House debates

Monday, 19 June 2017

Private Members' Business

National Security

5:50 pm

Photo of Jason WoodJason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that on Friday, 28 April 2017 four individuals faced court charged with terrorism offences in relation to a 2016 Christmas Day terror plot to attack Melbourne landmarks;

(2) acknowledges the:

(a) excellent work being undertaken by Australia's law enforcement and security agencies to keep the community safe, including:

(i) 61 people charged as a result of 26 counter-terrorism operations around Australia;

(ii) 38 people convicted of terrorism related offences;

(iii) 41 people before the courts for terrorism related offences; and

(iv) 12 major counter-terrorism disruption operations in response to potential attack planning in Australia; and

(b) importance of providing law enforcement agencies with the appropriate powers and resources to disrupt terrorist activity and protect Australians; and

(3) congratulates the Government for its world leading counter-terrorism strategy, including:

(a) eight successful tranches of counter-terrorism and national security legislation;

(b) significant investment of $1.3 billion to support law enforcement and intelligence agencies to combat terrorism;

(c) tripling investment in initiatives to counter violent extremism to $45 million; and

(d) investment in our law enforcement and security agencies to ensure they have the appropriate powers, skills and resources to fight terrorism.

Before entering parliament, I was a member of the Victoria Police force and, more specifically, of the Victorian police counterterrorism unit. From firsthand experience, I got to see the great work our law enforcement do, working in a cooperative manner right across the country. There are two issues, though, when it comes to legislation, which I have had great concern with. I have made numerous speeches in parliament about preventative legislation and the need to question the person who is being held under preventative detention.

To my knowledge, at a Commonwealth level, since this legislation was first introduced under the Howard government, in fact it has never been used. It was set up for the purpose at the time that, if law enforcement believed that a person was going to commit a terrorist offence, the police would have the power to grab that person and hold them in custody to ensure that no offence would take place. They never had the ability to question a person whilst in custody, which to me was something that, right from day one, I said would be a major issue.

When you look at counterterrorism operations, whether here in Australia or overseas, especially when you have multiple offenders and multiple attacks, these are different from any other normal investigation—even, say, a homicide investigation—because terrorism is so difficult when it comes to an investigation. That is for a number of reasons. Quite often those involved, if they are caught beforehand in the planning stage, do not speak English. Also, if an attack has taken place, evidence is often destroyed. And, when it comes to the police investigation, the going round and executing search warrants and seizing computers and mobile phones and potentially picking up secondary offenders, this becomes very involved. Also, to put it another way, when it comes to the need for the questioning prior to an arrest, if law enforcement are aware of a terrorism plan, compared to, say, a drug-trafficking matter, they never have the grace of waiting to see how it will pan out. For example, in my day in the police force, if someone was trafficking drugs, you could allow the buy bust to go down, pick up those involved, collect the drugs and collect the money. When it comes to terrorism, law enforcement do not have that option. They must go in early.

I will come back to the great work of the police, and I mean this in the most sincere terms. Our law enforcement agencies and ASIO working together cooperatively right across the country have just done an incredible job when it comes to early intervention and being involved in ensuring that a number of terrorist plots have never eventuated. We go back to 2005, when planned attacks at the AFL Grand Final at the MCG were averted just two months before the game after police raids disrupted preparations for the attack. During this case, one of the country's largest terrorist trials was told that the plan to attack the MCG had been foiled. The group then decided to target the Crown casino during the Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend or the AFL preseason NAB Cup football finals early the following year. The key prosecution witness, Mr Attiq, an insider who admitted to using his skills as a credit card fraudster to purchase airline tickets, telephone credit and other goods for the group, told the Victorian Supreme Court that he first learned of the proposed targets about a month after ASIO and police raids on members' homes in July 2005. During conversations with Abdul Benbrika, Mr Attiq said he was told that the money raised to finance a terrorist attack on grand final day in September 2005 had been seized by authorities during the raids. This is one example of the great work that is being done by the AFP, state police and ASIO. It was an incredible investigation. Who knows what would have happened if law enforcement working with ASIO had not been able to stop this attack.

There have also been many other attacks, foiled plots—improvised explosive devices in central Melbourne and areas of Federation Square on about Christmas Day last year, a planned Anzac Day attack and the Mother's Day attack, just to list some of the examples in Melbourne. It is also hard to forget the harrowing scenes of the Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney, where Man Monis took the occupants hostage at 2.03 am on 6 December 2014 . A very loud bang was heard as Monis shot towards six hostages fleeing from the building. Police declared the siege over soon after, later confirming that minus was killed in the raid. It was very sad. Our thoughts are always with the victims of terrorism and their family members of those who died and also the three injured.

When it comes to law enforcement, in the Lindt Cafe siege and also during the recent incident in Brighton I take my hat off to the very brave members of the Special Operations Group and their counterparts in New South Wales. I have been told by reliable sources, especially from New South Wales, when members were going into a situation where there was a terrorist, they were sending SMS messages to their partners, basically saying, 'We may not be coming home tonight.' That shows the incredible bravery of these members who are taking out those involved in terrorism related activities. All members of parliament—I know the member for Isaac and the member for Holt, who are in the chamber, have been very strong on this— support our law enforcement agencies. I know the member for Cowan, who also is in the chamber, and I worked together on a MyHack program in my electorate.

This motion today is more about thanking the men and women of the law enforcement agencies right across the country. Since 2001, 39 people have been convicted of terrorism related offences. Twenty-one of them are currently serving custodial sentences, one of whom is a juvenile. There has been legislation go through parliament when people have been concerned about the age of people as young as 14 years of age. Sadly, when it comes to extremism, when it comes to terrorism, age does not seem to matter.

I would like also to mention my great concern about something else that needs to be put in place: community protection intervention orders. These are something that law enforcement need. They would work similarly to a family violence order, especially with young people. Law enforcement do not have any tools in the box to take them before a court to stop people from associating with extremists or going online to view radical material. To me that is something that law enforcement needs to do.

Since 2014 the Turnbull government has invested an additional $1.5 billion to support Australia's efforts to combat terrorism. I know this has the support of the opposition. We recently announced $321 million. We have passed eight tranches of legislation to strengthen the ability of intelligence and law enforcement agencies to investigate, monitor, arrest and prosecute home grown extremists and returning foreign fighters. These agencies include the National Disruption Group; the AFP's online targeting team; Customs' counterterrorism units; the Foreign Fighters Task Force; and the national security operations team, a part of AUSTRAC. ASIO's jihadist network mapping unit is providing vital intelligence to law enforcement to make sure police right across the country have the best information they can get. The National Terrorism Threat Advisory System has been working very effectively, as has the National Security Campaign, the National Security Hotline.

I do mention, I know the Victoria state government is now looking at a pre-arrest questioning. I congratulate it for that. It is going to work similar to preventive detention. My view is that preventative detention, if there is no constitutional reasons, we should have questioning at the Commonwealth level. The problem we are going to have is soon is New South Wales will have pre-arrest questioning, Victoria has pre-arrest questioning so what about the other states and territories? I congratulate the Prime Minister, who has put this on the COAG special agenda with the state premiers to actually look at this issue and address it.

6:00 pm

Photo of Mark DreyfusMark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | | Hansard source

I second the motion and I rise to speak on the member for Latrobe's motion. I join him in acknowledging the excellent work being undertaken by Australia's law enforcement and security agencies to keep our community safe and our nation secure. Much is often said about the important role of national security legislation in ensuring that our law enforcement and security agencies have the powers they need to keep Australians safe, and Labor has consistently taken a bipartisan approach to such legislation. But it must also be recognised that there are limits in the ability of the criminal law to provide a thoroughly adequate response to the threat of terrorism. While terrorism is frequently referred to as a criminal matter, it is a far more complex issue than traditional crimes and it does require a multifaceted response. The traditional criminal law enforcement framework is not by itself equipped to respond to the threat of terrorism.

As a society, we aim to reduce crime. Our general approach is to involve police after a crime has been committed so that investigation and prosecution can occur, criminal sanctions can be imposed to deter and punish criminal activity and, ideally, so that criminals can be rehabilitated. But when it comes to terrorist conduct or a terrorist offence, given that the potential losses are so grievous and the perception of harm caused to society so serious, our paramount objective should be ensuring that our agencies can stop terrorist attacks before they take place and that is why the suite of policies that are often described as countering violent extremism are so important. These policies are essential to responding to the terrorist threat as it now exists because they aim to prevent people from becoming radicalised in the first place.

Our security agencies have advised repeatedly that community harmony is an essential element in helping to prevent the conditions from which terrorism arises. We must focus on increasing social cohesion and on reducing the kind of social isolation that turns people towards radicalism. That is why fostering Australia's multicultural ethos is important for countering violent extremism. We must do all that we can to reject racist discourse in Australian society because that discourse seeks to divide our community by fostering hatred against particular groups. We must also remember that anything we do to increase divisive attitudes towards Muslims is playing into the hands of terrorists. As the former director of ASIO, David Irvine, has said:

… the tiny number of violent extremists does not represent the Islamic communities of Australia – we are talking about a few hundred aberrant souls in a community of nearly half a million – and it is grossly unfair to blame Muslims, who see themselves as a committed component of Australia’s multi-cultural society, for the sins of a tiny minority. Our fight is with terrorism, not with Islam or with our Muslim community.

We should also recognise that the strongest defence against violent extremism lies within the Australian Muslim community itself.

We must work with the Australian Muslim community to identify people at risk of radicalisation and prevent them from going down that path. People who are around those who are marginalised can respond by alerting those who need to know—parents, teachers, community leaders and those within our government—and security agencies who are able to respond. If we focus on prevention—CVE programs that aim at negating the conditions in which radicalisation occurs—we have a much better chance of keeping Australians safe. We will be safer if we can inoculate our young men and women against radicalism, extremism and violence in the first place. That is why in government Labor set up a range of programs under the countering violent extremism initiative, including in particular a program of grants for building community resilience. These programs were entirely preventative in focus and designed to encourage people to resist or disengage from intolerant or radical ideologies.

Unfortunately, the Building Community Resilience program was still in its infancy when the Abbott government came to power and cut all funding. At the time, this seemed to indicate that the government did not consider countering violent extremism to be an important part of Australia's counterterrorism work; however, the following year the government accepted that it had made a mistake and restored funding. We are still to see exactly what that restored funding has produced, but it is encouraging that that has occurred. Australia will be safer if we can promote a cohesive society that fosters inclusion instead of division. We must ensure that all members of our community are valued and treated equally.

6:05 pm

Photo of Kevin AndrewsKevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I acknowledge at the outset the valuable work done by security agencies throughout Australia in relation to the threat of terrorism. I want to place my remarks in a slightly broader context than the actual day-to-day work of those agencies, because the latest terrorist outrages in Manchester, London and Melbourne, as well as elsewhere in the world, are a reminder that the war against the West is an ongoing one and it is deadly. No group—as we have seen, not even innocent young people attending a concert in Manchester—is beyond the target of this evil assault on our culture and our values.

The fact that terrorism in the West is often perpetrated by young, radicalised second-generation migrants is indeed worrying. I submit that programs of deradicalisation have been insufficient to address this threat. We are often told that the real cause of terrorism is poverty, despair or disenfranchisement. But many of the young terrorists have been educated young people from relatively well-off families who are otherwise making the most of their new home.

The terrorists, and those who recruit and radicalise them, who committed those atrocities in Manchester, London, Paris, Berlin, New York and elsewhere do so because they believe that they work. Whether it is for publicity, recruitment or in the hope of winning concessions from Western nations, they believe that their war against the West will be rewarded. Let us not forget that Australian authorities have thwarted 12 imminent terrorist attacks on our soil and over 200 residents of this country are under surveillance and investigation by security agencies.

Unless we acknowledge that the enemy has a fanatical opposition to the values the West, then I believe we will never defeat it. What is at stake is the heart and the soul of our civilisation that upholds individual—with obligations and responsibilities to others—who is ultimately judged on his or her own conscious and actions, as the possessor of an inherent human dignity and inalienable rights. The assailants on our civilisation share one characteristic: the individual is subjugated to the group, defined in terms of race, religion or some other identity. This is at the core of the fundamentalist ideology. It must be exposed and defeated, because if we do not we run the risk of the backlash that could be equally deadly.

There is, I suggest, one central issue here and that is: how can we ensure the peaceful coexistence of different groups within our community? The issue is not new to the West. In the 16th and 17th centuries, a series of religious wars consumed much of England and Europe. In order to prevent the continual war of all against all, leading thinkers of the era, such as John Locke, arrived at the idea of toleration. It was a political virtue, a means of allowing individuals to subscribe to their individual and collective beliefs while allowing the nation to be separately governed. Toleration is a reciprocal obligation: each of us tolerates the belief systems of others. I tolerate somebody else's belief system in the reciprocal knowledge that they tolerate mine if they happen to differ.

But what do we do when some people refuse to tolerate the beliefs of others? This is a pressing question in the Western world today. A spate of terrorist offences involving young people who have not been prepared to peacefully coexist and are determined to violently force their views upon society make this a critical issue at the present time. There is, I suggest, a limit to toleration. When individuals or groups, through violence or incitement of violence, refuse to tolerate the beliefs of others we are not obligated to tolerate their activities; we are obligated to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that the breakdown of that reciprocity does not continue to infect society as a whole with the deadly consequences which ensue.

6:10 pm

Photo of Anthony ByrneAnthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for La Trobe for moving this motion that relates to terrorism and terrorism offences relating to the 2016 Christmas Day terror plot and other matters. It talks about the number of people that have been charged, the number of people that have been convicted, the number of people before the courts on terrorism offences and the disruption that has occurred to terrorist plots by the AFP and our intelligence agencies. It talks about the issue of violence and extremism that we are confronting collectively.

This has a very personal aspect for me, as I have said in this place on numerous occasions. It particularly has a personal aspect, I am sure, for two particular people and others that will be watching the address that I give here this evening. On 23 September 2014 terrorism took place in my electorate of Holt—a place I never thought would ever feel the touch of terrorism. That was at the Endeavour Hills Police Station, when a young individual attempted to kill two counterterrorism police officers. If it were not for the bravery of both of those officers and if not for the response of one of those officers in that life-threatening situation, both officers would have died. My children used to play in the area when they were younger. This was one of the first events that happened in the Western world post a particular edict that was issued by the Islamic State about attacking police officers. Little did I know that it would happen on my doorstep, on the evening of 23 September 2014.

There were two very fine individuals that were involved in that event—two police officers. I am proud to say that I know both of those police officers as friends and as two individuals that have experienced a lot. The media pays attention to the immediacy of the event, but those two individuals still live with that night. We are waiting for the coroner's findings. I am hoping that after nearly three years those two officers find some peace when the coroner brings down his findings about that night. I am quite sure that the officers will be mentioned very favourably in terms of their endeavours and what they did on that evening. That evening is going to live with them for the rest of their lives. When we are talking about terrorism we are talking about the impact. It is never going to leave those two individuals. I just wanted to assure them, because they will see this speech, and to thank them for their sacrifice, to thank them for what they did and to say that I will continue to support them and remember the sacrifice they made that night on 23 September 2014.

I was not involved in Operation Rising but I happened to stumble across Rising before it occurred, which was the Anzac Day plot. I would particularly like to thank the special operations group that was involved in that, and in particular the individual I would call the spiritual head of the special operations group. I want to thank this officer for his insight, for his support of his officers and for the guidance he provides to the officers in the special operations group.

What we are confronting here is an ideology as powerful as any that I have ever seen. I think what the public needs to understand is that, notwithstanding potential combat victories in Syria and Iraq, this ideology is not just going to be extinguished. We are going to be dealing with the manifestations of this ideology—this perversion—for a long period of time. I would counsel those who would think that, because we are going to defeat these people, we will not see events occurring on our shore. I said in 2014 that I thought, on the basis of what I was being told by intelligence agencies, that we would have a terrorist attack in our country, and it occurred. We will have other events, Mr Deputy Speaker Hastie, as you know, that will happen on our shores.

One thing I will tell those who might be even thinking about perpetrating this sort of act is this: never underestimate the Australian people. Never underestimate their strength and resolve. Our values and our society will always be and will always outlast those who seek to divide us and seek to terrorise us. As you can see with what they have done in Manchester and in other attacks on English soil, they have made a mistake to awaken the Blitz spirit of the British, and they will find the same will occur to them if they try to do that in this country. They will never break our resolve. We will defeat them not just militarily but ideologically. We will not succumb to their threat of terrorism. We will not succumb to what they will try to do to our country.

6:15 pm

Photo of Joanne RyanJoanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on this motion and I thank the member opposite who moved it this evening. Since joining the parliament, my Labor colleagues and I have done all in our power to support our agencies in their efforts in counterterrorism, both here and in other countries. In government, Labor did the same. Success in preventing terrorism, as we have heard tonight from many speakers, is the key. We know that the current threats are likely to come from within, and the motion lists the successful counterterrorism activities that have prevented, in recent years, terrorist acts that were being planned on our shores. But I would like to stress that, particularly in this place, we cannot be paralysed by fear. We must listen to the experts. We must listen to those who are on the ground working with people who are having contact with elements that would radicalise them. We must be in touch. We must build trust between the community and our counterterrorism and security agencies. That is key in our efforts to ensure that, as previous speakers have suggested, we are doing as much as we can to prevent radicalisation of people in our community.

We have heard a little about countering violent extremism, and I also wish to speak on that. It is critical in keeping us all safe. Our agencies have been forthcoming in highlighting the importance of prevention. In order for us to do that, we need to ensure that we have that trusting relationship. We need to be actively building trust between the community and our agencies. We need all Australians to feel assured that they can contact someone if they are fearful that they know someone who is being radicalised in any way. I make the point that, as we have seen today in London, terrorism comes in many forms. The notion that terrorism is limited to one set of people in our community is very naive, and I would speak to establishing trust across our community. Like our security agencies have said, I suggest that our multiculturalism and our positive multicultural community is actually the best preventative measure that we have on the ground. I encourage people in this place to take every opportunity to speak about what a strong multicultural, multi-faith community we have and to assure people in our communities that they are valued and that, in this country, everyone is equal. We need to ensure that those things happen to make people feel safe and connected to the central core of our democratic principles and our democratic institutions. This is vitally important. I support the notion that our multiculturalism and our support for multicultural policies that our society and the majority of mainstream Australian politicians often express are an example of primary counter-violent-extremist action. I encourage people to do so often at home in their electorates and in this place. There are people in our community who are easily radicalised, people who feel marginalised, people who feel isolated and people who live lives where they feel that they are not being heard, and that is the breeding ground for people to see themselves as separate to Australian society and, therefore, look for someone to blame. There are lots of things to consider here, but I think that is probably the most important.

The second think I strongly suggest—having come from an education background and having seen the number of young people who have managed to become part of this radicalisation—is that connectedness to school and connectedness to community are cornerstones of protecting our society. I encourage those opposite to look closely at school connectedness as something that needs work and needs resources. Those resources and the resourcing of schools are in your hands.

6:21 pm

Photo of Andrew GilesAndrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to make a contribution on this motion and I thank the member for La Trobe for putting this motion before the House and enabling this very important debate. Mr Deputy Speaker Hastie, I acknowledge the very significant role you play in our parliament in relation to matters which are the subject of this debate and wider concerns relating to our security. I was very pleased to be here for the contribution from my friend the member for Lalor, and I associate myself with her remarks, both their tenor and their substance. I note that speakers on this side of the House have included the shadow Attorney-General and also the member for Holt, who, over a very long period of time, has made a very significant, measured and always thoughtful contribution to these questions of national security. He is someone whose advice I have often been the beneficiary of. Hopefully, I have taken that advice appropriately.

This motion sets out some very significant events for all of us in this place but particularly for me as a Melburnian. Noting that, I think it is also appropriate that we turn our attention to more recent events in the United Kingdom and express our thoughts to those affected there and our hope that justice will be done in the short term but also in the longer term, which I think are the two aspirations we should be seeking to achieve in this area. This motion is one that I am very pleased to speak to, support and make a few additional remarks in relation to.

Firstly, it is important when we discuss questions of national security, as this motion does—particularly matters which are before the courts—to remember our role, which is, of course, first and foremost as lawmakers and as legislators. I know this motion goes specifically to some questions there and I will turn to that immediately, but it is absolutely critical that we respect the role of other branches of government and allow them to do their job. We should confine ourselves to setting a framework of community standards and, indeed, for community safety rather than engage in commentary which transgresses those bounds. We also need to reflect on our role as community leaders, as the member for Lalor did. She put it neatly in saying that we must not be paralysed by fear. We must create circumstances through the laws we enact and the manner in which we resource the enforcement of those laws but also the way in which we conduct ourselves and the way we show our best face and Australia's best face to ensure that we stand for the values that we are all striving to protect in this place. Those are important matters in any consideration of security debates. We must always be mindful of the sort of society we wish to protect and not unnecessarily undermine it.

On our role as lawmakers, I turn particularly to item 3(a) of the motion. I was pleased to be part of the parliament that dealt with very difficult questions of national security through those eight trenches of counterterrorism and national security legislation. I do not think anyone can doubt that the parliament significantly improved both the substance of the legislation and the acceptance of that legislation in the community through the work of the joint intelligence and security committee, and the parliamentary process more generally. And I hope, while I am in this place, I can continue to devote myself to thoughtful consideration of significant laws to get the balance right between security and our personal freedoms. It is a difficult balance, one which will have to be addressed in the particular circumstance of each law and each case, but it is a balance we must all be mindful of in exercising our responsibility and, indeed, our duty as lawmakers.

I will touch very briefly on one additional matter. I acknowledge the positive elements of the government's counterterrorism strategy. National security is a bipartisan issue in this country, and I think we are all thankful for that, but I do think there are some issues, highlighted by the Manchester Arena bombing, that require some further consideration. I have been guided in this by the work of my colleague the member for Cowan, Dr Anne Aly. If the terrorism profile is changing, there needs to be a further focus not just on punitive measures but also on early intervention, early identification of those people who might be at risk of radicalisation. Otherwise, I am very pleased to support this resolution.

Photo of Andrew HastieAndrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.