Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to make a statement on the terrorist attacks in Paris and around the world in recent weeks, recent months, recent years and recent decades. It was earlier this year that a former German MP, Jurgen Todenhofer, wrote a book called Inside ISIS: 10 days in the "Islamic State". He did this after being almost embedded with the group in Syria. He warned that the terrorist organisation is far more 'dangerous and organised' than people in the West realise. He added:

They are extremely brutal. Not just head-cutting. I'm talking about the strategy of religious cleansing. That's their official philosophy. They are talking about 500 million people who have to die.

He said:

The West underestimated the risk posed by IS dramatically.

It was only earlier this month that the President of the USA, President Obama, in an interview said:

… we don't have ground forces there in sufficient numbers to simply march into Al-Raqqah in Syria and clean the whole place out. And as a consequence, we've always understood that our goal has to be militarily constraining ISIL's capabilities, cutting off their supply lines, cutting off their financing at the same time as we're putting a political track together …

The interviewer then said:

And that's the strategy you've been following. But ISIS is gaining strength, aren't they?

The US President replied:

Well, no, I don't think they're gaining strength. What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them.

Those words were said a few days before the Paris terrorist attacks. When it comes to the idea that we have contained them I think it is worth going through some of the terrorist attacks in the last 30 days only.

I will start with a list of terrorist attacks just this year which numbers close to 300. I will list just some of the terrorist attacks and deaths that have occurred around the world in the last 30 days. On 20 October we had 145 people killed in Nigeria from Boko Haram bombings. They were suicide bombings. On 31 October we had the downing of the Russian Metrojet flight, with 224 people killed in the Sinai in Egypt after that flight took off from Sharm El Sheikh airport. On 4 November we had a suicide bombing in Arish in Egypt, killing three people and injuring 10. On 5 November we had another suicide bombing in Lebanon, killing five people plus the perpetrator. On 6 November we had a 16-year-old Palestinian shoot and wound an Israeli Defense Forces soldier in a lone wolf attack. On 7 November we had 12 people killed when multiple bombs were set off across Baghdad. On 9 November we had suicide bombings killing three people in Chad. Also on the same day we had another four people killed when a 14-year-old girl suicide bomber detonated herself at a mosque in Cameroon. On 12 November we had 43 people killed in an ISIL suicide bombing in Beirut in Lebanon. On 13 November there was the tragedy in Paris, where 130 innocent civilians who were merely going to a football game, going to the theatre, watching a rock concert or simply having dinner at a restaurant lost their lives. On that same day there was also another 19 people killed in bombings in Iraq, with another 33 people injured. On 17 November we had bombings in Nigeria killing 34. A few days later we had the attack at the Radisson Hotel in Mali, leaving 19 dead. Right now, the city of Brussels remains in lockdown, with threats of serious and imminent attack. Only just this morning we heard that Tunisia is in a state of emergency after a bomb went off in a bus, killing another 12 people.

This does not sound like containment to me. We must acknowledge the scope of the problem that we face. Our grandfathers fought and defended—

Debate interrupted.

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