Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister update the House on any plans to advance regional cooperation against terrorism? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for the question and the interest that she has shown. It will not come as any surprise to members of this House that the government takes a very strong stand against terrorism all over the world, because this is not just a local problem or a regional problem; this is a global problem.

On Sunday I am going to Indonesia. During the early part of next week, the Attorney-General, the Acting Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police and I will participate in a subregional meeting on counterterrorism. This meeting will include foreign ministers, law enforcement ministers and police chiefs from regional countries—Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. We will be spending time early next week exploring ways to deepen our existing cooperation, which is very good. We will also be addressing emerging challenges: how are we getting on in countering radicalisation? What more needs to be done? What narrative needs to be challenged? How should it be challenged? We will be looking at how we can more effectively respond in the event of mass casualty attacks, and we will also be looking at law enforcement cooperation and legal frameworks.

Dr Hassan Wirajuda, the Indonesian foreign minister, and I will open a regional leadership course for senior police at the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation. I will be addressing students at a Muslim university in Yogyakarta, visiting a Muslim school that is part of AusAID’s Islamic education assistance program and meeting with other community and religious leaders.

Let me say this about counterterrorism in South-East Asia: I think governments, like the Indonesian government—I will particularly mention them—and those of Malaysia, Singapore and more recently the Philippines have been making real progress in their counterterrorist activities. Very importantly, and very noteworthy, there has been a decline in public support for terrorism and extremism in Indonesia. It is important in the war against terrorism to understand that. I do not think many people in Australia do. The last two years have been good years—not perfect years, but good years—in South-East Asia in terms of counterterrorism. There is a long way to go. There is still, day by day, the risk of terrorist attacks. There is no question about that. Nevertheless real progress is being made. I think next week our government will be able to take this matter further forward and with greater success.

The honourable member asked me about a different approach. I think the Labor Party do have a very different approach. For a start, the Labor Party do not recognise that terrorism is a global problem. They think terrorism is just a sporadic problem—it is a bit of a problem, maybe, in South-East Asia. They say we need to bring troops back from Iraq to South-East Asia to fight terrorism. I am not quite sure where we would be sending the troops in South-East Asia to do this, but we look forward to that revelation. They think it is very important to fight terrorism in Afghanistan, but we should let the terrorists win in Iraq—it is important to let the terrorists win in Iraq and lose in Afghanistan, and presumably lose in South-East Asia. It is completely incomprehensible.

The most incomprehensible part of this is that the Labor Party never answer the question, because in his heart the Leader of the Opposition knows the answer—that victory for terrorists in Iraq would be a massive boost for terrorism around the world, including in South-East Asia. This is not a regional movement; this is a global movement. Whether it is popular or whether it is unpopular, political leaders in this country owe it to this country to make sure that we do our absolute best for this country’s security. Nobody could ever say that this government is anything but very strong and very determined on national security.