Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia website disappears after Labor passes sweeping hate speech laws

The website of a controversial pan-Islamist group in the crosshairs of new hate speech laws has gone offline only hours after MPs took to the floor.

Hizb ut-Tahrir had been singled out by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess ahead of the passing of Labor’s new hate speech laws on Tuesday evening, which will empower Mr Burke to designate so-called hate groups.

Under the reforms, it will become a criminal offence to be a member of, recruit for, get funds to, or direct activities of, a hate group.

The neo-Nazi Nationalist Socialist Network (NSN) said it would disband last week after also being targeted.

On Wednesday morning, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Australian website, which previously carried the organisation’s public statements and information material, was offline.

“The website is not available,” a message stated when attempting to access the site.

Attempts to access the website via an VPN also failed to yield results.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has for years stoked controversy.

Mr Burgess told a Senate inquiry into the new hate speech laws the group knew how to purposefully operate within the bounds of the law of hate speech and incitement.

The group also took aim at Mr Burgess in a January letter in which they accused the ASIO boss of having “eviscerated any claim to impartiality” during a 2025 lecture before the Lowy Institute in which he likened Hizb ut-Tahrir’s “offensive rhetoric and insidious strategy” to the NSN.

Hizb ut-Tahrir accused Mr Burgess of “Islamophobic tropes painting Muslims as fifth columns in this country”, and denied it was seeking to establish a caliphate in Australia, nor by force.

Hizb Ut Tahrir is banned in the UK, Germany, China, Indonesia, and a number of Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries.

Adherents follow a strict, pan-Islamist form of the Muslim faith, and have in the past called for the establishment of a united Islamic caliphate.

Under the reforms, the Minister for the AFP, which is currently Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, must be satisfied a group has “engaged in, prepared, planned or assisted in a hate crime relating to race, national or ethnic origin” or has “advocated hate crimes relating to race, national or ethnic origin” to designated a hate group.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said she secured changes that would mean a designation must be supported by ASIO and that the opposition leader must be briefed.