8 August 2009
INTERVIEW - ABC AM
SUBJECT: Counter Extremism
HOST: Australia's Federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, is searching for the best way to stop young Australians turning to violent extremism.
He's examining community mentoring programs in Victoria and in prisons. He's also told Saturday AM that changes to the system for banning terrorist organisations will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
Robert McClelland spoke with national security correspondent Matt Brown about the best way to stop young people joining extremist groups in the first place.
McCLELLAND: These programs involve introducing a role model into their lives, working out what pressures they are confronting, working out what needs to be done to ensure they have every opportunity to succeed, preventing youths becoming vulnerable to extremist teachings, giving them a sense of belonging, a sense of community, a sense of prospect of achievement.
BROWN: How does this get triggered? Someone will start saying radical things in a mosque, or in their community centre, or in the hearing of community leaders, and that gets reported on, and acted on?
McCLELLAND: That's a good point, and this should be stressed. Police officers, at all levels, have said, often the information about someone becoming extremist in their views, in their doctrines, and their teachings, or their interactions, or alienating themselves to a small clique at a mosque, often that information comes from the community itself.
BROWN: The proscription regime, the regime that we call banning terrorist groups which was introduced by the Howard Government, that was meant to send a clear signal about which groups are way beyond the pale, which groups are considered by the Government automatically to be terrorist groups. Al-Shabaab, this Somali group, is not on that list, why?
McCLELLAND: In terms of the organisation specifically, clearly consideration has been given. The intelligence authorities, the Government is aware of the activities of this organisation.
The Prime Minister has also referred to the significance of the current investigations. Now, action has been taken in respect to those, obviously that will have its own impact.
BROWN: There's obviously ongoing investigation. The police pretty much signalled as much the other day. But doesn't the uncertainty about what gets a group banned, why groups are banned, exactly what criteria are used, doesn't that undermine confidence in the whole regime, that in fact you had doubts about, when it was introduced, when you were back in Opposition?
McCLELLAND: Well, this is a perceptive question.
In the next couple of weeks, it is anticipated we will be issuing a Discussion Paper on the proscription regime, and specifically identifying the informal criteria that are applied by the security agencies.
There will also be ideas about a closer engagement of the relevant Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security looking at the role it has in overviewing these recommendations.
So that will be issued for public discussion.
These are important issues. I should indicate in respect to the recent events, no one has been charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation, proscribed or otherwise.
But if an organisation is proscribed, and someone is convicted of being a member, or indeed supporting, they are liable to prison for twenty-five years, so the fact that an organisation is proscribed is no light matter.
HOST: The Federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland.
Ends
