August 5, 2024
CHRISSY MORRISSEY: What are some of the factors that have led to the national terrorism threat level increasing? Senator James Paterson is the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security, and he joins us on the line. Good afternoon Senator.
JAMES PATERSON: G'day Chrissy.
MORRISSEY: Pretty interesting, isn't it? So did today's announcement from ASIO surprise you? Were you expecting this?
PATERSON: No, it didn't surprise me at all. I've been expecting this for some time. I think we've all seen in our country, especially since the 7th of October Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, heightened security concerns and tensions in our community, elevated emotions, people feeling very engaged in that issue. And unfortunately, that appears to be one of the contributing factors to the increased terrorism threat level. This is something that ASIO as our domestic security intelligence organisation monitors all the time through its intelligence assets. They have a range of trends that they track, they have a range of indicators that they look for. And if their counter-terrorism caseload becomes sufficiently elevated, then they can make this declaration of an elevated risk of terrorism.
MORRISSEY: What other factors have led to the threat level increasing, in your opinion?
PATERSON: There's been a couple of other things driving it which are longer term trends, which is, an increase in frequency of young people being radicalised online. These are young people who can be radicalised very quickly, sometimes with a cocktail of seemingly contradictory or toxic ideologies. They may have neo-Nazi or racist ideologies. They may have Islamist ideologies. They may have misogynist ideologies. There is a whole range of extreme content out there that young people are consuming online and they can very quickly go from simply having extreme beliefs to then having the willingness to act on those extreme beliefs and turn to violence. And that's where it becomes an issue of terrorism. In this country it is lawful to have extreme political beliefs, but it is not lawful to seek to use violence to deliver those political outcomes.
MORRISSEY: That's an interesting point you raise, what role do you think that social media has played in this escalation?
PATERSON: Oh, there's no question, that the violent content that can be accessed through social media has, and does continue to radicalise people. It is both access to extreme terrorist related content, but also very distressing content from real events around the world that can have a radicalising effect on young people, people who become very engaged, to an obsessive degree with foreign conflicts, for example, where they constantly consume content about those conflicts. They feel that they need to take those conflicts in a foreign land into their own hands and take them out here in Australia. And unfortunately, we've seen in recent months dozens of incidents, where young people have been moved to violence and some of those are still subject to police investigations, but I suspect it will show that it has been online radicalisation through extreme content, which has driven part of that.
MORRISSEY: I think one of the really interesting things about the online content, Senator, is that people don't seem to realise that once they start looking something up, the algorithm feeds them more stuff.
PATERSON: That's exactly right.
MORRISSEY: So you don't get this fair view, It's not like you're Switzerland anymore. You're just getting everything from one party. And so that is feeding their beliefs.
PATERSON: That's right. These social media platforms are designed to deliver content that triggers an emotional response in you and if you show interest in a particular kind of content. And by interest, that could just mean pausing while you're scrolling through your feed for a few seconds longer on a certain video, then that platform, whether it's TikTok or Instagram or others, will serve you vastly more amount of that same content because you've demonstrated you have some interest in it. And that's particularly harmful in young developing minds who don't understand the context of these events. It can be very emotionally disturbed by these events. Some of these events are disturbing in their own right. But if you're a young person and you're growing up and you're consuming this almost constantly, well it is going to have an effect on your mental health and in some cases, it might drive you to do extreme things.
MORRISSEY: Exactly. So this war in Gaza, how is it influencing everyday Australians and their actions, do you think?
PATERSON: Well there are Australians who are very invested in what's happening in Gaza for a range of understandable reasons, if you have a family or personal connection to that region, or you have, cousins or other family members who might be potential victims of violence in that region, it's understandable why you take a great interest in it. And there are others for whom the issue of Israel-Palestine is just a highly motivating, highly engaged issue for a long period of time and there has been a lot of people who follow that issue closely. But when you see both the Hamas attacks on Israel with 1200 Jews were slaughtered in a single day, and then the understandable military response from the IDF to try and destroy Hamas and the very regrettable civilian casualties that have occurred as a result of that military operation, it is understandable why some Australians are very distressed by that and become very engaged by that, and even to some of the protests that we've seen in our streets, have had violent imagery and violent language on it. We've seen terrorist symbols being displayed at some of those rallies. And I think it's critically important that the police enforce the law and deter people from engaging in unlawful conduct. It is unlawful to display a terrorists symbol in this country and yet we have not had any charges for the many people who have been doing that in the several months since the 7th of October. And unless we nip it in the bud and address it through the legal system and law enforcement early on, I think it does have the potential to escalate and become more serious.
MORRISSEY: So that's a starting point for what we could do here in Australia as far as keeping our, trying to keep our environment here a little bit more neutral. Is there anything else that the government could do to assist in that vain?
PATERSON: Definitely. We need to get the youngest Australians off social media. It is not helpful, regardless of the content they are consuming, for 12 and 13 year olds to be spending a lot of time on these social media platforms, they shouldn't be on there. We've proposed there should be a minimum age of 16 before you can open a social media account, so that you can have a normal childhood before you start to access this content when you have a better way of dealing with it. That's another step that the government should take and should do so quickly.
MORRISSEY: What do you think about the way the Home Affairs minister has handled this situation?
PATERSON: What was most puzzling about the announcement today between the Prime Minister and the Director-General of ASIO and the Attorney General, was that the Minister of Home Affairs was missing in action. Tony Burke wasn't there at the press conference at all. And yet, the Minister for Home Affairs is the minister responsible for counter-terrorism in Australia. They have the counterterrorism function within the Department of Home Affairs. But recently, the Prime Minister took ASIO out of the Home Affairs portfolio and put it into the Attorney General's portfolio. And so our senior national security minister, domestically, who is supposed to be Tony Burke, really has no operational agencies to deliver on the counter-terrorism mission that he's supposed to. So I thought it was inexplicable that he wasn't there and really, it's up to the government to explain why was the minister for Home Affairs, who's responsible for counter-terrorism, not involved in one of the most significant decisions and one most significant announcements you could make when it comes to national security.
MORRISSEY: Last question before I let you go. Do you think the debate has become more aggressive and hostile, like the ASIO chief has indicated? Or do you think that maybe we are beating it up on social media and in the media?
PATERSON: No, I think it's unquestionably become more hostile. And unfortunately, we do have some people who, for their own purposes, are deliberately trying to whip that up, and weaponise that. And all political leaders in Australia have a responsibility to be calm and measured about these issues, to stick to the facts and not to seek partisan political advantage over this. I think the way in which the Greens in particular, have targeted the Labor Party in the city seats all around the country, but including in my home state of Victoria, in Melbourne, has been unprecedented and it is dangerous. And it has led to some of the confrontations and protests at electorate offices. It's led to some of the threats of violence towards members of Parliament and I really think they should step back from that before they regret it.
MORRISSEY: Yeah. Personally, I think it's really concerning that there is more Australians who are willing to use violence to advance a cause. I thought we always prided ourselves on the idea of being able to have a discussion about it.
PATERSON: That's exactly right. We we're a democracy and a proud one, and we resolve our disputes and differences through debate and ultimately through the ballot box at elections, not through violence.
MORRISSEY: Yeah, that concerns me. James, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
PATERSON: Thanks for having me.
ENDS
