The Religion and Ethics Report - Separate stories podcast · ABC

Social cohesion: the limits of the law

·10 min·1 clip

Criminologist Kieran Hardy identifies the fundamental irony: trying to build social cohesion through laws that punish speech might be a self-defeating conundrum.

Criminologist Kieran Hardy discusses new Australian hate speech laws passed after the Bondi massacre, analyzing whether legally banning specific phrases can genuinely foster social cohesion or if it risks undermining free speech. He argues that true cohesion comes from addressing socio-economic factors like cost of living and inequality, not from punitive laws that may raise public tension.

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