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

I thank the member for La Trobe for that question, and I acknowledge that he is somebody who is very experienced in these matters through his former life as a police officer. It is very deeply concerning to hear about his Labor opponent denigrating the Countering Violent Extremism program that this government is pursuing. The Hackathon initiative that he mentioned, which I know he has hosted in his electorate and will continue to host, was actually demonstrated to the group of international delegates who came to the Countering Violent Extremism regional summit in Sydney last week. It is a program that I know he is deeply committed to, and I congratulate him for that.

It is very important that we do all we can to counter the violent narrative that is coming out of Daesh in the Middle East and the way they utilise modern social media to send their propaganda deep throughout the Western world, really in quite a remarkable way—100,000 pieces of social media per day emanating from Daesh, which is quite extraordinary. Both the Australian government and our partners—in the region as well as our traditional security partners—need to find innovative ways to tackle this. We are investing in this budget to allow the Australian government to respond to this. We have situations, as have been mentioned by the member for La Trobe—sadly, very close to his electorate; in fact, I think it was in the electorate of Holt—where we have had two home-grown terrorist attacks since September last year, at Endeavour Hills police station, and in December, in Martin Place. But I think what is less well understood is that there have been a further six plots within that time—six plots since September—that were disrupted by our authorities. That is a rate of one every five weeks. It is a great testament to the skill of our police and our intelligence community that they have the wherewithal and the ability to disrupt these plots. But clearly they need support from the government, and this government is determined to provide that support.

The member for La Trobe asked about our CVE program. We will allocate $40 million for that, which will be allocated to countering the violent narratives that young people in particular can be exposed to online. This has tripled what the Labor government funded through CVE programs, and it is in addition to the extra $650 million that I have already referred to in my previous answers, which supports social services and social cohesion. The $5.2 million specifically will go towards the diversion team, and $13.4 million will go to the Living Safer Together diversion program. That program seeks to identify young people who might be at risk of radicalisation or be susceptible to these violent ideologies. The idea behind it is that, in a targeted way, we intervene to mentor, counsel and do everything we can to put that young person back on the right path. That is not an easy process, and unfortunately there is not a template anywhere in the world that we can use that has been 100 per cent effective. But we do need to keep trying different things within this Countering Violent Extremism program to make sure that where it is identified that people are moving down a very dark and violent path we can correct their behaviour. And we are investing very significantly to be able to do that.

We are also allocating money to the Living Safer Together program, and the Attorney-General announced recently that 34 community groups were funded to the tune $1.6 million. I was very pleased to update the House that we were allocating another $400,000 to a further eight organisations through the Living Safer Together program. The idea behind that program is that we allow community groups to develop the skills they need to move people away from these ideologies of violence and hatred.

As I also mentioned, we will be spending $21.7 million specifically to counter violent propaganda online. We know that it is in the online environment that terrorists can recruit vulnerable young people, in particular. They literally do it like a paedophile would groom a young person. Sadly, we are finding that the people being groomed are getting far younger. Initially we were concerned about people in their 20s, then we were concerned about people in their late teens and now, sadly, we are concerned about people in their young teens. We know—and it is a matter of public record—that some of the people our agencies have had to deal with recently have been as young as 14.

So, I thank the member for La Trobe for that important question. These investments in CVE programs have— (Time expired).

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