Whenever the Coalition needs someone serious to discuss policy, they send in Jane Hume. Hume’s workload has doubled since Simon Birmingham’s retirement (he was the other ‘serious and sensible voice’ the Coalition sent in when it needed serious and sensible responses) and Hume was already doing double time trying to explain the Coalition’s finance policies given Angus Taylor is the lead shadow minister.

Hume was sent out this morning to talk about the hate laws which the parliament will debate is debating in earnest. In a nutshell, both major parties are in agreement the law needs to be strengthened. The government wants to apply criminal penalties for urging or threatening violence against a target group, rather than having civil penalties apply, while also reducing the threshold for prosecution to recklessness, rather than intention to incite or threaten violence. The Coalition wants to go further and specifically mention places of worship with Peter Dutton entirely focused on anti-Semitism.

Given it wasn’t that long ago (politically speaking) that the Coalition wanted to scrape 18C and the racial discrimination laws altogether, the ABC’s Sally Sara asks Hume whether that was a mistake by the Coalition, given it now wants to strengthen the hate laws.

Hume:

“That was a debate of some time ago, and the issue was around the wording around at what racial discrimination looked like. I think that what we’ve seen here is a specific rise in anti-Semitism, and that’s something that we need to deal with in the strongest possible terms. Peter Dutton has been very clear and very strong on this. We have to respond to the weak responses that we’ve seen so far in order to protect our own communities.”