No member of Australia's Jewish community feels safe. Their fear of violence has been growing since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli attack on Gaza as overseas conflicts and hatreds sadly get imported into Australia.

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If you did not know about that fear of violence, you certainly know about it now.

As Australia tries to do something about addressing these fears, our jurisprudence will change in subtle but significant ways. We will be rebalancing rights, duties, and freedoms.

Law does not develop in the abstract. It develops in response to society's needs and desires - to its culture and history. Law is dynamic even though it may not seem to be.

Australia has developed as a multicultural society made up of people from a huge diversity of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and racial backgrounds. It is a liberal, rule-of-law democracy.

We have cherished freedom of speech but also responded to a rightful expectation of people to be free from fear of violence. That means going beyond merely making the violence itself unlawful and punishing it.

This legal balancing in the face of assaults on the freedom from fear of violence is not new. We have tried rebalances in the past, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

Violence in many areas has decreased, but still too many live in fear.

This year, 43 women have been murdered in domestic and family violence in Australia. Too many live in constant fear of violence in the home. Too many women are harassed, verbally abused, and assaulted outside the home, and usually fear violence alone outside at night.

Racial violence remains too high. Verbal and physical attacks against people showing apparel signifying religion are far too frequent.

This time last year, the fifth Islamaphobia in Australia report detailed 309 in-person incidents between January 2023 and December 2024 - up two and a........

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