Australia’s attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, announced on Tuesday that the Australian government will bring in laws to ban the public display of the Nazi salute.

The new amendments, to be introduced on Wednesday, will make the Nazi salute a criminal offence under Commonwealth law.

Mr Dreyfus said in a statement on the attorney general’s website that this would make it “clear there is no place in Australia for those who seek to glorify hatred.”

“The amendments will ensure that no one will be allowed to glorify or profit from acts and symbols which celebrate the Nazis and their evil ideology,’’ the statement said.

“There is absolutely no place in Australia for hatred, violence and anti-Semitism. The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill sends a clear message that there is no place in Australia for acts and symbols that glorify the horrors of the Holocaust and terrorist acts,’’ the statement added.

In June this year, the Australian government moved to ban the public display and sale of Nazi symbols and paraphernalia.

Initially, the Nazi salute had not been included in the legislation for the national ban but was left to the discretion of the individual states and territories.

In October, three men were arrested and charged in Sydney after allegedly performing a Nazi salute outside the Sydney Jewish Museum.

In 2022, Victoria became the first Australian state to ban the public display of the Nazi swastika.

It then expanded its legislation to include the salute following clashes between transgender rights protesters and neo-Nazis in Melbourne earlier this year.

In August, the government of the Australian state of Tasmania became the first in the country to bring in a law banning the Nazi salute. 

(dpa/NAN)