with multiple committee members, including Atalla, overseas for some of it.
“[The committee has] been in discussions nearly every single day,” he said.
The shadow attorney general, Damien Tudehope, on Thursday said the opposition was “deeply unimpressed” with the draft recommendation, which he said would “ban one slogan but only in circumstances already captured by … the Crimes Act”.
“If conduct is already unlawful under existing provisions, this recommendation adds nothing except confusion, and risks giving the false impression that other uses are acceptable.”
The phrase “globalise the intifada”, from the Arabic word for uprising or “shaking off”, is used by pro-Palestine supporters in reference to uprisings against Israel that began in 1987 and 2000. Some members of the Jewish community have said it is a call to violence against them.
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Both the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) called for the inquiry to create a new offence for what they called “hateful slogans”, including “globalise the intifada” and “from the river to the sea”, but the draft report does not recommend any other phrases be banned.
Organisations including Palestine Action Group, the Jewish Council of Australia and the Australian National Imams Council rejected the idea that the phrases were inherently hateful or antisemitic and said a ban would curtail constitutional freedoms.
In her submission to this month’s inquiry, the constitutional law expert Prof Anne Twomey said the proposal to ban particular political chants gave rise to “difficult legal issues in areas of the jurisprudence which have not yet been fully developed”.
“It is unrealistic to expect a parliamentary committee, in such a very short time over the Christmas holiday break, with no oral hearings and presumably few submissions by experts in the field, to come up with the desired constitutionally challenge-proof law.”
On Thursday, Twomey told Guardian Australia the recommendation “would be constitutionally much safer than an outright ban”.
NSW already has offences – 93Z and 93ZAA in the NSW Crimes Act – for inciting violence and inciting hatred on the grounds of race, but McDermott said a new offence for “globalise the intifada” was needed – but only where it is used to incite violence.
“We believe that by naming ‘globalise the intifada’, there is a higher chance of prosecution,” he said.
There would be defences for the artistic, academic and educational use of the phrase, although it was not immediately clear how incitement to violence would be determined. Atalla suggested the phrase’s “historical context” would be enough.
“‘Globalise the intifada’ as words on their own chanted probably mean nothing to a lot of people, but to the Jewish people, it threatens.”
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has repeatedly signalled his desire to ban “globalise the intifada” after the Bondi attack. On Thursday he reiterated that the inquiry was independent, saying he did not expect legislation to be tabled straight away when parliament resumes next week.
“It’s a parliamentary inquiry. They’ll present their report. I’ll have more to say when it’s given to us.”
McDermott said the committee process was “a first step”, but said holding a shorter, closed inquiry over the holiday period was justified by the Bondi attack.
Submission extensions were granted to the Board of Deputies and the ECAJ because of the significant demands from supporting the Jewish community after 14 December.
McDermott also defended the decision to only publish 150 of 700 submissions. “It’s not unusual for committees not to publish every submission,” he said, saying some individuals had asked not to have theirs published.
“Also, there are ones that we just don’t believe add to the report.”
Atalla will attend the final meeting via video link from overseas on Thursday afternoon. He said he was on a humanitarian mission to Namibia with his Mount Druitt church and said his work as chair had not been interrupted. Other committee members have joined previous meetings from overseas.
The committee has previously met twice, first on 22 December to set the inquiry’s terms of reference, and then on 13 January after the closing of the deadline for public submissions. McDermott insisted committee members had read all 700 submissions, which he said ranged from one sentence to 30 to 40 pages.
It has also been asked to consider existing hate speech laws, as well as “best practice” from overseas, including in the UK. The phrase “globalise the intifada” has not been banned outright in the UK, but police have signalled their intention to arrest people who call for “intifada” under existing offences, as part of widespread crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests.
On Monday, three people were charged for chants calling for an intifada at a protest in London in December, the Metropolitan police said.
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