House debates

Thursday, 25 November 2021

Questions without Notice

National Security

2:47 pm

Photo of Jason FalinskiJason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government is ensuring our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have the resources they need to counter the threat of ideologically motivated violent extremism and keep all Australians safe?

Photo of Karen AndrewsKaren Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Our government strongly condemns anyone who incites violence and hatred, no matter what their motivation may be. Our law enforcement agencies target criminal activity, regardless of an individual's ideology or their background, and they won't hesitate to bring the full force, the full weight, of the law on any individual or any group that actively threatens the safety of others.

We know that ideologically motivated violent extremism, in particular nationalist and racist violent extremism, comprises around 50 per cent of ASIO's priority onshore counterterrorism case load. This sort of extremism has been in ASIO's sights for many, many years, and it has maintained continuous and dedicated resources to this area. Last year alone, three nationalist and racist violent extremists were charged with terrorist offences, and one individual, Phillip Galea, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment following his conviction for terrorism offences. Let me be clear: there is absolutely no place in Australia for those views and there never will be.

When the coalition came to government, no ideologically motivated groups were listed as terrorist organisations. We changed that. We listed Sonnenkrieg Division, and yesterday I announced our intention to list The Base, another disgusting and abhorrent Neo-Nazi group. I was frankly disappointed that others who should know better seemed almost dismissive of this action because it is a predominantly overseas based group. This shows a very serious and dangerous misunderstanding of the way these groups operate and the threat that they represent to us here in Australia. We know this is a global problem, and our goal is to stop Australians being recruited to these evil causes. We've seen that threat so close to our shores with the horrific Christchurch terrorist attack, and we as a government acted very quickly, very swiftly, as a founding member of the Christchurch Call to Action, to establish the Taskforce to Combat Terrorist and Extreme Violent Material Online. The Morrison government is always going to focus on protecting Australians and our way of life here. We will always focus on keeping Australians safe and secure, because serious issues like the safety and security of Australians are what we all should be focused on in this place. These are the serious issues that Australians expect their parliament to focus on and they expect everyone in this place to be focused on this.