People found displaying swastikas in public or performing a Nazi salute could be fined up to $20,000 or face a year in jail, under tough new laws passed by the State Parliament today.
The State Government introduced these laws in response to continuing reports of a rise in antisemitic incidents and anti-immigration activities by neo-Nazi groups around Australia.
Nazi symbols represent racist and hateful ideologies. They inflict trauma, fear and harassment on members of our community and are used to recruit and radicalise susceptible people to those ideologies.
The new laws bring South Australia in line with most other Australian states and territories and the Commonwealth.
The new laws will contain comprehensive defences for innocent uses of Nazi symbols including use in good faith for academic, educational, or artistic purposes, and for religious purposes such as the swastika used as a religious symbol of peace in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain faiths.
A Parliamentary Select Committee established in 2022 heard evidence from SAPOL, the Adelaide Holocaust Museum and Andrew Steiner Education Centre, the History Trust of SA and other groups which formed a valuable basis for the drafting of the new laws.