Incitement to Hatred and Countering Terrorism: Policy Confusion in the UK and Australia

In the UK and Australia, the use of the term ‘hate preachers’ to describe jihadist extremist speakers has become common. In this article, I argue this term is confused, and that the contemporary cause of this confusion lies in new incitement to religious and racial hatred provisions enacted in 2006 and 2010, respectively. To date, scholarly analysis of these provisions has suggested that their primary purpose is to protect vulnerable communities. Analysing the context and justifying discourse of key policymakers during debates, I argue by contrast that their primary purpose is as a counter-terrorism measure, and that both the public debate and the provisions themselves evince and entrench an enduring epistemic confusion.