October 21, 2024
CHRIS KENNY: I put these issues to shadow Home Affairs Minister, Senator James Paterson.
JAMES PATERSON: Chris, For 12 months now, we've had a festering extremism crisis in this country. And far from getting better, it's now getting worse. It is absolutely extraordinary to see people proudly and publicly holding photos and praising Yahya Sinwar, a deceased terrorist commander of a listed terrorist organisation in Australia, responsible for the worst atrocity against the Jewish people in a single day since the Holocaust. Responsible for the deaths of 1200 people, responsible for kidnapping 250 more. And frankly responsible for the thousands of Palestinians who have also died since the 7th October because he provoked exactly the response that Israel would have to enact with that attack. Why would any decent person, let alone any Australian, think that that is someone worthy of a praise?
KENNY: Yeah, well, exactly. But the point here, James, is that there's no police action. Nobody's been charged. Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation. It's against the law to support that terrorist organisation. Now, when you lauding its leader, the man who has committed all these atrocities you've just referred to, isn't that supporting a terrorist organisation? Shouldn't that be attracting the attention of our law enforcement authorities? Instead, it just seems people have been standing back and watching.
PATERSON: You're exactly right, Chris. It is the failure to enact meaningful consequences for repeated instances of behaviour like this over the last year that has led extremists in our country to become emboldened and to now openly defy the law. Since the 7th of October last year, despite all the horrific scenes we've seen in our country, not one person has been convicted of supporting a terrorist organisation. Not one person has been convicted of incitement to violence. Not one person has been convicted for displaying the symbols of a banned terrorist organisation. And what is the message these people have taken out of that? That there is no consequences for their behaviour. There is nothing to fear. And so not only do we have an extremism crisis, frankly, I think we have a law enforcement crisis. The law hasn't been enforced. The deterrent is not there, and that is why it's getting worse.
KENNY: Look, I'm just confounded by this. I've been talking about this for more than a year now, as have you and as have many others. We continue to see the sort of excuses and sort of mealy mouthed words from the various government officials, from the federal government and state authorities that police still haven't acted. What is the point of having terrorist organisations outlawed in this country if people can still go out publicly, support them, laud them, and encourage people, others, to support those groups effectively, and their aims.
PATERSON: Exactly right, Chris. And my view is that the key missing ingredient over the last year in Australia has been political leadership, but also moral clarity and courage. And because we haven't seen from the Prime Minister down a very clear message sent that this behaviour is not only unacceptable, it's unlawful and that the federal government expects the law to be enforced. The law hasn't been enforced. There's only two options here, Chris. Either you enforce the law or if you can't enforce the law, you reform the law so it can be enforced. And yet the government and the Prime Minister and the Labor Party have sat on their hands. They have both failed to convey their expectations to police to do something about this. And they've failed to amend the law to make it easier for police to do something about this. And the result of that weakness and that impotence from the Prime Minister has been we have extremists in our community who think there is nothing to fear from their abhorrent behaviour. We see a social cohesion crisis, an antisemitism crisis, and an extremism crisis and it is getting worse. And my fear, Chris, is that something terrible will happen, something shocking will happen in our country that we all don't want to see happen because this behaviour has been tolerated.
KENNY: Well, you've gone ahead and answer the question to my next point. You're absolutely right about those two responses that we could see from a government. We've seen neither of them. Therefore, social cohesion is reduced in this country. We do see more division, more hatred, and that can only fester more. I mean, there is a reckoning here. The reason we oppose this sort of extremism and these groups is because we don't want to see this in our country yet it is growing now. Those tensions are getting more and more strained and I fear for where this goes. I mean, at some stage, even though they've done nothing for over a year, the government must act or we will see horrible, horrible consequences, even worse than the hatred we've seen preached on our streets.
PATERSON: And we've already had a preview of what that could look like, Chris. We've had one teenager charged with a terrorism offence in relation to the alleged stabbing of the bishop in western Sydney. We had half a dozen other teenagers charged with the act of preparing a terrorist offence. Thank God neither of those became worse incidents. None of those were able to follow through in causing the death of someone or a serious terrorist attack. But we know from the ASIO Director-General that it is more likely than not that in the next 12 months there will be a terrorist attack in this country because he's raised the terrorism threat level from possible to probable. And that's what that means. And you would think in light of that information, in light of the scenes that we've seen, that the number one laser like focus of the federal government would be preventing that from happening and doing everything to stop that from happening. And yet that is not what we've seen. We've seen impotence. We've seen weakness. We've seen equivocation. We've seen cowardice.
KENNY: It is such a worry, I can see, that the federal government and others are hoping that when the current war in the Middle East is resolved, perhaps all this will die down. That's the mistaken approach, if you ask me, we need to combat this sort of extremism in our community all the time. We've obviously haven't done that well enough in years gone by. Which brings me to my final point, and that is the organisation of Hizb ut-Tahrir. It's outlawed in many Muslim countries. It's outlawed in the UK too. Now, it's been a focus for many, many years. The Coalition could have outlawed it when it was in government, but is the time now ripe for this organisation to be banned in this country?
PATERSON: We must take a fresh look at this, Chris, in light of their behaviour in the last 12 months and in light of the decision of our friends in the United Kingdom to list them as a terrorist organisation. Things have changed with this organisation. It has become more emboldened, it has become more prominent, it has become more active. It appears to be recruiting and it is a key organiser behind many of the pro-Palestinian rallies, events and conferences that we've seen in our country over the last year, including that despicable celebration on the 7th of October at the Lakemba Mosque that never should have gone ahead. We have called on the government repeatedly to seek advice to see whether it meets the legal threshold to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation in Australia and if the advice comes back that it's not we'll then we can consider the next steps to deal with this extremist organisation. But that is the first step and there's no evidence the government has done so.
KENNY: James Paterson, thanks so much for joining us.
PATERSON: Thanks Chris.
ENDS
