Queensland LNP to Ban 2 Pro-Palestine Phrases

Queensland will become the first state to outlaw pro-Palestine chants, “From the river to the sea,” and “globalise the intifada” as the Crisafulli government moves to legislate new anti-hate measures.

The Liberal National Party government will introduce new offences and penalties for some existing offences focused on “terrorist symbols and phrases, and safety around places of worship.”

Maximum penalties will also increase from two to five years’ imprisonment for assaulting or threatening a person officiating a religious ceremony.

A new offence will apply to impeding or harassing people attending religious services, with a maximum of three years’ imprisonment.

There will also be a new category to cover wilful damage, making the maximum sentence for purposely damaging a place of worship up to seven years’ jail.

Additionally, the maximum penalty for displaying terrorist symbols will jump from six months’ imprisonment to two years.

The list of applicable symbols has also been expanded to include terrorist organisations or state sponsors of terrorism including the Hamas flag and emblem, the ISIS flag, the Hezbollah emblem, and Nazi symbols.

Anyone distributing, publishing, displaying or reciting a prohibited phrase, such as “globalise the intifada” or “from the river to the sea” will now face up to two years in jail.

“We called this out from the beginning, we said we’d act, and through this legislation, we are delivering a strong and considered response,” Queensland Premier Crisafulli said in a statement on Feb. 8.

“This is about drawing a clear line—and stamping out the embers of hatred that were allowed to burn unchecked for too long—to ensure we protect Queenslanders.”

The move follows the federal and state New South Wales government announced a raft of new hate speech laws and tighter gun reforms.

The Queensland premier has vowed not to support the national gun buyback scheme, saying it did not directly address the issues of anti-Semitism.

Jewish Group Welcome Laws

Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies President Jason Steinberg said the new laws would help Jewish Australians feel safer in the wake of the Bondi terror attack on Dec. 14, 2025.

“For the past two and a half years, the Jewish community has endured unprecedented levels of hate, intimidation and fear and the reforms send a clear message that antisemitism and hate have no place in Queensland,” he said.

“This bill moves beyond words and delivers real, practical protections for our community and for all people targeted by hate.

“This is not only a welcome and necessary step for Jewish people, it is vital for rebuilding the confidence we have lost as hatred has run rampant.”

Slogan Concerns

Australian Jewish Association President Robert Gregory explained why the two phrases needed to be banned.

“Calls to ‘globalise the intifada’ invoke a term that is inseparable from the First and Second Intifadas, which were campaigns of mass violence against Jews, including suicide bombings, stabbings and lynchings that killed more than 1,000 people,” he told The Epoch Times.

“Any attempt to sanitise that language is disingenuous. A call to globalise it represents a direct threat to Jewish safety in Australia. At Bondi Beach, we saw how that would look.”

Gregory also said “from the river to the sea” was a well-established call for the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state of Israel, which borders the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

“It has been explicitly used by Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation in Australia,” he said.

Opposition to New Laws

Yet the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties (QCCL) has taken issue with the criminalisation of slogans, calling it “a frontal assault on freedom of speech in Queensland.”

QCCL Vice President Terry O’Gorman said the meaning of the slogans was “highly contested.”

O’Gorman acknowledged the slogans can be seen by Jewish Australians as statements that escalate tension and fear, but argued that those using the phrases in their demonstrations were doing so in critique of Israel.

“Indeed, banning any slogan in public protests particularly gatherings that does not contain an immediate incitement to violence is an unjustified attack and limitation on freedom of speech,” he told The Epoch Times.

“Particularly banning or criminalising a catch-cry especially in public protest situations merely because it may cause offence is an affront to free speech rights which have quite properly been protected in Queensland since the dark days of the Bjelke Peterson street march ban in 1977.”