Canberra: Due to an increase in far-right activity, Australia's government plans to pass legislation that will make swastikas and other Nazi symbols illegal nationwide, attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said on Thursday.
The federal law would go further by outlawing the trade in such materials, Dreyfus said, even though the majority of Australian states already forbid such Nazi symbols. "This kind of violent far-right activity has increased. We believe that a federal law is necessary, and I'll be presenting one to the Parliament next week, Dreyfus told Nine Network television.
We are in charge of import and export. We want to put an end to the trade in memorabilia of this nature or in anything bearing those Nazi symbols," Dreyfus said. "Hatred-spreading has no place in Australia."
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It's unclear when a ban might pass or go into effect because the Labour Party government only has control over the House of Representatives and not the Senate. The law would make it a crime to display Nazi symbols and carry a sentence of up to a year in jail.
Among a number of exceptions to the rule would be the display of symbols for artistic, educational, or religious purposes. It won't have an impact on how those who practise Hinduism, Buddhism, or Jainism use the swastika.
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Dreyfus, a Jew, claimed that although there were few neo-Nazis in Australia, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the country's top spy agency, had expressed worries about their activity in the previous three years.
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"There are very few people here. I'm hoping it will eventually vanish because it's getting smaller," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp.