Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. International cooperation to counter and stare down international terrorism is of course not just very important; it is absolutely essential, and the white paper published yesterday makes that clear. It makes it clear that the threat to Australia and the international community is ever-present, ongoing and, regrettably, will be a permanent feature of life for the period to come. It is also clear that the threat is evolving.

As a consequence of good international cooperation, Australia already has entered into 14 formal memorandums of understanding, MOUs, on counterterrorism. They are—not in alphabetical order—with Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Brunei, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey and Bangladesh. Members should not assume that the list will end there. As I said, regrettably this will be a feature for some time.

The white paper makes it clear that the threat is evolving. We have had some success through international cooperation against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We have also had tremendous success against Jemaah Islamiyah, particularly in Indonesia. But we also know, as a result of security and threat assessments shared by like-minded countries, that the al-Qaeda threat is spreading potentially to Yemen and also to Somalia. As a consequence, we need to ensure that our international cooperation not only persists but also evolves to cover these threats, as we have seen in the case of Yemen and the recent London international conference, and as we have seen in the case of Somalia and the international cooperation for activity off the coast of Somalia that is putting international transport is at risk.

Importantly, international cooperation also goes to the sharing of intelligence, the use of data—particularly data relating to known terrorists or terror suspects, or people who are regarded as risks in this context—and also the sharing of technology. We have seen in recent times the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union move to enhancing the visa applications that they have, requiring biometric data to be included with visa applications. Yesterday in the white paper the government announced that we would move in the first stage to 10 overseas countries where we would, in cooperation with the British—utilising their facilities, their resources and their collection centres—introduce biometric requirements so far as visas are concerned; that is, fingerprints, facial scanning and facial screening. This is a sensible risk minimisation procedure to introduce. I do not think it will end there. Just as we have seen the United States and the United Kingdom introduce it, as we see the first phase of our introduction, it will not end there.

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