Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister eloquently began his national security statement last week in the following way:

When innocent people are dying at the hands of violent extremists, no matter where in the world this is happening, hard questions are asked of societies like our own—hard questions for which there are no easy answers. For all freedom-loving nations, the message could not be clearer: if we want to preserve the values that underpin our open, democratic societies, we will have to work resolutely with each other to defend and protect the freedoms we hold dear.

I believe that this issue, the rise of Islamic extremism and the challenge to our most fundamental Western values, will be the issue of our generation. We discuss this in the context of the atrocities in Paris where 130 people were murdered by sympathisers of ISIS. But, tragically, this is just the most recent attack by Islamists. Earlier in the year, journalists and Jews were targeted in Paris in the Charlie Hebdo attacks. In Australia, in the middle of Sydney, Man Haron Monis took hostage a cafe full of ordinary Australians for almost 17 hours. Tragically, two people were killed. We then watched as a 15-year-old boy brandishing a pistol shot dead Curtis Cheng outside the Parramatta police station.

These are the attacks where the terrorists have inflicted casualties. Australian authorities have stopped many other attacks by ISIS sympathises, including planned attacks on the MCG, our modern-day Colosseum. Since September 2014, 26 people have been charged as a result of 10 counter-terrorism operations around Australia. That is more than one-third of the terrorism related charges since 2001. Future attacks on Australian soil are now probable, according to our security agencies.

As the Paris attacks show, terrorists could strike anywhere—at the theatre, a normal cafe, a sport event or an office building. The terrorists seek to instil fear in our society. I have been in parliament just five years but, in that time, the official threat levels have risen, a number of attacks have occurred, including in Endeavour Hills, just across the hills from my electorate, and the amount of security is noticeably higher. Armed officers now guard this building.

The Prime Minister is right: in such a situation, hard questions are asked of our society. That includes questions such as: how did it come to this? What is the fundamental cause? Does Islam play any role? How can we prevent further atrocities occurring? These are difficult questions in part because of our strong desire to not wrongly offend or characterise the vast majority of Muslims in Australia and abroad who are just going about their daily lives like anyone else. However, we cannot ignore the fact that the violence is conducted in the name of Islam. It is also important not to deny the link, as it neuters the important voices that seek to challenge the religious interpretation of the extremists. So, as tough as these questions are, and as difficult as they are to answer, we must have a mature, open conversation about the issues. If we do not discuss them maturely then a Pauline Hanson may rise to discuss them in a very divisive way. This was the lesson of her rise in the 1990s.

In my view, there are three interconnected issues that must be addressed. The first is destroying ISIS in Syria and Iraq, as it has become the poisonous source of information, propaganda and organisational capability that is coordinating or at least inspiring much of the violent extremism today. Defeating ISIS is the ultimate aim of the coalition effort led by the United States. Australia has the second largest contribution of the 60 nations involved in the effort in Iraq. We have six FA18s involved in missions in that theatre, with 240 personnel in the Air Task Group, 90 special forces advisers and around 300 soldiers training the Iraqi army at Taji. The special forces are authorised by our government to advise and assist Iraq's Counter Terrorism Service in the field at headquarters level.

There is debate about whether we need to do more, including having troops on the ground. Clearly this could not be done without the leadership of the United States. Further, as the Prime Minister has noted, the government of Iraq believes that large-scale Western troop operations in its country could be counterproductive. If there were any request to a change in Australia's contribution to the effort by our allies, that would be considered by the government.

The second issue is to ensure that we are doing everything we can to stop terrorism occurring on Australian soil. The government has boosted the resources of our security agencies and we have introduced five new packages of counter-terror legislation. This has included reviewing ASIO, ensuring the AFP has the necessary powers in relation to control orders and preventative detention orders, legislating mandatory retention of metadata and, overall, ensuring our criminal law is effective in all areas. Last year, the government committed an additional $630 million to better resource our security agencies. Taken all together, our agencies are now much better equipped to tackle the threat of terrorism head on. But more can always be done.

Finally, we have to address the ideological foundations that provide the platform for extremists to commit violence. This is an ideological battle for the hearts of minds of people as much as it is a policing matter. As British Prime Minister David Cameron said:

No one becomes a terrorist from a standing start.

He said that:

It starts with a process of radicalisation. When you look in detail at the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences, it is clear that many of them were first influenced by what some would call non-violent extremists.

It may begin with hearing about the so-called Jewish conspiracy and then develop into hostility to the West and fundamental liberal values, before finally becoming a cultish attachment to death. Put another way, the extremist world view is the gateway, and violence is the ultimate destination.

This is what we must be clear about: the cause of the threat we face is the extremist ideology itself.

There are, in my view, too many journalists, leftists, social commentators and community leaders who subscribe to so-called causative factors to explain the violence and mass murder. They suggest it is poverty, our foreign policy or our security laws that are to blame. But this is wrong and must be rejected. No-one commits mass murder because they are out of a job and struggling with their finances. Moreover, many terrorists come from middle-class families and have a good education. Our foreign policy, including our support for the state of Israel, is equally not to blame. The biggest terrorist attack—9/11—occurred before the Iraq war, the intervention most commonly named. Our security laws have been tightened for good reason, but they are blind in their application. No, it is the extremist ideology that is to blame.

We must tackle the violence with our tougher security laws and enhanced intelligence and police capabilities, but equally we must tackle the non-violent creed that is the platform for violence. This means rooting out the hate preachers. It means ensuring that our schools teach liberal democratic values. It means community leaders denouncing not just the violence but also the wild conspiracy theories about the West's intentions to destroy Islam or the supposed terrible deeds of the Jews. It means giving a stronger platform for moderate Muslim leaders so that their voices do not get drowned out by extremists.

The government have started the effort. Our investment in programs for countering violent extremism have tripled over the past four years to more than $40 million. In June this year, the government hosted the first regional summit on countering extremism. In October the Prime Minister convened in Canberra the national meeting on countering violent extremism, bringing together all the key policy and law enforcement officials from around the country. In these meetings, together with the many other meetings across government, our police forces and our community leaders assist in developing best practice to stamp out extremism. But no one single model for countering violent extremists will work in every area or every community. All community leaders must come together and work together to stamp out this extremism, which has no place in modern Australia. This is how we can win the challenge of our generation: defeating ISIS abroad, preventing terror attacks on our shores through tougher security laws and enhanced security capabilities, and countering the extremist ideology that gives the platform for violence. Our nation is built on values of democracy, freedom and tolerance. We have the greatest multicultural society on earth. But the extremists challenge these core values and our way of life. We cannot let them succeed and we will not let them succeed.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The shocking attacks in Paris on Friday, 13 November 2015, as the member for Aston said, asked hard questions of the world. They were the latest example of perverse brutality, extreme violence and pure evil applied against innocent citizens going about their everyday business. Yet more lives were lost to the actions of terrorists who act in ways that show they hate freedom and want to impose a different world view by force. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull quite rightly expressed the nation's anger at these callous attacks, joined in that sentiment by the opposition leader and members on both sides of this House. He expressed our resolve—the resolve that this parliament must have if we are to respond to resurgent terrorism effectively—to contain it and, over time, squeeze the life out of it, to ease the threat confronting our citizens now and in the future. Entirely eliminating the sophisticated terrorist threat amongst us and around the world may never be possible, but containing it and minimising potential attacks remains an urgent aim. It requires unflinching resolve in this parliament and within the agencies involved in national security matters, whose duty it is to keep us safe.

To adapt our own responses to the global war on terror will require sustained vigilance, agility, and freedom of action for the    police and our security and intelligence agencies. I know that Australian police and security agencies will continue to assess the events in Paris and the other terrorist attacks around the world and elsewhere for any Australian security implications. The Commonwealth and state governments are already considering lessons learned from the horrific Martin Place siege, the murder of Curtis Cheng and the emerging conclusions from over 400 high priority counter-terrorism investigations to inform the need for further changes at the state and federal levels. We must ensure our police and security agencies have the powers they need to respond effectively to those who hate us and our way of life. As a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I am proud that our committee has assisted the passage of four tranches of national security legislation that have already passed through the parliament. Another is on its way. Over 136 recommendations made by our committee have been accepted by the government, and I congratulate the members for Wannon and Holt for their chairmanship and deputy chairmanship of our committee.

That work must go on, that bipartisanship must continue, because, as recent events have shown, Australia can no longer rely on its unique geopolitical circumstances to protect it from the contagion of resurgent terrorism. Terrorism's touch is bad enough, but it is never more shocking than when our own people, our own citizens, are involved. Our sense of collective betrayal is felt most keenly when both dual citizens and those born here put barbarous transnational ideologies ahead of their duty to Australia and its people. Their hatred of who we are and how we live is nurtured by a potent elixir of extremist vitriol, ignorance and religious distortion. Terrorist groups have learned—and continue to learn—how to undertake their tradecraft with guile and cunning. There is no doubt they are now more agile, adaptive and deceptive than they were just 12 months ago. They often remain dormant before striking ruthlessly—seemingly out of nowhere. The attacks in Paris suggest they have also learnt to control their blind rage, carefully selecting targets that maximise loss of life and leave as little detection footprint as possible, either through sophisticated encryption or a return to the closed-cell tradecraft of a bygone era, when face-to-face contact and veiled communication were de rigueur.

We must continue to devastate the terrorist leadership overseas at every opportunity. I am talking about not letting their leaders have the freedom of action they need to plan, to communicate, to resupply, to be able to fund the activities they undertake, and, perhaps most importantly, to keep the flow of recruits flowing through the terrorist training camps and into western cities. At home, we must listen most to those at the coalface of our counter-terrorism responses. Australian authorities are immersed in massive-scale information and data filtering, trying to uncover figurative terrorist needles in voluminous investigative haystacks. We must support their efforts by giving them the powers they need to hold suspects and control their activities until information can be thoroughly assessed. That includes the power to deal with very young suspects whose involvement in terrorist activity is, shockingly, becoming even more prevalent. Terror victim Curtis Cheng was shot by a 15-year-old. Of the many hundreds of high-profile counter-terrorism investigations currently underway, it is clear that other teenagers and pre-teenagers are being drawn into terror networks.

Our police and security agencies have discovered concerning links across Australia and international borders, putting a premium on our counter-terrorism cooperation with allies, partners and friends. We must ensure that information shared with these partners is adequately protected during court processes, including enabling only appropriately cleared judges to consider this evidence, instead of a wider legal fraternity. Additionally, we need to consider if the time that control orders can be put in place is appropriate. Inevitably, complex investigations are long and painstaking, as terrorists strive to continually adapt to agency tactics and powers. They often use our own laws, which put a premium on civil liberties, against us. The threat of resurgent terrorism means that we have to err on the side of the victims and potential victims in our society. When there are multiple suspects arrested, and terabytes of information to assess, let's give our agencies the time they need to unpick, decipher and build briefs of evidence. We must give our agencies the reasonable time they need to accomplish this.

As I said in my first speech in this parliament, nurturing a stronger sense of community and citizenship is at the forefront of my priorities as a politician. So I believe more must be done to address terrorism from within. The Australian Citizenship Amendment Bill, currently being debated in the federal parliament, addresses the conduct of dual citizens. It allows us to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals who by their demonstrated unlawful conduct breach their allegiance to Australia, its laws, its democratic beliefs and its collective values. They have failed to abide by their most important obligation as a citizen—to live a life that is at the very least lawful and ideally one of constructive contribution to our society. Doing so demonstrates a tangible allegiance to our nation and, as I have previously said, is a moral and ethical compact. It is collective opportunity built on the recognition of individual responsibility.

But it is well beyond time that we also had a discussion about suspending the citizenship of Australian-born people—not just dual citizens—who are convicted of serious terrorist offences. I am not talking about making them stateless—I would never suggest that we breach the statelessness convention—but suspending their citizenship. That puts the onus on them, after they have served their time for a serious terrorist offence, to appear before , for example, an immigration court to justify the restoration of the rights that they receive as citizens of this great country. By pledging allegiance to transnational terrorism and acting out their perverse tactics on our streets, these people forfeit their right to be considered Australian. Until citizenship is restored, they can forget about holding a passport, accessing family reunion provisions or the many other benefits bestowed by the gift of citizenship.

I accept that this is a difficult conversation. But in light of the events in Paris, Sydney, Canada, London, Bangkok and other areas of terrorist carnage it is a conversation we must have. I know that some of the changes being proposed to respond to resurgent terrorism are still offensive to some. But that is because the circumstances that led to the need for these measures are themselves unique and offend our collective values. The nature of the new security order today is so critical as to make redundant the all too familiar and orthodox war of words between dissenting factions of our, thankfully, open society. This usually comes down to those who say they are merely defending human rights in objecting to counter-terrorism measures. But in doing so they are making life even more difficult for those charged with the responsibility of actually protecting these same rights for all Australians while at the same time keeping us safe.

Many of the objections I have heard are impractical nonsense. Security agencies are damned if they do and damned if they don't! This verbal and literal stand-off can sometimes assume the dimensions of undergraduate debate—relevant to a point but with a tendency to stray quickly to the emotive, fatuous and impractical. This, of course, reflects the luxury and pleasant good fortune of undergraduates—defending, for example, the right of hate preachers to hate, to incite and to recruit. To them—or to those who never grew up—is extended the gift of the privileged exploration of ideas without concomitant responsibility for the associated outcomes and certainly not for national security or the preservation of human life.

But the security stakes in Australia are now infinitely too high for such luxury. Australian lives are at risk and our way of life is under threat. Rather, above all else, it is a time for constructive practical action and informed dialogue of the very kind most likely to help, not hinder, our dedicated security agencies. That we have now entered the 15th year of global terrorism since 9/11 only adds to the need to do more and differently than has already been done. Terrorism is a vile organism which mutates continually. Our security forces are changing too and will further adapt, as required, to counter the former's increasingly amorphous threat profile.

But, unless we make further important legislative changes to internal security powers now, we will in effect compel our security agencies to fight terrorism on our behalf with one arm tied behind their backs. To date, Australia has been at pains to err in favour of the individual. It is now time to err consciously in favour of the vast majority of peace-loving Australians. The four pieces of counter-terrorism legislation passed to date are not the end of the government's resolve and anti-terror measures. But the Australian government intends, one way or another, to win this fight.

Now is the time to lend our full support to policing and security agencies and not burden them further with nonsensical public commentary or 'half-facts'. Suggestions by misguided commentators such as the Australian Lawyers Alliance that the extended questioning of terror suspects is torture or evidence of a totalitarian state are irresponsible nonsense. Australian police investigators are not members of a military junta or a totalitarian state. References to torture in regard to the extended questioning of terrorist suspects and claims that this is evidence of a totalitarian state are offensive nonsense. These police actions have nothing whatsoever to do with torture. Rather, they are consistent with a desire to methodically unravel the often labyrinthine nature of the radicalisation jigsaw.

Above all, our police and security agencies are trying to gather facts—legally and humanely. In the Curtis Cheng case for example, Australian police investigators are trying to achieve two clear objectives. The first is to get to the bottom of a murder and the second is to seek to avert similar violence in the future. The only torture involved is that which will now be visited upon the families directly affected by this appalling crime—that of both the victim and of the perpetrator, who are each now consigned to a never-ending purgatory of whys and what-ifs.

Despite the eloquent grandstanding by the left-wing commentariat and serial individual rights spruikers Australian government agencies, not least the police, will continue to strive to keep our society safe. To date, their collective dedication and vigilance has unearthed and foiled multiple domestic terror threats and continues to closely track the activities of hundreds of wayward Australians who have succumbed to the siren song of transnational terrorism.

This immense interagency effort has been carried out with forensic patience and balanced public comment. The sustained professionalism of those involved reflects very great credit upon them. It also serves as a constructive model for would-be public commentators to consider emulating. I have strong faith that my fellow Australians will not be taken in by the ideological claptrap of those whose misguided and ideological offerings are part of the problem and will lend their support to the efforts of our police and security agencies. I thank the House.