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Why a terror strike is ‘probable’ · The Front

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  Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker
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  Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's
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  Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, August sixth.
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  Speaker 1: Brittaney Higgins lawyer says Senator Linda Reynolds was trying to
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  Speaker 1: help Bruce Lahman, the man Higgins accused of rape, by
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  Speaker 1: sending his lawyer's text messages during Lahman's criminal trial. Reynolds
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  Speaker 1: is suing Higgins and her husband David Schiraz for defamation,
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  Speaker 1: but higgins lawyer Rachel Young sc says the senator retraumatized
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  Speaker 1: and harassed Brittney Higgins. Our coverage of that trial is
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  Speaker 1: live at Beaustralian dot com. The last standing Rat of
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  Speaker 1: to Brook, Tom Pritchard, has died at the age of
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and two. In nineteen forty one, the Rats
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  Speaker 1: held off Access troops for two hundred and forty two
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  Speaker 1: days in North Africa. Pritchard lied about his age to
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  Speaker 1: join the army. As a nineteen year old. He served
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  Speaker 1: as an ambulance attendant at Tabrook. Probable that's the new
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  Speaker 1: terror threat level in Australia declared by the spy Agency ASIO,
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  Speaker 1: which is warning about the threat posed by young people
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  Speaker 1: radicalized online and armed with knives or guns.
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  Speaker 2: We assess there is a greater than fifty percent chance
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  Speaker 2: of an onshore attack or planning in the next twelve months.
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  Speaker 1: It's all about rising tensions in the Middle East?
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  Speaker 3: Or is it?
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  Speaker 1: Today we unpack the spymaster's careful wording. In the Middle East,
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  Speaker 1: Israel's bombardment of Gaza is morphing into something much bigger,
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  Speaker 1: a regional war. Rocket sirens in Israel as civilians sheltering place,
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  Speaker 1: a Lebanese ambulance races through the streets of Beirut, in Iran,
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  Speaker 1: prayers for a Hamas leader assassinated by Israel right in
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  Speaker 1: the heart of Tehran, And in Australia, a chilling new mood.
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  Speaker 1: Here's Anthony Albanesi.
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  Speaker 4: Asia has decided to return Australia's national terrorism threat level
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  Speaker 4: from possible too probable.
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  Speaker 2: Attacks are likely to occur with little or no warning
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  Speaker 2: and will be difficult to detect.
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  Speaker 1: That's asy Oboss Mike Burgess. On Monday, he was part
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  Speaker 1: of a joint press conference with Albanesi and the Attorney
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  Speaker 1: General Mark Dreyfus.
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  Speaker 2: An escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, particularly
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  Speaker 2: in southern Lebanon, would inflict further strain, aggravating tensions and
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  Speaker 2: potentially fueling grievances.
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  Speaker 1: So the raised terror alert is about the Israel Gaza conflict, right, Well,
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  Speaker 1: it's not so clear.
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  Speaker 2: Our decision is not a direct response to the tragic
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  Speaker 2: events in the Middle East. At this stage, we do
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  Speaker 2: not believe any of the terrorist plots we have investigated
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  Speaker 2: in the last year have been inspired by Gaza. Terrorist
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  Speaker 2: leaders offshore are not inspiring attacks on This is why
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  Speaker 2: we did not raise threat level in the immediate aftermath
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  Speaker 2: of the seventh of October. Indirectly though, there have been
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  Speaker 2: important and relevant impacts. The conflict has fueled grievances, promoted protest,
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  Speaker 2: exacerbated division, undermined social cohesion, and elevated intolerance. After the
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  Speaker 2: seventh of October, I warned that inflame language could lead
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  Speaker 2: to inflame community tensions. Unfortunately, this is what's playing out.
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  Speaker 1: So what's with all this opaque language?
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  Speaker 5: I think Gaza is a very central aspect of what
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  Speaker 5: as here. Did Mike Purchase probably being a bit softer
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  Speaker 5: with his language than he might otherwise have been, because
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  Speaker 5: he doesn't want his own comments to exacerbate and fuel
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  Speaker 5: the divisions and the rhetoric and the passion that we've
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  Speaker 5: seen in Australia ever since October seven.
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  Speaker 1: That's Cameron Stewart, the chief international correspondent here at the Australian.
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  Speaker 5: I guess what he's saying here, Claire, is that the
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  Speaker 5: Gaza conflict has shown exactly the type of intolerance, political
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  Speaker 5: rhetoric and hostility that we were seeing generally speaking in
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  Speaker 5: Australian society. But basically Gaza is the best big example
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  Speaker 5: of it in Australia. So I think it's central to
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  Speaker 5: it really because I think what you've seen, for example,
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  Speaker 5: in Australia play out since October seven fits into the
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  Speaker 5: categories that my Burgess is talking about. The whole announcement
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  Speaker 5: seemed to meet a reek of a government and a
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  Speaker 5: security service very anxious not to further fan flames and
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  Speaker 5: passions through the actual announcement itself.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So while the politicians and Burgess are not directly
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  Speaker 1: saying it, this is in large part at least about
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  Speaker 1: tensions in the Middle East spilling into Australian streets tell these.
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  Speaker 3: Great incidences of anti Semitism in Australia rose seven hundred
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  Speaker 3: percent after Hamas's terror attack on Israel and still remain
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  Speaker 3: alarmingly high.
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  Speaker 1: Anthony Albanezi was quick to sheet at least some of
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  Speaker 1: the blame home to his natural enemies in Australian politics,
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  Speaker 1: the Greens.
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  Speaker 4: It is not normal to have people in occupations for
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  Speaker 4: months outside electorate offices where the work of those electorate
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  Speaker 4: officers is to assist people in social security and health
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  Speaker 4: in other areas, they're not participants in the Middle East conflict.
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  Speaker 5: We've seen the huge increase in racism, with the terrible
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  Speaker 5: rise of anti Semitism in Australia, levels that we just
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  Speaker 5: haven't seen before. We've also seen, if you like, a
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  Speaker 5: normalization of intolerance with the activist rump of the pro
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  Speaker 5: Palestinian movement, and by that I mean not mums and
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  Speaker 5: dads to God on the Sunday to event their displeasure.
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  Speaker 5: What Israel's response might be, it's really the activist rump them.
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  Speaker 5: You've had defacing of Australian war memorials which have absolutely
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  Speaker 5: nothing to do with Gaza. You've had statues toppled You've
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  Speaker 5: had politicians' offices being targeted, You've had just a lot
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  Speaker 5: of personal abuse hurled at a whole range of people.
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  Speaker 5: I think that, if you like, that movement has very
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  Speaker 5: much crystallized exactly the sort of breakdown in civility and
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  Speaker 5: political discourse that Mike Burgess is talking about. And what
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  Speaker 5: he's saying is, look, while we've had no direct violence
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  Speaker 5: or plots related to this, this is a trend that
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  Speaker 5: could easily lead to violence down the track.
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  Speaker 1: He also said when asked about anti Semitism, he said, yes,
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  Speaker 1: there's plenty of anti Semitism, but there's plenty of his
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  Speaker 1: Lamophobia at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: It's kind of almost equal treatment. Not quite, but almost
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  Speaker 2: equal treatment.
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  Speaker 1: You've been covering this pretty closely, cam ever since October seven.
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  Speaker 1: Would you agree with that?
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  Speaker 5: No, I don't agree with that now. Min I'm not
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  Speaker 5: privy to the reports that my Burgess has seen, but certainly, Claire,
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  Speaker 5: as far as visibility goes in Australia, I mean, the
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  Speaker 5: age of Semitism is just by far more visible than
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  Speaker 5: anti Islamophobia. We're not seeing marchers that are condemning Muslims,
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  Speaker 5: We're not seeing anything like that. We are seeing marches
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  Speaker 5: with the Nazi sort of paraphernalia, very anti Semitic content
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  Speaker 5: in science and things like that. We've seen quite clearly
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  Speaker 5: actions against Jewish businesses, against individual Jews in Australia just
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  Speaker 5: because they're Jewish, nothing more than that. And so we're
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  Speaker 5: just not seeing that sort of visible anti Islamophobia. I
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  Speaker 5: do wander, to be honest, whether he is said that
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  Speaker 5: in the same way that Penny Wong has put the
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  Speaker 5: two together very frequently because they don't want to be
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  Speaker 5: seen as particularly by us one way the other. But
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  Speaker 5: certainly from my observation as a reporter covering this, it's
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  Speaker 5: not nearly an even problem. It's a much greater problem
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  Speaker 5: of anti Semitism coming up.
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  Speaker 1: So what will the attacks we're bracing for look like?
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  Speaker 1: While I've got you, the Australian subscribers are always the
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  Speaker 1: first to know. Join us at the Australian dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot AU. We'll be back after this break. We all
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  Speaker 1: have ideas about what superspies should look like, intense jewel lines,
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  Speaker 1: trench coats. Like Burgess, a sixty year old cyber warfare
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  Speaker 1: expert with a degree in electrical engineering, is bald with
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  Speaker 1: a neatly rimmed beard. He looks like he could be
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  Speaker 1: any senior public servant, and maybe that's the point. The
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  Speaker 1: best spies are supposed to blend into a crowd. What
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  Speaker 1: does make Burgess different is his visibility. Once or twice
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  Speaker 1: a year, he fronts up to the cameras to deliver
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  Speaker 1: a fourth right, sometimes scary speech about the big, bad
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  Speaker 1: world out there.
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  Speaker 5: I think Mike Burgess is a very good director general
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  Speaker 5: compared to his predecessors. Something. He's very outspoken, He's very direct.
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  Speaker 5: I think that's the way that modern chiefs of security
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  Speaker 5: agencies should be. You know, the old days, the old
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  Speaker 5: days the chiefs are sort of whisper and say absolutely nothing.
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  Speaker 5: He is very on the front foot and saying it
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  Speaker 5: as it should be said. I think you need to
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  Speaker 5: have an agency chief say this stuff because if you
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  Speaker 5: have a politician say it, the opposition will think it's spin,
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  Speaker 5: it's just alarmist, etc. The whole idea here is that
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  Speaker 5: it does actually have an impact, and hopefully it does
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  Speaker 5: prevent something like this actually occurring.
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  Speaker 1: Burgess said, in the past eight months, there have been
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  Speaker 1: eight attacks or disruptions that either involved acts of terror
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  Speaker 1: or were investigated as potential acts of terrorism. He didn't
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  Speaker 1: name the cases, but he said they had four things
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  Speaker 1: in common.
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  Speaker 2: Loane actors, an individual or a small group using rudimentary
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  Speaker 2: weapons such as knives, improvised explosives or a gun.
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  Speaker 1: A fast pace of radicalization.
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  Speaker 2: Violence with little or no warning, and little or no planning.
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  Speaker 1: They're involving kids.
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  Speaker 2: In recent cases, the oldest perpetrator was twenty one and
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  Speaker 2: the youngest was fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: And they are not being driven by the same thing.
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  Speaker 2: Individuals are being motivated by diversity of prievances and personal narratives.
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  Speaker 2: In some cases I refer to, the alleged perpetrators appeared
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  Speaker 2: to be motivated by extreme religious beliefs. In others, nationalists
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  Speaker 2: and racist beliefs.
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  Speaker 1: It all sounds pretty worrying, and it's asio wearing this.
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  Speaker 1: The politicians are standing back, saying they're listening to the
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  Speaker 1: advice from the spymasters.
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  Speaker 2: The threats I'm describing are significant, but not insurmountable. Probable
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  Speaker 2: does not mean inevitable. Australian should be aware, but not afraid.
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  Speaker 1: One threat that Mike Burgess almost downplayed was the sort
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  Speaker 1: of thing that we would have been talking about if
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  Speaker 1: we'd done this interview three or four years ago Cam,
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  Speaker 1: which is young Muslim Australians being radicalized by ISIS or
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  Speaker 1: by radical preachers here in Australia. That was the big
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  Speaker 1: concern a few years back. He is now saying that
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  Speaker 1: that is not really what they're seeing now, that that's
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  Speaker 1: not really the big concern.
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  Speaker 5: I think you're saying that is still a concern, but
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  Speaker 5: we've now got other things to match that concern, and
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  Speaker 5: that is politically motivated rhetoric, conviolence, which they hadn't seen.
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  Speaker 5: In other words, it's not just a religiously motivated problem.
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  Speaker 5: Now there's a whole layer of post COVID freedom movement
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  Speaker 5: that hates government authority. You know, there's the rise and
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  Speaker 5: rise and rise of conspiracy theories, especially fueled by the Internet.
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  Speaker 5: You know, it's amazing what people are believing these days,
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  Speaker 5: and perhaps more unhinched people actually taking action on the
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  Speaker 5: basis of that. I think what he's saying is we
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  Speaker 5: now have a whole list of issues that are rising
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  Speaker 5: at the same time, and so it doesn't dilute Islamic extremism,
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  Speaker 5: for example, as a terror danger, because I think that's
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  Speaker 5: still very much a terrorist danger in Australia. I think
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  Speaker 5: what he's saying is we now have Unfortunately, we have
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  Speaker 5: other things to rival it.
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  Speaker 2: If you believe a person you know is going down
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  Speaker 2: a dark extremist path, please talk to someone or call
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  Speaker 2: the National Security Hotline on one eight hundred one two
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  Speaker 2: three four hundred.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is The Australian's chief international correspondent. It's back
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: to the office today. The new South Wales government issued
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a blund order to its hundreds of thousands of employees.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Working from home is over. The move is designed to
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: improve productivity and rescue the CBD hospitality sector. That story
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and how it'll affect the rest of our workplaces is
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: live now at the Australian dot com dot au