11 April 2008
Interview with Philip Clark, 2GB Radio, 5.15PM.
TOPICS: ATTORNEY'S VISIT TO THE UNITED KINGDOM; COUNTER-RADICALISTION; CLOSER COOOPERATION ON COUNTER-TERRORISM.
PHILIP CLARK: The Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty and the Attorney-General of Australia Robert McClelland have been in Britain for talks with their counterparts on cooperation and terrorism. I thought we'd catch up with what's happened. Robert McClelland joins me on the line. The Attorney-General of Australia, Afternoon.
ROBERT MCCLELLAND: Good afternoon.
PHILIP CLARK: Interesting trip?
ROBERT MCCLELLAND: It was a fascinating trip and very useful all around, I think, to look at several aspects including what the British are doing in the area of counter radicalisation which I think Mick Keelty was very impressed with as well.
PHILIP CLARK: They've probably got a more serious issue than we have, is that fair to say?
ROBERT MCCLELLAND: Yes, it is more serious than us. On the other hand, we've got time to do something about it. They've been back-footed, essentially as a result of the connection between some elements who have travelled to and from Pakistan and are in some communities quite entrenched.
They've got a serious problem and I think for instance the United States do not have that fear of home grown terrorism to the extent that Great Britain does and you're absolutely right, we don't have it to such an extent, however, there are clearly some elements here and I think similar programs and strategies could and can be implemented now to avoid it downstream.
PHILIP CLARK: That was the great worry about the London underground train bombings, I must say, when the, you know, the perpetrators were eventually - and their backgrounds eventually revealed and you saw what had happened there and, you know, a lot of people were concerned about that. These weren't people who'd flown in from overseas, they were people who'd grown up in Britain and you know, played cricket.
ROBERT MCCLELLAND: The intelligence community say that was one of the most chilling things where you would receive interceptions about planning Jihad attack on the one hand then they were talking about who was playing in the local cricket team.
PHILIP CLARK: How good are we in Australia at knowing about what's going on in radicalised Islamic prayer houses and mosques and so on?
ROBERT MCCLELLAND: Our intelligence agencies are functioning well. Where I think we can do better and I think Mick Keelty also recognised is at street level. At street policing level the British have a far more integrated system where intelligence agents and police work at a local level so they have fed in to them what's happening on the ground in terms of criminal activity in certain areas, indeed certain households. At the same time the intelligence communities can feed in the information they receive through overseas networks as to possible connections and we still have, if you like, substantially stove pipes between that intelligence and policing and certainly local policing function and I think we need to do some more work in integrating our agencies at a street level.
PHILIP CLARK: Hmm. We need to improve communication flows too, don't we? I mean one of the great lessons of the Mohamed Haneef case is that - that authorities here appear to be going off half cocked at some, at crucial points with information from Britain that was just wrong. I mean in relation to the SIM - the famous SIM card for example at one stage thought to be at the scene of the bombing later discovered to - had nothing to do with the bombing at all found, you know, hundreds of kilometres away.
I mean, we need to improve communication flows, don't we?
ROBERT MCCLELLAND: We do and that's the other thing that they've done very well in recent years in Great Britain, that is involve advice from the equivalent of the Director of Public Prosecutions at an early stage of investigation so that they look at the intelligence information they have, the police evidence they have and they make a determination as to whether they retain the intelligence agents involvement in a matter or whether it then shifts to a particular point in time to a police function to gather evidence for a prosecution. As a result of the measures that they've introduced really over the last four years they're now getting up to a 92 per cent conviction rate in these cases, with a number of guilty pleas whereas if you look at what has happened in Australia recently you've mentioned Haneef. There's ul-Haque, there's Thomas that's being re-tried. There's several cases where unquestionably we could have done better if we had improved integration and communication. The point you make is absolutely critical and again more could be done in that area.
PHILIP CLARK: Hmm. Do you think the chance of a terror attack in Australia is greater now than it was two years ago?
ROBERT MCCLELLAND: It's foolish to be complacent. The threat level has stayed on medium throughout that period which means that an attack is certainly feasible and possible and I think that was probably the case two years ago and probably the case now.
PHILIP CLARK: Oh, I suppose I asked the question because I just wondered whether - I mean, people might like to know whether, you know, at least at the levels you're talking about people are talking about an increased threat or perhaps a diminishing threat.
ROBERT MCCLELLAND: I think it would be foolish to assume the threat is diminishing and one of the real difficulties in dealing with this is apathy in the community or indeed cynicism regarding the efforts of the intelligence in policing agencies that was one of the downsides of the Haneef investigation. I think it created, and we've got to be careful it doesn't create, an unhealthy cynicism in the community. There is unquestionably a risk of terrorism, it's in Australia, it's moderate, it's certainly less than that which exists in Great Britain but nonetheless it's important to maintain and ensure that our systems are working as effectively as they can. The areas we can improve are the three you've touched on and that is counter-radicalisation, improving communication to achieve prosecutions, and improving interaction at street law enforcement intelligence functions. I think if we get those three areas right we'll be doing everything we possibly can to make terrorism past tense rather than what unquestionably is currently a moderate threat.
PHILIP CLARK: Okay. Good to talk with you.
ROBERT MCCLELLAND: That's a pleasure.
PHILIP CLARK: Thank you Robert McClelland the Attorney-General of Australia.
END