JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE WITH THE PRIME MINISTER AND THE MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Parliament House, Canberra
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Subject: Counter Terrorism White Paper
PRIME MINISTER: The Government is today releasing the Counter-Terrorism White Paper.
The first responsibility of any Government is the protection of Australia and Australian interests. The National Security Statement of December 2008 for the first time presented a coherent strategy for the whole range of national security challenges we face, and how we intend to respond to those challenges. The Government has since then released the Defence White Paper, Force 2030, which is one core building block in enhancing our national security capabilities for the future. Furthermore, the Government is today releasing a further piece of the Government’s national security reform agenda, the Counter-Terrorism White Paper.
Terrorism continues to pose a serious threat, a serious challenge to Australia’s security interests. That threat is not diminishing. In fact, the Government’s security and intelligence agencies assess that terrorism has become a persistent and permanent feature of Australia’s security environment. These agencies warn that an attack could occur at any time. The key threat comes from people who are adherents to the distorted and militant interpretation of Islam, that is espoused by groups such as Al-Qaida. Prior to the rise of jihadist terrorism, Australia was not a specific target. Now Australia is such a target. More than 100 Australians have been killed in terrorist attacks since 2001. Australians have been murdered by terrorists in New York, in Bali, in Riyadh, in Jakarta, in London, and in Mumbai. The White Paper outlines two key shifts in the terrorist threat to Australia.
First, there has been some counter-terrorism successes, most notably in South-East Asia, and, also in exerting pressure on Al-Qaida in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. But this has been offset by newer areas of concern, such as Somalia and Yemen. Second, Australia now faces an increased terrorist threat from people born or raised in Australia who take inspiration from international jihadist narratives. The London attacks in July 2005 brought into stark relief the real threat of globally inspired but locally generated attacks in Western democracies. And in Australia since 2001, 38 people have been prosecuted as a result of counter-terrorism operations, and 20 have been convicted of terrorism offences under the criminal code. Over 40 Australians have had their passports revoked or denied for reasons relating to terrorism.
The Government is committed to concrete action to combat terrorism. No Government can guarantee that Australia will be free from the threat of terrorism. But the Government can guarantee that we will take all necessary and practical measures to combat that threat. The Government’s intention is to provide our security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the resources to assist them identify terrorists and to protect attacks. There are four key elements of the Government’s Counter-Terrorism strategy. Analysis, protection, response, and resilience.
Analysis - our need for analysis demands an intelligence-led response driven by properly connected and properly informed national security community.
Protection - the Government is committed to taking all necessary and practical action to protect Australians and Australian interests from terrorism at home and abroad.
In terms of response, the Government is committed to providing an immediate and focussed response to specific terrorist threats and to terrorist attacks should they occur.
And resilience, Australia’s strong and resilient community has a key role to play in resisting the development of violent extremism and terrorism on the home front.
If I could make three specific points about the contents of this paper. The White Paper of course contains a range of specific announcements and a number of specific measures. The- one of them relates to the introduction of biometric checks for visa applications in around ten countries. Under the new system, people applying for new electronic visas in these countries will be required to present in person at a visa application centre to lodge their visa applications, and submit fingerprints and facial images.
Second, the Government is committed to providing coordinated operational counter-terrorism work through international efforts and with budget priorities so dedicated. A multi-agency counter-terrorism control centre within the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation will be established. This is about properly coordinating our intelligence efforts on the ground, in the field.
Beyond these measures, could I also draw your attention to the announcement recently that the Government made in the $200 million investment in airport security, including the introduction of full body scanners and enhanced explosive detection devices at major international gateway airports, as part of Australia’s aviation security screening, as well as the enhanced security arrangements for air cargo, as well as at Australia’s other domestic and regional airports.
Could I conclude with these remarks- the challenge of counter-terrorism is real. The threat that we face is continuing. And the agencies that advise us on these matters have concluded that this threat is now a permanent threat. Home grown terrorism is now a reality in Australia that we have to accept. The threat of terrorism is no longer just something that travels to Australia from overseas. The threat of home grown terrorism is now increasing. This White Paper is clear, some of the threat we now face comes from the Australian born, Australian educated, and Australian residents. Therefore, our response to this threat must be multi-layered across the measures that I have reflected in the contents of the Counter-Terrorism White Paper. Before taking your questions, I’d ask first the Attorney to add to my remarks, then the Foreign Minister, then it’s open to you.
McCLELLAND: Thanks very much Prime Minister.
Just two things: the Counter-Terrorism Control Centre and also addressing the issue of home grown terrorism.
The Counter-Terrorism Control Centre will draw together experts from the intelligence community to a centre within the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. It will look at increasing the capacity to gather intelligence, analyse intelligence to communicate it to those agencies that may require that intelligence, or indeed to simply cross-check the intelligence, and to ensure that the intelligence as joined together is available for operational purposes. So that will be a significant enhancement through combining existing capabilities of our intelligence-gathering capability.
In respect of the issue of home grown terrorism, it is instructive to note that there have been 38 prosecutions – some of those matters are still before the courts it should be noted – but of those 38, 37 are Australian citizens, and of those 37, 20 were born in Australia.
Again, these are matters to be resolved before the Courts, but that is an indication that we’re not simply looking at the possibility of a terrorist event occurring from overseas, but the reality of home grown terrorism is something that the Government needs to address and is addressing through our counter-radicalisation strategies.
SMITH: To add to the remarks of the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General, the Prime Minister has outlined the new threats that the White Paper identifies, firstly, the evolution of Al-Qaida and its associates with now threats coming from the Yemen and from Somalia, and also the home grown threats which both the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General have referred to.
As a consequence, what we see in this White Paper for the first occasion is an attempt to mesh much better our domestic and our international strategies. So far as our international strategies are concerned, you’ll find detailed in the White Paper the fact that Australia now has 10 to 15, I think the precise number is 14, formal memorandums of understanding with other countries on counter-terrorism. And so the work we do internationally is very significant, and the formal MoUs go beyond what you would regard as Australia’s traditional like-minded friends, partners and allies in this area. So our international effort is significant.
So far as the enhanced visa processing arrangements are concerned, we expect the rollout to be in about 10 countries. We’re not of course identifying those countries until the actual rollout occurs, but in due course, individually, that will become public. And there may well be a diplomatic effort required in respect of some of those countries as you would expect. Finally, just by way of interest, I think in the Cabinet anteroom some of the visa processing arrangements, the new arrangements, are there for you to inspect. The fingerprinting and the biometrics, the facial imaging and screening for your interest.
JOURNALIST: Just, as you were eluding before, you know, when it comes down to terrorism, we often think about the usual suspects. You know you mentioned Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But in your own statement it points out that the 2005 British bombings were done by British nationals. Why, then, would we restrict this rollout of biometric testing to just 10 countries when we’re going to be piggybacking off the British system, and then under the British and American system, they test practically everyone?
PRIME MINISTER: Can I say one of the reasons we have taken this decision is that we’ve been again hugely informed by the developments in recent years, but also the developments on December 25 in the United States. And that is, the need for our intelligence agencies to have full access to global databases at every level, on terrorists and terror suspects. The world is a big place. There are other agencies out there who our friends and partners and allies who we need to draw on. It makes sense, therefore, to have complementary systems operating across the world. When it comes to your word, I think, ‘piggybacking’, we call it cooperation. They draw on us, we draw on them. And we actually have to be part of the global network to make this work. This is a serious business. We’ve listened very carefully to the presentation by the officials on this. The time for delay on this is well and truly passed. It has to be done, and rolled out. We also do not draw a particular line around the 10 that have been referred to by the Minister. We reserve to ourselves the right to expand this network further. But we are doing so carefully on the advice of the officials in terms of those parts of the world where we believe we have the greatest potential vulnerability.
JOURNALIST: Just on two things, does the money you’re using come out of existing budgets, because some of these Departments are already under strain. And secondly, you say that the threat is from Australian born as well as overseas nationals- well the aviation security identity card still doesn’t have any kind of biometric data, and people can use, we know that there’s identity theft going on there at the moment. So why isn’t that being rolled out at our airports?
PRIME MINISTER: On the first question concerning the funding of this program, this is a new investment. In relation to the airport security measures that we referred to the other day, these are new investments as well. And this has been a matter of considerable debate within the Government against fiscal pressures on the one hand, but also responding to some very sharp and focussed advice from our agencies, advice which I in part commissioned following the events of December 25 in the United States. There’s a bit of a danger that we all get numbed to the terrorist threat. It’s a word which is used, and people have become so used to it over the last near decade, that it no longer bites home. December 25 was a near-run thing in the United States. We have taken a lot of advice since then from our agencies, and this is the appropriate response.
As far as airport security is concerned, the measures that we detailed I think a week or so ago with the Transport Minister are robust. I’d draw your attention to his comments then in terms of the card in question, and of course we have further things to do in that respect.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just on another issue. In 2007 you promised to deliver 260 childcare centres on school grounds. You’re actually delivering, I understand, 38 by 2012. What’s the problem, and do you concede that that’s a broken election promise?
PRIME MINISTER: I think on this one I’ll defer to the Deputy Prime Minister and the relevant Minister.
JOURNALIST: I asked her yesterday.
PRIME MINISTER: I’d like to respond to your question. I think as far as the rollout of support for the childcare industry across the country is concerned, the Government has done a lot. On the specific progress and the implementation of that and how it is being done, and how it dovetails with the use which is being put in some schools for the multipurpose halls for the purpose of after school hours care etcetera, I’m not sure where the final detail of that has landed. But once we are clear on that, we’ll certainly come back to you.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, this White Paper’s been a long time in the works. Does it tell you anything about the threat of terrorism that you didn’t already know? Is there a classified version that hasn’t been released?
PRIME MINISTER: This is, of course, based on extensive classified discussions of the National Security Committee of the Cabinet. As I said, December 25 was a very focussing event. Yes, the Counter-Terrorism White Paper has been under preparation for a long time, but what December 25 required us to do was to bring it together rapidly against newly emerging data.
You see, two big things now confront us out there.
One is terrorists, al-Qa'ida-related terrorist organisations now have training effectively in other parts of the world. We have had some success in Afghanistan, we've had some success in Pakistan, but the references to Yemen and Somalia are there for a specific purpose. That is why our international efforts are so crucial here.
The second key element of this, which was confronting when we looked at the raw intelligence data, concerned the increasing home-grown threat. This is a statistical conclusion from our agencies based on their intelligence efforts. As I said, Australians have often seen terrorism as something as a risk which they confront when they travel abroad - maybe. Now we are confronted with the reality that home-grown terrorism in Australia is increasing. That is the sober conclusion from our agencies and it was starkly underlined by the heads of our agencies as we prepared this document.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) Australians more at risk from dodgy home insulation than they are from a terror attack?
PRIME MINISTER: I understand the Liberal Party today is now saying that the home insulation program is a bigger threat to Australia than terrorism and some have argued, in fact, that we should not have proceeded to release this Counter-Terrorism White Paper today. Can I explain to you why I fundamentally disagree with that proposition?
The first is, we now confront significant and continuing threats of terrorism and we have specifically taken advice from our agencies following the events of December 25, which isn't that long ago. Secondly, could I say that when it comes to the introduction of body scanners and the introduction of biometric checks, these have to be put into place as rapidly as possible. That is why we have made these announcements that we have made in the last week or so and again today.
On top of that, can I say that when a document is ready for release on something as fundamental as counter-terrorism, it should be released so the agencies can then be put in a position to give it effect on the ground.
And, finally, can I just say in relation to the comments by the Liberal Party that I seem to recall the Liberal Party's been calling upon us to release the counter-terrorism white paper for a long, long time, so here's the call to Mr Abbott: pull in his Liberal Party spokesman on this subject, let's have a real discussion about counter-terrorism and threats to Australia rather than just engaging in, let's call it a political scare campaign.
