Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on actions the government is taking to keep Australians safe from terrorism?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for Robertson for her question. As the member for Robertson well knows, the safety of our community is the highest responsibility of government. I want to thank all those who are involved in discharging that responsibility on our behalf: the Australian Federal Police, the state police, members of the Australian Defence Force, and members of ASIO and our other security agencies. Regrettably, their vigilance is more necessary than ever, because the terror threat to our country is high and rising. I regret to say that there are now well over 100 Australians fighting with terror groups in Iraq and Syria. There are now almost 150 Australians known to be supporting these terror groups here at home. Even more regrettably, there are about 400 individuals known to our security agencies who are talking about violence against their fellow Australians. The inspiration for all this is the Islamist death cult, Daesh or ISIL, which is responsible for the new dark age that is now settling over significant parts of Syria and Iraq.

As we know, to our cost, this death cult is reaching out to our country. We have seen the frenzied attack on two policemen in Victoria and, just before Christmas, we saw the Martin Place atrocity inspired by this death cult. Our community is fighting back: this government has put an extra $630 million into our police and security agencies. There are now counter-terrorism teams at all our international airports; there is biometric screening being rolled out to stop people leaving on false passports; there are 49 additional AFP officers working on counter-terrorism; and we are making a much bigger effort to counter online radicalisation.

Today, Madam Speaker, I released our counter-terrorism review. There will be a national counter-terrorism coordinator to bring the same drive and focus to this as we brought to Operation Sovereign Borders and Operation Bring Them Home. There will be changes to the Citizenship Act to strip or suspend the citizenship of dual nationals involved in terrorism, and we will be strengthening our prohibitions on racial and religious vilification. This is about Australian values. We should never forget the pledge that all of us are encouraged to make at citizenship ceremonies:

I pledge myself to Australia and its people whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I share, as laws I will uphold and obey.

We will keep our country safe; we will never sacrifice our liberties in order to defend them; but we will never let people take advantage of us either.