Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move"

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Abetz) to a question without notice asked by Senator Wright today relating to national security funding.

Tonight's budget will include a further $450 million for spy agencies, taking the total of the coalition's anti-terror spending announcements to over $1 billion and making spy agencies bigger and more powerful than ever before while reducing accountability. It is a huge amount of money but it will not make us safer. The fact is that the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is following an irresponsible but trusted formula to try and shore up his leadership by creating fear and division in the community and pressing the terror button. Despite this huge terror spend, only 3.2 per cent of the money is going to something that will in fact work and actually make us safer: social cohesion programs and deradicalisation. These are fundamental to fighting terror, yet they are grossly underfunded by this government. Why could that be?

Expert after expert in Australia has lined up to say we need to stop terrorism at its source: those young people who are vulnerable to its insidious call. It is a complex matter, but anyone paying attention knows it is crucial to disrupt the recruitment of young people. Sometimes it happens by playing on their very youth. Sometimes—ironic but, sadly, true—it plays on their sense of idealism. We know that these organisations commit atrocities, but many of these young people are motivated by a sense of injustice. Sometimes it plays on their sense of alienation—complex matters. But so far, despite all the rhetoric of government, only $1.65 million has actually reached the communities who are crying out for support and at the front line of effective action. It is small change from a government which is shovelling money to spy agencies at unprecedented levels.

The Greens want to know why help for our local communities has taken so long to roll out and why so little funding is being made available. Muslim communities have clearly warned that many more young Australians are at risk of being recruited to Islamic State and other terror groups because of the federal government's delay in funding for these deradicalisation programs. Desperate parents, troubled elders, have been calling out for help. Prevention is much better than cure when it comes to keeping us all safe from risks associated with terrorism. But, of course, that requires wisdom and thoughtful, evidence-led responses. As we know, this is too much to expect from this government. The Greens have introduced legislation to set up an Australian Centre for Social Cohesion to develop and implement best practice deradicalisation programs. I repeat our call to the government to support the Centre for Social Cohesion today, to be wise and take up the evidence that is available there from experts around the world.

A safer Australia is a more inclusive, generous and supportive Australia. Fanning the flames of fear, difference and anxiety will only put Australians more at risk. Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, is shameless and extreme. His obsessive rhetoric about death cults has today been described as counterproductive, ineffective and doing some of the terror groups' actual marketing for them. Can we expect him to stop? I doubt it. He has said it 346 times since September and he will continue to do it because he is actually promoting his own domestic agenda. A genuine response to terrorism will not isolate Muslims by targeting them or making them the focus of surveillance. Real leadership would bring people together, not divide them. Building a cohesive, tolerant and inclusive community in Australia should be our government's top priority in the national interest and could be Australia's most powerful strategy to counteract terrorism. If the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party are serious about making Australians safer, they should invest in programs that bring young Australians from all walks of life together. Rather than implementing divisive new laws and a mass surveillance society, money should be spent on building communities. That is truly in our national interest.

Question agreed to.