August 6, 2024
STEVE CANNANE: Australia's domestic spy agency, ASIO has raised the country's terror level from possible to probable. Its Director-General, Mike Burgess, told 7.30 last night that the environment is different compared to when it last raised the terror level a decade ago.
MIKE BURGESS [CLIP]: The environment has changed, particularly in the last ten, twelve months, where today we have, and it's completely different to when it was raised in 2014, more people are being radicalised more quickly. More people think violence is permissible from a range of grievances and ideologies, not just what we saw when we raised it in 2014.
CANNANE: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has sought to reassure Australians that probable doesn't mean inevitable, and it doesn't mean that there's imminent danger. Senator James Paterson is the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security, and he joins us now. Welcome back to breakfast, Senator.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning Steve.
CANNANE: Firstly, what's your reaction to the rise in the threat level?
PATERSON: Well, it's a sobering decision by ASIO to recommend an increase in the threat level, but it's hardly surprising. I think we've all seen in our community, particularly over the last nine months, since the 7th of October, very significantly heightened tensions and very significant stress on social cohesion. Protests and discontent about foreign conflicts doesn't necessarily directly lead to a terrorism threat level. But Mike Burgess made clear at his announcement yesterday with the Prime Minister that indirectly that tensions overseas had contributed to this decision.
CANNANE: How concerned are you about the spread of the number and speed of Australians being radicalised because he really pointed out that there were people on the left, people on the right. There were people who had nationalist and racist views as well. This seemed to be a very broad scale of people that ASIO suddenly are having to monitor.
PATERSON: Regardless of whatever your particular political motivation or ideology is, anyone who thinks that violence is an appropriate way to achieve those ends is breaking the law, and should be harshly dealt with by our intelligence and security agencies and police. And you're right, it is an extraordinary array of sometimes contradictory ideologies. Mike Burgess talked about one person who was inspired both by Antifa and by neo-Nazis, you know, something that most people would find difficult to reconcile, as well as Islamist radicals and others. This is a real concern and a lot of it is happening much faster, it's happening online as people are exposed to increasingly extreme content that can radicalise them very quickly.
CANNANE: What do you think is behind the rise and what should the government be doing about it?
PATERSON: Look, It's complicated. We think that obviously the 7th of October events have contributed, and this surge in anti-Semitism that we've seen in our country since that event has been shocking and should have been dealt with more firmly. One practical thing that the police should have been doing since the 7th October is we have criminalised the public display of the symbols of a terrorist organisation. In many cases, the symbols of Hamas and even the Al-Qassam brigades of Hamas, the militant wing of Hamas, have been displayed publicly on the streets of Melbourne, Sydney and other cities. And yet no one has been charged or arrested with those offences. I think allowing that to happen does embolden people and may allow them to think that they can get away with it.
CANNANE: On RN breakfast, we're talking to Senator James Paterson, where it's seven minutes to 7:00. Senator, I wanted to ask you about the impact of social media and technology. There's an ongoing debate about free speech and how far it should go online. Does there need to be more regulation about what people can and can't say on online forums and platforms and social media?
PATERSON: We're cautious about censorship of social media. Australians are entitled to have their lawfully held political opinions as long as they don't cross into violence. One proposal that we have put forward, though, is that young people, really young people, should not be on social media, and we think an age of 16 is appropriate. A lot of international evidence is coming out that the impact on young people's mental health, let alone their possible radicalisation, suggests that no 13 or 14 year olds should be on these platforms. That would be one way of stemming it. But it wouldn't be a solution to all these problems, when the truth is, the way that algorithms function on these platforms can drive extreme content to people of any age and have a really disturbing impact on their wellbeing and their outlook.
CANNANE: These social media platforms can cause harm in a couple of areas in this space. Number one, spreading propaganda that can radicalise young people, but also the kind of thing that we've seen in the UK where disinformation has spread and led to its own security threat. Do you think that there needs to be some accountability for the social media platforms, for allowing both types of information to spread and cause these kind of problems?
PATERSON: Yeah, there's certainly been some early media reports that have speculated that some of the false reporting about that incident was deliberately placed by Russian linked entities on the internet as an act of foreign interference or espionage in their country. And we have seen that in other contexts, that foreign government controlled social media platforms like TikTok and WeChat, but also Western headquartered social media platforms, are vulnerable to foreign states using them as a platform for disinformation. And they see them as an opportunity to weaken our societies. I led a Senate inquiry which made 17 recommendations to the government to address this. Unfortunately, none of them have yet been taken up, but I think it is a worthy area of action because it does threaten both our democracy and our social cohesion.
CANNANE: On that point of Russian foreign interference, it seems like since Elon Musk took over Twitter or X, as he likes to call it now, he's got rid of the teams within that organisation that use to try and minimise this kind of, propaganda being spread and this kind of foreign interference. If Elon Musk can't self-regulate, does there need to be more regulation in this space?
PATERSON: Foreign state disinformation is rife on Twitter. And I would agree it has become more prevalent since the change of ownership of Twitter, because one of the things that Elon Musk did is he removed the requirement for state affiliated media entities like Russia Today, for example, or their spokespeople to be identified on the platform. One of the recommendations of the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media was a requirement on all social media platforms to proactively label state affiliated media, where they know, so that users of those platforms can be informed about the perspective that those people are bringing. If they can mask their origins or their affiliations, then it's much harder for any individual user to be an expert on every single piece of information that they are feed. So yes, I think there's a very strong case for regulation, not just on Twitter, but on all social media platforms.
CANNANE: Onto another topic the Iranian ambassador to Australia, Ahmed Sadeghi, posted to X or Twitter, as we know it, yesterday, saying he is looking forward to wiping out what he called the Zionist plague from Palestinian lands. What is your reaction to those comments?
PATERSON: These are extremely concerning and inflammatory comments. And if he wasn't an ambassador, it's highly likely that would fall afoul of Australia's anti incitement and racial vilification laws. And if he is wantonly breaking the law like that, inciting violence against the community, in this case the Jewish community, I think it is incumbent on the government to take action, They do have options available to them under the Vienna Convention, including declaring an ambassador to be persona non grata and really, it's up to the Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, to explain whether she's going to do so and if she chooses not to do so, why that's not appropriate.
CANNANE: Do you think the government should be doing that?
PATERSON: Well, I think they should be very seriously looking at options like that, because I think it is very dangerous to have a foreign diplomat who has immunity under Australian law to be engaging in whipping up that kind of hatred and violence in our community. As the Director-General has said, all of us in public life, including foreign ambassadors, have an obligation to be very measured and careful in these heightened and tense times. We don't need them fanning the flames of division here in Australia.
CANNANE: So if he wasn't an ambassador, do you think he would be breaching hate speech laws?
PATERSON: Yes, I think it's a significant prospect that he could be found to be breaching our anti incitement laws or our racial vilification laws in this country on the basis that he appears to be urging violence against people on the basis of their religious beliefs or affiliations, including the State of Israel and the Jewish community.
CANNANE: Senator, before I let you go, Mike Burgess was talking last night about politically motivated violence. Is now that one of the top security concerns in Australia, I wonder, you know, given that we've seen offices of politicians vandalised and attacked in recent months, do you feel as safe now as you did when you first entered politics?
PATERSON: No, I think it's definitely degraded in the last eight years while I've been in the federal parliament. There are more threats to MPs, and a lot of that happens online, and some of that is just people letting off steam, but some of it is serious. And I think the scenes we have seen outside the electorate offices of many of my Labor colleagues, particularly, Peter Khalil and Josh Burns in Melbourne, whose electorate office was firebombed, is deeply disturbing. I think all politicians have a responsibility to turn down the heat, not turn it up. I think the Prime Minister has been right to call out the Greens and the way they have contributed to this, they have been irresponsibly politicising this issue for partisan gain and it is stretching the bonds of social cohesion and I think it's very dangerous.
CANNANE: Okay. We've run out of time there. But we thank you for your time this morning.
PATERSON: Thanks Steve.
ENDS
