Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Petrie for that question.

As the Treasurer indicated to Australia on Tuesday night, the highest responsibility of any government is the safety and security of its citizens. This government is more focused than ever on making sure that our law enforcement and our security agencies have the resources and the tools that they need to do their job of keeping us safe.

This has been drawn into sharp focus by events in Melbourne over the weekend, where lives were once again saved by a joint operation involving the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and their security partners. This operation has resulted in the arrest of a 17-year-old from the northern suburbs of Melbourne, who has been charged with terrorism offences. During the search of the home three improvised pipe bombs were discovered inside the house, which police were forced to seize and render safe by controlled explosion in a nearby park.

A total of 23 people have now been charged as a result of eight counter-terrorism operations since the terror alert threat level was raised to high last September. That is one-third of all terrorism related charges in Australia since 2001. It is very clear that we are living in a much more difficult and challenging security environment than we were 12 months ago, and that Australians are being groomed online by extremists in an effort to radicalise them and to recruit our vulnerable young people to go out and do their fellow citizens harm. Protecting Australians, our communities and our way of life is paramount, and it is this government's highest priority. We have already taken significant steps to achieve this, including introducing four tranches of legislation that have passed this House and which give the agencies the powers they need to do their jobs. We have also backed that up by providing $630 million of resourcing to boost the capacity of our national law enforcement bodies and our security agencies to respond to this new threat.

This year's budget has built on that commitment by including an extra $450 million to strengthen our intelligence capabilities and to counter extremist messaging. This includes almost $300 million for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, $21 million to counter terrorist lies and propaganda online and $131 million to assist telecommunications providers to retain metadata for the prescribed period of two years.

We are very fortunate in Australia to have the best law enforcement and security agencies in the world. It is very important that they are backed by this government, and they have been backed through resourcing and by being given the extra powers that they actually need to respond to this threat. They are working to make sure that Australians continue to live their lives safely and normally, without fear, and they will continue to be supported by this government to do that.

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