Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice. Will the minister update the House on what steps this government is taking to ensure that our agencies are working to ensure close and effective coordination of the government's counter-terrorism efforts?

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for O'Connor for that question. This government's primary responsibility will always be to keep the Australian people safe. Since the terror alert level was raised from medium to high in September last year, we have witnessed terrorism events in Sydney and Melbourne and our agencies have protected us from three terrorism events since the beginning of this year alone. Sadly, all the signs are that this threat is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Since September last year, 23 people have been charged as a result of eight counter-terrorism operations. We estimate that around 100 Australians are currently fighting in Syria and Iraq and that another 155 people in Australia are supporting those individuals or groups involved in the Syria and Iraq conflicts. Our agencies are seeing a trend in individuals providing support to terrorist groups, including onshore attack planning both here in Australia and abroad.

The Syria and Iraq conflicts are now the main theatre of international terrorism. Identifying and investigating Australians who have travelled to these countries and other international conflict zones to engage in these conflicts is a high priority for our counter-terrorism organisations. Overseas conflicts present a very significant challenge for our law enforcement and intelligence communities, as do returning foreign fighters who would seek to do us harm when they return from fighting in those conflicts. Terrorist attack planning is becoming more frequent, the warning times are reducing and, very troublingly, the perpetrators are getting younger.

In today's landscape it is more important than ever to ensure that our extensive security and non-security efforts to tackle this menace are well coordinated and effective. Law enforcement at all levels is increasingly dependent on quality, accurate information and intelligence to inform decision making. By making our information sharing stronger we will be able to disrupt these terrorist threats. It is for this reason that the Prime Minister has today announced the appointment of Greg Moriarty as Australia's new coordinator for counter-terrorism to ensure that our security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies continue to work together, as they have done, in a coordinated fashion.

We must ensure that we remain ahead of the terrorists at all times. It is critical that this government continues to engage across all of our agencies and also, very importantly, with our state and territory partners, who continue to play a vital role in countering terrorism. We want to make sure that we do everything possible to keep the Australian people safe from terrorist attacks at home and also that we work together to prevent Australians from participating in these overseas conflicts. These step show that the Commonwealth will continue to strengthen Australia's counter-terrorism arrangements and that we will continue to do everything in our power to keep the Australian people safe from this menace.