Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde for his question. The recent shocking attacks in Paris, Mali, Lebanon, Turkey and on a Russian jet over Egypt are a stark reminder that no country, no people, is immune from terrorism. The Australian government is acutely aware that terrorism is a global threat that demands a global response. We are committed to working cooperatively with nations around the world to combat terrorist organisations and Islamic extremists and to counter their hideous ideology. These are matters that I discuss constantly with my counterpart foreign ministers around the world.

Australia is strengthening its high-level security cooperation with key partners in Europe. We are increasing our intelligence exchange with France on foreign terrorist fighters. We are establishing a strategic dialogue at ministerial level with Germany that will address our shared security and counterterrorism concerns. In the Middle East, we are a leading military contributor to the US-led coalition to counter ISIL, Daesh and its affiliates. A network of counterterrorism agreements, including with the United Arab Emirates, is enhancing our cooperation in monitoring the movement of suspected foreign terrorist fighters through Middle East transit hubs, as we seek to deprive the terrorists of the fighters they need to carry out attacks. Closer to home, we are continuing to build capability in South-East Asia to combat terrorism, in particular with Malaysia on regional strategies to counter terrorist narratives and in the Philippines by assisting in the management of prisoners convicted of terrorist offences.

Our extensive security cooperation with Indonesia covers law enforcement, intelligence sharing, blocking terrorist financing, aviation transport security and prison management. This cooperation is all the more urgent, given that there are estimates that around 700 Indonesian foreign terrorist fighters are currently in the Middle East and that around 40 fighters have already returned to Indonesia.

Our experiences in Bali in 2002 and 2005 remind us all too painfully that the risks to Australia posed by radicalised and battle-hardened Islamic extremists in Indonesia cannot ever be underestimated. Disturbingly, the most recent Global Terrorism Index reports that terrorist activity increased by 80 per cent in 2014 to its highest-ever recorded level. And 2015 does not appear to be an improvement on that.

But this is a shared global challenge, and Australia is playing a leading role across the world—with our primary responsibility always to ensure that we keep our people and our country as safe as possible from terrorism.