Freedom Party Vows Push Against New Hate Speech Laws Amid Concerns Over ‘Sam Kerr’ Clause

The ‘Sam Kerr’ clause compels prosecutors to consider the ’social, historical, and cultural' context of an offence.

Australian football star Sam Kerr departs Kingston Crown Court after a pre-trial hearing on January 14, 2025 in Kingston upon Thames, England. The Matildas star, who also plays professionally for Chelsea in the Women's Super League, is facing charges of "racially aggravated harassment" of a police officer related to an incident in Twickenham on Jan. 30, 2023. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Freedom Party representative Greg Cheesman says he'll be active during the next federal election to highlight issues with Victoria’s new hate speech laws that contain further protections for disadvantaged individuals from prosecution.

The Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill passed the upper house 22 votes to 17 on April 2 with support from the Greens and Animal Justice Party.

It expands Victoria’s hate speech laws to protect people if they are vilified based on disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics or sexual orientation. People who breach these new laws will face five years in prison.

Further, the bill includes a contentious “Sam Kerr” clause that compels prosecutors to consider the “social, historical and cultural context” (pdf) of an offence.

The clause was inspired by Australian women’s soccer captain Sam Kerr who was charged, but found not guilty of racially aggravated harassment, after calling a British police officer “stupid and white“ during an drunken expletive-ridden tirade at a police station.

The Victorian government’s clause is aimed at protecting certain disadvantaged groups or people from prosecution in future, or as the Animal Justice Party’s Georgie Purcell puts it: to prevent the weaponisation of vilification laws against their original purpose.

Concerns the Full Consequences Are Yet to be Seen

Victorian Opposition Leader Brad Battin said the Bill would limit free speech, and his party opposed it “the whole way through.”

Cheesman also holds concerns that the passing of these laws will mean a further erosion of civil liberties.

“The number-one [priority] is freedom of speech. Being a freedom party, we’re very passionate about that,” he told The Epoch Times.

“That’s because if you cannot say what you are thinking, then society will fall apart.

“If you control how people speak, you will control how they think. If you control how they think, then you no longer have a free society.”

Cheesman said too many Victorians accepted the hate speech laws without realising the potential future consequences.

The Freedom Party was founded and registered in 2022 by Morgan Jonas on platform critical of lockdowns and vaccines. It did not win any seats.

The party is one of a plethora that occupy the right and conservative spectrum of Australian politics alongside One Nation, Libertarians, and the People First Party.

A ‘Multi-Tiered’ Justice System

The British Australian Community (BAC) has spoken out against the “Sam Kerr clause” saying it introduces a “multi-tiered” justice system.

“The Victorian legislation seeks to ensure that a future Sam Kerr could never be prosecuted because despite being a star female soccer player and one of the highest paid in the UK, she should be considered marginalised and oppressed whilst the London bobby [police officer] she insulted is viewed as historically privileged,” said BAC President Harry Richardson, in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“Victoria’s twisted perversion of Australian law isn’t just two-tier justice, it is multi-tier, with white males being subordinated at the bottom of what looks like an Anglophobic, ethnic hierarchy.”

Fellow Conservative Party Also Concerned

Fellow minor party, the Libertarians, shares these views.

Earlier this month, Libertarian New South Wales MP, John Ruddick, told The Epoch Times that the new federal-level hate crime laws were “anti-free-speech.”

That Bill was passed in February in the wake of a series of anti-Semitic incidents, including one that was revealed to be a fake terrorism plot.

“Laws should not be made in a moment when the public is alarmed about something,” Ruddick said.

Cheesman also that if the Liberal Party took a stronger stand on freedom of speech, there would not be the slew of minor right-wing parties that exist today.

“If all the main parties were actually doing their jobs, there wouldn’t be a need for us either.”

Cheesman says his party is now focused on the Victorian state elections, set to be held on Nov. 28 next year.