Preventing and countering violent extremism

Violent extremism remains ones of the most significant challenges we face as a society. It threatens not only lives, but also our national unity. Violent extremists weaponise fear and division to advance their political goals. Whatever their creed, they are alike in using violence to chill faith in the basic tenets of our society: pluralism and tolerance.

Violent extremism can take many forms. We are familiar with the threat of terrorism committed under the false flag of religion. We must remain vigilant in preventing these attacks. At the same time, it is important to keep the challenge in perspective. Our security agencies have been highly successful in preventing loss of life. And hyping the threat serves only to stoke divisions, feed stigma, and fuel the very radicalisation we seek to prevent.

What does demand more attention, however, is ideologically motivated violent extremism. Individuals and groups drawn to neo-Nazism and white supremacism are proliferating. They have capitalised on the chaos of COVID-19 and been emboldened by the Capitol riots. The tragedy of Christchurch points grimly to where their ideologies lead.

To counter extremism more effectively, we need a keener understanding of its roots. Extremists are often alike in feeling isolated and disaffected. These grievances make them vulnerable to recruitment by ideologues promising—speciously—to offer easy explanations, noble causes, and community belonging.

If social grievances are the cause, technology is a key enabler. The internet and encrypted communications have made it significantly easier both to share and access radicalising material. Recruiters often cloak their hateful views in irony, humour, and claims of satire. These tactics slowly lure followers into normalising violence.

Given the social roots of extremism, it follows that law enforcement should serve as the last line of defence, not the first. This is not to devalue the vital role that police and intelligence play in monitoring threats and foiling attacks. But their role can only be reactive. By the time someone is radicalised to the point of planning or enacting violence, we have missed critical opportunities at prevention. The latter should always be the primary aim.

To prevent and, when needed, counter violent extremism, Australia will:

Commit to a regular review of Australia’s Counter Terrorism Strategy which engages government, private sector, and community stakeholders. Countering violent extremist is not solely the responsibility of Government, law enforcement, and security agencies – an effective CT strategy must be a truly whole-of-society effort. It is imperative that we ensure Australia’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy remains fit for purpose as the challenge evolves.

Increase the capacity of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM) by boosting the number PV-cleared staff and guaranteeing long-term funding. The INSLM plays a critical role in ensuring the fundamental rights guaranteed in our liberal democracy are protected while ensuring our law enforcement and security agencies have the appropriate legislative authorities in place to perform their functions.

Consider expanding the office of the INSLM to have a branch dedicated to reviewing CT Legislation. Given the potential self-defeating second and third order effects of legislative overreach in countering violent extremism, it is critically important that legislative efforts to counter violent extremism do not result in the perception of the erosion of people’s fundamental rights. Having an INSLM function dedicated to the review of CT legislation would help to scrutinise this balance.

Commit to a 5-yearly independent intelligence review to assess the resourcing, powers, and performance of the NIC. This will help to ensure the NIC remains fit for purpose and its powers and resourcing are consistent with identified threats. Regular independent review is a key feature of maintaining a high degree of trust between civil society and the NIC and, in doing so, securing its licence to operate.

Scale-up community-centred de-radicalisation initiatives. Countering violent extremism must start at the community level. We will therefore commit to sponsoring regular, close, and sincere engagement through town halls, school appearances and other community programs which bring together federal, state and territory, and local government representatives; liaison officers from security agencies and law enforcement; and academic, private-sector, and community leaders. The intent of this engagement will be to ensure the challenge is well-understood and options for individuals who appear to be on the pathway to radicalisation are clear.

Improve state-federal cooperation. Intelligence agencies and law enforcement have different but complementary capabilities and powers to disrupt and deter violent extremism. It is critical that they continue to work together to leverage their different capabilities. Australia will therefore consider mechanisms to enhance collaboration between intelligence agencies and federal, state and territory law enforcement. The Joint Counter Terrorism Teams (JCTTs) currently in operation are a successful model that could be scaled up or supplement with similar mechanisms.

Nominate PV-cleared staff to work in state and territory governments. Countering domestic violent extremism will increasingly require greater vertical collaboration between governments and horizontal collaboration between the public and private sectors. We must facilitate greater sharing of information between federal, state and territory agencies, governments, and the private sector. Engaging with risk to share more classified information through security-cleared staff in national security advisory positions in state and territory governments will enhance the awareness the RMVE and IMVE environment nationwide.

Nominate a Special Envoy for De-Radicalisation. The Envoy would engage directly with the EU’s Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) and similar international bodies to ensure Australia stays up to date with international best-practices. We will seek to adopt international best-practice rehabilitation policies in Australia’s corrective services to address radicalisation in prisons. If we allow prisons to become breeding grounds for radicalisation, we undermine our efforts to counter violent extremism in other areas.

Tackle online violent-extremist content. Specifically, we will legislate a requirement for service providers and competent authorities to remove identified terrorist content based on the recent EU Regulation addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online, and work to align our approach to countering the spread of terrorist content online with international partners and regulatory bodies. This will increase our capacity to counter terrorist propaganda and hate speech online. The internet is a potent platform for the global dissemination of content and propaganda by international terrorist network. This is a problem both for the spread of RMVE and IMVE ideologies and a powerful tool for recruiting and radicalising individuals and facilitating terrorist activity.