Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the terrorist attacks around the world and to support the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. I thank the member for Batman for his contribution just now, following the ministerial statement, and for reminding us all about the duty of our soldiers and other members of the armed services and of the work they do on the battlefields around the world and about how Anzac commemorations have paid tribute to them, going back through many years.

I do also want to mention the bill that just went through, the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015. This is part of the total suite of packages that the government is putting together to help make Australians safer from terrorist attacks. I just wanted to mention my displeasure at the speech by the member from Melbourne, who was not supportive of the amendments or of the fact that this government, along with the opposition, in a bipartisan manner is trying to improve the safety of all Australians. His speech was an absolute disgrace. But I will move on from that and try to talk positively to the motion the Prime Minister and the opposition leader brought forward.

We are well aware of the vicious and cowardly terrorist attacks that locked down Paris on 13 November. Many of us watched it unfold on our TVs, and our thoughts turned to the victims of these cowardly attacks and to their families. Our thoughts are also with those in Australia who have family in France, who, I am sure, would have tried to contact them and establish their status as soon as they possibly could. Those attacks stole the lives of at least 129 people and injured hundreds more. Those organised attacks, which ISIL has taken responsibility for, saw eight killers—or, as we should call them, eight cowards—attack seven locations across the city. No country should ever have to endure what Paris did that night, and I join with the Prime Minister to extend my deepest condolences to the people of Paris.

Australia and many other countries around the world grieve with Paris. They do not stand alone in these attacks. Here in Australia we have experienced the Lindt cafe siege and the shooting of a Parramatta police worker, and they are still at the front of Australians' memories. Those wounds are still fresh. We mourn with Paris. We mourn for our loved ones lost, and for their loved ones lost as well.

According to local Middle East media, on Friday, 20 November, a bomb killed nine people just south of Baghdad, for which, again, ISIL is suspected. ISIL is not resting; they will not rest—but neither will we in our fight against them.

The 2014 Global Terrorism Index tells us that the world experienced a 61 per cent increase in the terrorist attacks in just that year and, in that same year, our national terrorism public alert level was raised to the status of 'High'. Since then, there have been 26 people charged, resulting from 10 counter-terrorism operations. There are currently more than 400 high-priority counter-terrorism ongoing investigations being managed by our security agencies. That means that there is an average of 2.6 high-priority counter-terrorism cases across each Australian electorate, which has doubled from what it was only a year ago. In a recent newspaper article we also noted that last year there were more than 1,000 people killed in terrorist attacks around the world. So, as the French President said, we are at war.

At the current time, there are 110 Australians known by our security agencies to be either fighting with or engaged with terrorist groups in Syria or Iraq. The number of Australians joining extremist groups is rising. The reality of home-grown terrorism is on the rise. Despite our best efforts, the risk of a terrorist attack on home soil is rising. The Parramatta shooting and Lindt cafe siege, as I mentioned before, were just the start. Now is the time to make sure we are doing all we can to preserve the safety of our citizens. We have to respond to this worsening threat picture.

I note that this morning the member for Dawson brought to the House a motion on the violent extremism in Australian society. I note also that the member for Macarthur and the member for Hughes—you, Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly—spoke on that particular motion. I would like to quote some passages from that motion because I think it is very relevant to the terrorism that we see rising across the world.

The member for Dawson stated:

This motion concerns the threat of violent extremism, particularly in the form of radical Islam, in Australia, a the threat that has been borne out in this country. This is not violence for the sake of violence; it is violence driven by an extreme ideology, a jihadist ideology that does not accept the Australian way of life.

The ideology of Islamism despises our freedom, hates democracy and rejects our values—Australian values—which are very clearly defined. They are no state secret. When someone applies for a provisional, permanent or temporary visa, applicants must sign a statement that they have read and understood about the following Australian values: respect for freedom and dignity of the individual; freedom of religion; commitment to the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, equality of men and women, and the spirit of egalitarianism; and embraces things like mutual respect, tolerance, fair play and compassion for those in need in pursuit of the public good. These are the values that new citizens and new entrants to Australia sign up to, but not all citizens—or, indeed, their children—agree with these values in practice. In practice, some people hate these values. Those people can be found in Paris, they can be found in Europe, they can be found in the Middle East. Sadly, they can be found in Australia.

We would be kidding ourselves to think everyone in this country subscribes to our common set of values, and we would be foolish to think that there are not jihadists in this country who wish to do us harm because of who we are and the values that we hold dear as a nation.

That was from the member for Dawson's speech. I also acknowledge the speech that the member for Hughes made and also the member for Macarthur. It reminds me of a comment that was made by the previous Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, the honourable Scott Morrison, who is now the Treasurer. When he was immigration minister he said that those who come to this country should come to 'join us', not 'change us'. I think that resonates well amongst most of the people in Australia. We are a welcoming community. We are a community that is built on multiculturalism and immigration. One of the aspects of the Australian nature is to be very generous and welcoming to new citizens in this country. I think that the minister's comment is very relevant.

Early this year, a review was conducted into our counter-terrorism capacity. The report stated that our recent years have been shaped by the rising of terrorist and extremist groups and that these groups have had unprecedented appeal and reach into Australian communities. As a government, we are committed to countering home-grown terrorism by investing in counter-terrorism capabilities and updating national security legislation like the legislation before us today. On 30 October 2014, we introduced the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 into the parliament, meaning that Australian telecommunications companies keep a limited set of metadata—information about the circumstances of a communication—for two years. On 3 November 2014, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Act 2014 received royal assent, amending 22 acts to respond to the threat posed by Australians engaging in, and returning from, conflicts in foreign states. The legislation strengthened our ability to arrest, monitor, investigate and prosecute returning foreign fighters and onshore extremists. On 2 December 2014 we passed the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1), which responds to urgent operational requirements identified by law enforcement, intelligence and defence agencies.

I will also speak about the rising tide of terrorism in Australia and why it has become harder to combat. There are an increasing number of potential terrorists, supporters and sympathisers in our country. There is also the trend of lone-actor attacks. The Lindt cafe siege and the Parramatta shooting were both lone-actor attacks. It means there may be no visibility of planning and no time delay between intent and action. Terrorists are using sophisticated technologies and methodologies to stay under the radar and they are now adept at exploiting social media to distribute propaganda products. We need to counter the extreme corrupting messages of ISIL, and violent extremists, in schools, mosques and online and through social media. We cannot let them brainwash our children, our neighbours or our future leaders. We are well aware ISIL will get through to us by spreading fear. We will not be scared by this group. They have no power over us.

I would like to quote some passages from the Prime Minister's speech on his motion:

This was a coordinated attack involving eight killers and six locations. It was more than a lone-wolf attack, but it was not an elaborately sophisticated one. It reminds us that a few fanatics with automatic weapons and explosives can do great damage and strike at the heart of free, open and democratic societies. This was not just an assault on French lives and French freedoms. It was an attack on all humanity, on all our freedoms—the freedom to gather and to celebrate, the freedom to share time with our family and friends, the freedom to walk our streets without fear. That is why, when I spoke with both President Francois Hollande and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, I conveyed not just the heartfelt sympathy but the unwavering solidarity of all Australians with the people of France.

The Prime Minister went on to say:

The Paris attacks—all of these attacks—highlight just how critical it is that the international community cooperates to defeat ISIL in the field, in its space, in Syria and Iraq. They highlight how important it is for us more effectively to counter the corrupting messaging of ISIL and other violent extremists in schools, in mosques and, above all, online.

We have been undermining and will continue to undermine terrorist support and activity. Our efforts to detect and undermine terrorist support have been effective despite their increasing volume and significance. We must continue to stop the flow of terrorist support.

In 2013, a Sydney based man was arrested in Sydney and charged with facilitating the recruitment of Australians to train and/or fight with terrorist groups in Syria, including Jabhat al-Nusra. Since 2011, the number of passport cancellations has been increasing exponentially, reducing the flow of Australian fighters supporting terrorist groups.

Last Monday, I asked the Prime Minister to outline the collective response of global leaders to this crisis. The Prime Minister told the House that the international response to the terrorist attacks, not only in Paris but in other countries too, was at the forefront of the discussions of recent international summits and that all leaders agreed that the fight against terrorism was the major priority in national security. He said that ISIL must be defeated in the field and that Australia has the second largest foreign military contribution of coalition partners in the battle. I endorse and echo his points.

I also heard the member for Canberra speak about the treatment by ISIL of women in Iraq and Syria and the strategy of rape and abuse of women—how that should be abhorrent to all Australians and that we should keep that at the forefront of our minds when we think about what these ISIL people do and what they are about. They are about fear; they are about striking at the heart of what our society is about. Who can forget the Yazidi woman who entered the Iraqi parliament and was pleading for help from everyone, for all nations, in the fear that ISIL was going to wipe out the Yazidi race? Here in Australia we might think we have had some experiences in our nation such that we need our armed forces, the AFP and our border force to protect us. But to actually live in that environment and to know that you are going to be subject to persecution by ISIL must create absolute fear for the people of those nations, particularly the Yazidi race.

We are working with our allies and we will defeat ISIL. We have a fight on our hands, one that will bring Australia and other global leaders together. We will band together to achieve a lasting defeat of ISIL. I think all Australians should take into consideration supporting these amendments and related legislation. I congratulate the opposition and thank them for their bipartisan support of the legislation that we are bringing in as a suite to secure the safety of all Australians and to protect other nations from people who leave Australia to go and fight with the ISIL terrorists and extremists. So, again, I support the motion, and I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on it.

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking on this motion regarding terrorist attacks around the world I would first of all like to acknowledge and pass on my condolences to not only the people of France and those who have lost loved ones—family and friends—but also the people of Ankara, who lost over 200 of their brethren in the Russian plane that was shot down. The one thing we have all come to recognise is that terrorism knows no international boundaries. It touches lives equally no matter your language, your creed or your colour, and sadly here in Australia as well—in Parramatta, in Melbourne and in Sydney. So I think it is poignant at the start of my statement here tonight to acknowledge the pain and suffering that is so real for these individual families as they live with the horror of their lives being shattered in a moment of madness.

Back on 3 September last year I gave a speech in the Federation Chamber in which I reflected on Iraq and Syria, as we pretty much are doing today, and the circumstances around terrorism. I said then, unequivocally, that as much as we may wish that there were alternatives, the reality is that the world has no choice but to destroy ISIS and everything it stands for at its core, because, like moths attracted to a flame, people from all over the world—through social media, through the brilliance of the internet—are able to be reached, encouraged and drawn. So it does not take many people to make a massive impact on the world—sadly. I guess that is one of the things that has changed so much in recent times. Instead of conflicts being very much isolated to a region, through technology they can reach out their tentacles and reach literally anyone, anywhere, at any time. That creates challenges for the world. It creates social challenges as well as security challenges, and world leaders are dealing with this in different ways.

The terrorist attacks in Paris have been a moment in time when now we finally see the sort of language we need from world leaders. That language is considered, but you can also see that it is robust, and it is determined. Until all of us, with differing belief systems and different political systems, when the initial pain subsides, recognise that we are all equally at risk, that it is our people whom we need to protect, that we need to maintain the resolve we are now seeing from international leaders, that unless we remain resolute and that unless we continue in a single, focused manner to destroy—and I use that word very deliberately—ISIS at its heart, then this menace will continue to come back time and time again, wreaking havoc and pain and suffering on innocent people all around the world.

I and many of my colleagues who have spoken on this motion reflect upon some of the attitudes and concerns that we hear in our own electorates. People have every right to be fearful. That is what terrorism does: it strikes fear in people's hearts. That is what it is designed to do. We all remember back in the seventies when it seemed that there were hijackings all the time; it was always on the news. They was designed to make people fearful.

We as a nation can fight back as individuals by our very actions, just as the French people are doing by going to public places and not being intimidated. One of the ways in which I sense that we can lose the battle on an individual basis, in our communities, is when we isolate groups because of their religion and then persecute them as a whole. What we must persecute and prosecute are people who speak against Australia and its laws and speak for terror and tyranny. Those are the people whom we need to home in on, in a laser like fashion, with our attitudes, our comments and all our energies. We need to embrace the broader community.

I want to reflect on a sad indictment of a small number of people. It is probably best to be positive, but we need to highlight some of the underbelly that is there as well. Recently, on Facebook, I put up a photograph of an Australian female Navy captain who had won the Telstra Australian Business Woman of the Year award. You would think everyone would applaud that. But, because she was wearing her Muslim headdress in formal attire, some of the vitriol was un-Australian and downright disgraceful. Those people are dancing to the tune of the terrorists, because this brave Australian woman has fought in the battles that we have had in the Middle East on operations for Australia, for our values and for our freedoms. We still have a small minority of people who wish to denigrate this woman because of her religion. I find that behaviour not just abhorrent but dangerous because it is dancing to the tune of the terrorists.

Every time we isolate someone, we actually assist the terrorists' activities. So it behoves us all to understand our fellow citizens better, to understand the differences and to embrace the differences, but we must never, ever tolerate intolerance and the calls for anarchy, for terrorism or for anything that is un-Australian, because, after all, we all exist in this country under one law. I do not care what political persuasion a person in this place has. There are some as Far Left as the Greens, there are some on the Far Right, as some of my colleagues here are, and there is everyone in between—and I never pointed out the National Party, I say to my colleague sitting here! But all jokes aside, it is a serious issue. We have a broad range of views, but we are all as one in saying that Australia will be governed by one law for all. The distortion being put that somehow this parliament would allow people to have different laws, and using that as an excuse to denigrate a particular section of our community, again plays into the hands of the terrorists. It weakens us as a people and it does us no good.

Each and every one of us in this community can, every day, play a small role in protecting our values and protecting our society, from a security perspective, by the way in which we deal with each other, the way in which we understand each other and the way in which we tolerate those differences and embrace those differences. At the same time, we must be absolutely steadfast in maintaining our national law, a unified one law, and, at all times, treat those who would do us harm with total disdain and the full force of the law.

In my final comments here today, I want to particularly pay due respect, as the Minister for Defence Materiel and Science, to the men and women who are currently giving their all for us in this battle. People forget this. They see these images, but there is somehow a disconnect. Australia is actually at war; we have troops in harm's way. Some of those troops are the Australian Special Operations Task Group—about 80 personnel. They are providing advice and assistance to the Iraqi counter-terrorism service. You can only imagine how important that work is. We have the best in the world and they are imparting their knowledge, their expertise, their professionalism and their esprit de corps to the Iraqis. I am sure they value it, and we value the work of the Australian Special Operations Task Group. There is also the combined Australian-New Zealand Task Group, which is training the regular Iraqi army forces as part of the US-led Building Partner Capacity mission. These 300 Australian and 110 New Zealand personnel are working together, as our countries have done for over 100 years, in another part of the world but in the interests of our protection here. I say to those who keep missing the connection: if we do not take them on at their base, their light remains lit, the flame grows and, by using the internet and social media, moths are attracted to that flame, and the destruction can be very real. There are also 400 personnel in our Air Task Group operating as part of the broader coalition. They continue to strike at the heart of ISIS, Daesh or whatever you want to call them, in Iraq and Syria, taking the fight directly to the militants who wish to destroy us. The Australian Air Task Group is there, with its F18s, its multirole tanker transport and its E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft. We owe a great deal of gratitude to all of the men and women of our Air Force and the personnel from the Navy and Army. Many of them will not get to do what we will do in a couple of weeks, which is to spend time with our family over Christmas. Their children may, at best, get a Skype or a video, but they will be over there doing their duty as professionals as part of the coalition, trying to make the world a safer place.

At this time, I conclude my remarks by saying to all Australians: please, spare a few moments of thought and compassion for those who do not just talk about it but have actually put their lives on the line and are leading with experience and with dedication, but also with passion to ensure that we have a safer world. If we act together, we can do it, and we can do it in our lifetime.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We refer to ourselves as the lucky country, and indeed we are. But there is another well-known saying: you make your own luck. Just as we make our own luck, we earn our own freedoms. In our country, there is a statistically small number of men and women who earn our freedoms, who keep us lucky and who, if you will, protect us in times of trouble, both at home and abroad. They are the ones who run towards a fire, not away from it. They are the ones who are willing to be covered with blood or mud, or wade through freezing, fast water, or stand in the blazing sun for hours, or dangle from a rope over a cliff or out of a helicopter. They are our emergency services and our military personnel and, lucky for us, they are the best in the world.

Many of my colleagues have spoken about the current spate of terrorism around the world. I have no intention of mentioning the name of any terrorist organisation today. I choose not to give them the satisfaction of being the focus of my contribution to this debate. Instead, I choose to highlight how the attacks in the last month in Bangladesh, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Somalia, Lebanon and, of course, France, bring to the forefront of our minds those members of our community who must experience firsthand the aftermath of such atrocities—our front line of emergency services, security agencies and military forces. To use the words of Winston Churchill: they are the few.

I choose to place on the record in this place my support and admiration for the more than 7,000 men and women of the Australian Defence Force who live in the electorate of Ryan. I choose to send my best wishes to their families and their friends—those who are waiting for their loved ones to come home from deployment, where they are serving on our behalf and are working to eradicate those who would harm others to further their tangled ideologies and agendas. I thank the volunteers and staff of humanitarian organisations who live and work in refugee camps, helping the dispossessed, the victims of war and/or oppression—often from their own people. I thank the overseas post and embassy staff who live in countries where they themselves may become targets while assisting their fellow citizens, just because they are Australians.

I choose to thank the men and women of Border Force, along with our Navy and Airforce, who work at our ports and airports and around our expansive coastline, keeping a vigilant eye on our safety and on who and what comes to our country. I also thank the hundreds of staff at ASIO, ASIS, AFP, Special Forces and DFAT, who, day in and day out, analyse threats and make potentially life or death decisions to counteract schemes that we will never know existed, hopefully. I thank our fire and rescue services, who, of course, douse fires but who are also ready to prise someone out of a car or a building, to lift a train carriage or to clear a tunnel that has collapsed. I choose to recognise the ambulance officers who, as well as saving lives, live with the possibility of becoming secondary targets themselves when attending to the injured in a violent situation of any kind—domestic or terrorism related. And, finally, I thank the police—the people we call first and just assume they will come, and they do. Their families live daily with the knowledge that every day they go to work is a day that they may not come home in one piece.

These are the dedicated, highly trained and motivated members of our community who reinforce my belief in our lucky country and, indeed, make it a reality. These are the people who, should the worst happen, choose to be the first on the scene. Every day we should give thanks for their diligence and dedication, which ensures that we can continue to enjoy our way of life. May we never need to test their resolve.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I start by offering my sincere condolences to those who have lost loved ones due to the senseless, extremist terrorist attacks, both abroad and at home, in recent times. It sickens me; it sickens my peace-loving community. These cowardly, extremist Daesh cult attacks are designed to attack the innocent and to instil fear across the community. There is no room in the world for Daesh death cults, no room for those extremists who, in reality, betray their own religious teachings.

I am neither a hawk nor a dove when it comes to military matters, but I firmly, without reservation, believe that when action needs to be taken, when all other avenues have been exhausted, it needs to be hard, swift and with the full might of all militaries involved to stop this senseless murder as soon as possible. While we have all been shocked by the Paris massacre, there have been more—too many more. All this radicalisation and terrorism is done in the name of a Daesh Muslim extremist cult's desire to rid the world of the infidels, yet many of the Muslims I know are not extremist. They abhor the actions that have been taken by these extremists.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, has executed more than 3,000 people in Syria in the year to 29 June 2015, since it declared itself a caliphate. They include 1,787 civilians, of whom 74 were children, according to a media report in the Observatory. To label all Muslims as extremists is unjust, unfair. As I said, the ISIL Daesh cult are murdering their own Muslim people—they do not discriminate. A recent partial history of attacks includes: 23 September 2014 in Melbourne, when 18-year-old Numan Haider stabbed two counter-terrorism officers in Endeavour Hills, a suburb of Melbourne, in Victoria. He was then shot dead. Then, on the 15 December 2014, a self-proclaimed Muslim sheikh, Man Haron Monis, took 17 people hostage inside the Lindt chocolate cafe in Sydney. He forced hostages to hold up a jihadist black flag against a window of the cafe. In the early hours of 16 December, following the escape of several of the hostages, police breached the cafe and fatally shot Monis. Sadly, two hostages, Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson, also died, while another four people, including a police officer, were injured in the incident. Then, on 7 January 2015 in Paris, two heavily armed gunmen entered the Paris offices of satirical news magazine Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people, including two police officers, and injured 10, all for a satirical cartoon. Where is the mutual tolerance preached by some? And then five days later, on 12 January 2015, in another massacre linked to the Charlie Hebdo massacre, another five people were gunned down at a Jewish supermarket.

Australian terrorist Willie Brigitte was in contact with the perpetrators Cherif and Said Kouchi and Amedy Coulibaly whilst in Fleury-Merogis prison, where Brigitte is held. He is alleged to have been involved in the plotting of both of those attacks. Willie Brigitte and his wife were arrested in 2003 in Australia and deported to France for being part of a terrorist group planning attacks at Holsworthy Army Barracks and the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor.

Plotting and planning can cross borders with modern communication means, but it can also lead to the revealing of a plot. The planned Anzac Day 2015 terror plot was foiled. A teenage girl, Sevdet Besim, was romantically linked to a 14-year-old British boy planning an Anzac Day terror plot in Melbourne. The boy was sentenced to a life sentence with a minimum five-year term in jail by a UK court earlier this month for masterminding the plot to carry out the suicide attacks on police officers at the Melbourne Anzac Day parade. The girl exchanged thousands of messages over eight days with the teenage boy who planned the foiled attack. The court heard that Sevdet Besim became obsessed with the idea of suicide bombing and martyrdom. Both Sevdet Besim and her co-plotter Harun Causevic have been charged with conspiracy to commit acts done in preparation for, or planning of, terrorists acts and held without bail—and rightly so.

Then, on 26 June at the Tunisian tourist resort at Port El Kantaoui, north of Sousse, 38 people were mercilessly gunned down. Three months before that, at the Bardo National Museum, another 22 had been killed. Then, on the 2 October 2015, a radicalised 15-year-old Iranian-born, Iraqi-Kurdish boy, Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar, shot dead an innocent 58-year-old accountant, Curtis Cheng, who worked for the New South Wales Police Force, outside the Parramatta police headquarters. The boy then shot at special constables guarding the building. He was shot dead. NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said:

We believe that his actions were politically motivated and therefore linked to terrorism.

On 31 October in Egypt, ISIL affiliated Wilayah Sayna militants claimed destruction of Metrojet flight 9268. It has been confirmed that the aircraft had been bombed. Two hundred and twenty four innocent people were killed. Then, on 12 November 2015 in Beirut, an ISIL suicide bomber detonated a bike loaded with explosives and, when onlookers gathered, another suicide bomber detonated himself on them, bringing the casualties to 43 dead and 240 wounded.

The next day, on 13 November in Paris, 130 innocent people were killed, plus the perpetrators, and 368 were injured, including 19-year-old Emma Parkinson, who was shot in the buttocks. A series of coordinated attacks began over about 35 minutes at six locations in central Paris. The first shooting occurred in a restaurant and a bar in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. There were more shootings and bombs detonated at Bataclan theatre in the 11th arrondissement during a rock concert. Approximately 100 hostages were taken and, sadly, 89 were killed. Other bombings took place outside the Stade de France in the suburb of Saint-Denis during a football match between France and Germany.

Also on 13 November, there were attacks targeting Shiites in Baghdad, including suicide bombers. The blasts killed 19 and left 33 wounded. ISIL has claimed responsibility for these attacks. Last week on 24 November in Tunisia, a bomb exploded on a bus packed with Tunisian presidential guards in the capital Tunis, killing 12 and injuring 17 people in an attack one source said was probably the work of a suicide bomber. Then, just days ago on 27 November, 21 people were killed after a suicide bomber blew himself up in the crowds at a Shia Muslim procession near the northern Nigerian city of Kano.

In Australia we expect those who choose to live here to support the freedoms of the Australian way of life. It is of concern that some choose not to, and I believe that there is no place for them here in Australia. To preach hatred and to insight people to acts of violence and terrorism is not Australian and it should not occur on our soil.

I, like many, was concerned following the Paris attacks when the Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, dismissed antiterror strategies as ineffective, while saying the focus should be on racism, Islamophobia, foreign policies and military intervention. How wrong he is! He later corrected his statement when he told media he has always consistently and unequivocally condemned all forms of terrorist violence. Many other Australian Islamic organisations were quick to condemn the ISIL attacks and distance moderate Muslims from being responsible. They condemned the attacks—and I would point out that many of those who were victims in Paris were also Muslims.

We as a nation are a tolerant, welcoming people. When we accept people into Australia, we expect them to live by our country's laws and respect fellow Australians. There is no room in Australia for sharia law. The displays of terrorism related activities and the incitement of others is not acceptable by any means. Race riots are unforgivable. There is no place in Australia for that.

I can accept the preachings by many Muslim religious leaders crying out for tolerance. But tolerance is a two-way street. I, like many of my constituents, am rightly offended by the demand by some Muslim clerics that any religious festival or prayer is un-Australian because it may offend them. It is offensive to me that I would have to sacrifice what I believe in through my faith just to appease others. I have no issue with Muslims celebrating their festivals and their religious days, but to exclude what I and many believe in because it offends them is not tolerance. Stopping the celebration of Christmas and Easter, the two most holy days of our Christian calendar, is not tolerance. It is discrimination.

As I said, tolerance is a two-way street. There is room in Australia for all. This is Australia and, as others have often quoted, if you do not like Australia and all it has to offer, then do not come, do not stay, go back to where you came from. Do not bring your battles to my homeland. If you want to participate in religious wars and vendettas from where you came, then go back to where you came from.

I was proud the speak on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015, which will strip the citizenship of dual nationals who fight against Australia in the name of terrorism. In my eyes, it is a treason against my nation. If you want to abide by our laws and partake in all the freedoms and the benefits of our great democracy, then you are welcome. But do not come to Australia to change it to what you have escaped. Do not use Australia as your safe haven whilst fighting for terrorism overseas.

At the weekend I was at Nelson Bay. I was approached by a young man asking whether he will need to join the army and go to war to fight terrorism to protect his Australia. This is typical of how Australians are viewing the current situation. Community concern is rising and rightly so with the increasing spate of terrorism attacks and number of people—over 400—currently being investigated in Australia for involvement in terrorism activities.

I also personally and firmly believe that if my home, Australia, was being attacked and taken over by some Islamic State terrorist group I would stay to fight, not flee. I would expect the same of my sons, as indeed most Australians would of theirs. What I have noticed, as have many of my constituents, is that a large number of the refugees fleeing Syria, Iraq and other war-torn countries seem to be predominantly males between 18 and 45. I have to ask the question on behalf of my constituents: why are they not staying and training to defend their land, their lifestyle and their rights? I have no problem with and totally support women, children and the elderly being removed from danger, but it is a bit rich to expect others from foreign countries to lay down their lives for you if you are not prepared to stand and fight.

One of my concerns is also the proper vetting of those fleeing and seeking refuge to make sure that they are not sleepers seeking to infiltrate and plan and plot terrorism activities in Australia as is alleged to have happened in Paris. There is still inconclusive evidence that the passport of a terrorist found at the site of the Paris massacre was fake alleging the cowardly assassin was a fleeing refugee. The media report in RTsaid:

The mastermind of the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris was planning more attacks targeting Jews, schools and transport system, media reports say. He also mocked EU's open border policy that allowed him to enter as a refugee.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian citizen of Moroccan origin and Islamic State extremist who was behind the massacre in a concert hall and near the stadium in Paris, told his cousin, Hasna Ait Boulahcen, "they would do worse (damage) in districts close to the Jews and would disrupt transport and schools," according to a witness statement cited by the French Valeurs Actuelles weekly magazine.

Abaaoud approached his cousin two days after the attacks and asked to hide him, while he was planning new terrorist acts. He also promised to give Boulahcen €5,000 … so that she could buy two suits and two pairs of shoes for him and his accomplice, who has not been identified yet.

The terrorists planned to use the suits to blend into the crowd and "look the part" during a planned attack on Paris' commercial district La Defense, French media reports.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins confirmed that the extremists indeed plotted an attack on La Defense.

According to a confidential police witness statement leaked to Valeurs Actuelles this week, Abaaoud also mocked the European open-border Schengen system by boasting about freely and easily slipping into Europe with refugees and living for two months in France unnoticed.

Abaaoud claimed he exploited the ongoing migrant crisis and entered Europe from Syria through Greece disguised as a refugee. He also described France as "zero," apparently referring to the authorities' inability to detect him, Valeurs Actuelles reports citing the witness statement.

It concerns me that people are taking advantage of nations' generosity, seeking to destroy and disrupt the way of life of the innocent. All that can be done must be done. We need to stamp out these extreme terrorism acts now, before it is too late.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is beyond comprehension. This is the challenge that we face. The senselessness of the recent attacks that occurred in Paris have left us, I think, quite numb. My reaction on hearing the news was just disbelief and numbness. It was not anger. It was not a want for retribution. It was just a complete and utter void. It seemed so senseless as news came out of the 130 people who were tragically killed as a result of these senseless and evil people who have perpetrated this act on one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It is beyond comprehension. It is so foreign to everything that I think this country stands for and that ultimately I think humanity stands for. More than anything else, this evil attack was an attack on humanity itself.

I note the comments of the previous speaker, the member for Paterson, that as Australians we have the greatest privilege of any people on Earth perhaps. All of us came here one way or another as immigrants, ultimately. With the privileges that citizenship in this country give us, the responsibilities that equally come with those privileges are something that we should contemplate every day. These people are challenging the things that we do not think about day to day because they are inherently within us, because we are, as the member for Paterson said, a tolerant people. We are people who have welcomed people from around the world. We have supported them in their time of need. We have been a generous country from day one. The questions that we are all being asked at the moment are so inherently un-Australian.

In speaking on this motion, I would like to pass on my condolences to the families and friends of all of those people who were tragically killed and injured most recently. In recent days, many have mentioned Tasmanian Emma Parkinson. I do not know her; I have never met Emma. Her response, having been in that place, was quite inspiring—that this was an attack on humanity and is something that we must all stand up and fight. I do not suppose that the families of those people killed in Paris will ever hear the speeches that have been made in this place, recognising our sorrow at the loss of those innocent lives. I know that the sympathy of Australians, including the people of my electorate, go out to all of those people. It was an attack on humanity.

As the Prime Minister said, we should grieve and it is right that we should be angry. But we cannot let our judgement be blindsided. We must remain cool and logical in how we respond. This is what I want to work through now. Despite the confusion and concerns that I think we all have, it is a time to take stock. This has shone a light, if it were needed, on another act by these evil people who are part of the IS scourge around the world. Our country's response to this terror threat has been equal to any in the world. It is a global problem that will ultimately require a global response. Regardless of your faith, the colour of your skin or the language that you speak, ISIS absolutely must be defeated.

I want to reassure this country about border protection and Australia's safety. I note the important role that the member for Wannon plays in this place as the chair of the committee that oversees security within our nation. Australia has the very best security agencies in the world that talk and communicate with the very best security agencies all around the world. As I speak, I am sure that somewhere in the ASIO, Department of Defence, ASIS and other buildings there are men and women working to protect our nation right now. They certainly will not be listening to what I am saying! But, on behalf all of the people of my electorate, I thank them for the work that they do. It is difficult work. I cannot even appreciate how difficult it is, but I thank them for the work that they do every day to ensure that our nation remains safe.

I am very proud of the security and intelligence agencies that are working extremely hard to ensure our safety. These are very complicated situations. We are dealing with new technologies and criminals who are increasingly using new methods to recruit people to their cause. It is very important that our security services remain resolute in stopping those who would wish to do our country harm, and that they are supported in every way.

Since winning the election in 2013, nobody could criticise or question the commitment that this government has shown to national security and respecting our borders. In relation to Australia's border protection policies, there are some, even in this place, who, only a matter of weeks ago, criticised decisions that the government was making with the ultimate objective of keeping our country and its people safe. They were considered too harsh—for example, the security screening that is required of people who want to come to this country. This is not something that can be comprised. I suspect that the events of recent weeks may have quietened some of those voices.

In respect of the religious aspects, it is vital that, in our response, we remember not to persecute Islam or Muslims in general, but we must hunt down the individuals who are attacking the religion of Islam as much as they are attacking humanity. We must not generalise, but we also must not insulate specific groups. We must unite and work together to defeat ISIS. They want us to hate each other. They are using hatred as a tool. By showing intolerance, we will assist the terrorists.

In our own country, we have seen the attack on the Lindt cafe, attacks on people going about their business to work and young men attacking police officers. This is not the Australian way. Many people have contacted my office. I understand that there are people in my electorate who are scared, angry and concerned about what has happened in recent times. They are concerned that the government is doing enough to protect the country from the atrocities that recently occurred in Paris. I reassure all those people that this government is doing everything it can; it is the first priority of this government to protect our people, but we must stand together as one nation. The terrorists of today take aim at people regardless of their race or religion. ISIS has killed en masse many Muslims in this process. We will defeat these groups, but not by going—a race or a culture—it alone. We must work as humans, as people of good humanity, in a united way. We need the support, absolutely, of our community leaders from all religions and all ethnic groups to be involved in this process.

IS is attacking Islam and the Muslim faith as much as it is attacking humanity in general. But the Muslim leaders in our country must continue to campaign within their respective communities, and that goes to the very top of the tree. I know that people in my electorate were, frankly, confused and disgusted by some of the responses of Muslim leaders in our country to these attacks. So it is a time for them to show leadership in this space. We will support them but only if they stand up and support what it means to be Australian.

Australia is doing more than its share to fight this scourge of terrorism. Australia has troops on the ground. Australia has Air Force troops putting their lives at risk over Iraq. Unlike 70 per cent of all the money that was pledged to support those countries in the region that are bearing the brunt, Australia has pledged and paid that money. In Jordan and Lebanon, only 30 per cent, or thereabouts, of the money that has been pledged from around the world has been received to go to their efforts to deal with this torrent of humanity that is flowing across the border from Syria and Iraq. Australia is doing its bit.

We have agreed to take 12,000 refugees from Syria, and I know that there is some concern within my community about who they are. I reassure the people in my electorate and more broadly around Australia that we will have the appropriate security checks, the appropriate character checks and the appropriate health checks on these people to make sure that they are the sort of people that can start a new life in Australia and add to our country to make it a better place. Our laws in Australia are not negotiable. When you come to this country, you live by Australian laws. That is not negotiable. It is not something that we talk about, because it is instinctive in all of us.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A mutual obligation.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a mutual obligation, as the Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia at the table has suggested, and I applaud the comments that he has made in recent days. The government are doing that, but we absolutely need the leaders of the communities where these young men, primarily, are getting into huge trouble to stand up and condemn this without any doubt, so that Australians, who are tolerant people, will understand.

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to convey my outrage at the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and other places, and to express my deepest condolences to the families of all of the victims. I would also like to reflect on the overall battle with terrorism in which we are engaged. Our response to these events should be threefold: to express solidarity with the affected nations, to unambiguously express our revulsion at the evil people who have committed these deeds, and to redouble our efforts to stamp out ISIL and its sympathisers.

Evil has lurked in every era in history. The great paradox of humanity is that, while the world always improves over time, that improvement is frequently punctuated by barbaric events. This has always been true, and will continue to be true while darkness exists in humanity. In most of the world, it is much better to be alive now than it was 100 years ago or 500 years ago. Over the centuries, we have found better ways to govern ourselves, to respect one another and to resolve disputes through debate rather than war. Of course, this progress has been marked by horrendous evil events. In the past century, we experienced not only the Nazi atrocities of World War II but genocides perpetrated by governments all over the world against their own people.

In every age, civilised people have had to stand up against those who would seek to destroy us. The manner in which we stand against evil varies according to the circumstances, but stand up we have and we must. We should not forget that, until the very recent past, the threat of global nuclear war was real. We are fortunate that that threat, in recent years, has largely passed. This happened not through luck but through a mixture of successful military, diplomatic and economic policies that brought the communist world to its knees.

Today, our enemy is the evil of terrorism, practised in its most barbaric forms by ISIL. We must defeat ISIL by denying it territory, denying it funds and denying it supporters. Military action is essential to success in this battle. Controlling territory enables ISIL the physical space it requires in order to organise its activities and train terrorists. This territory must be taken away from it. Central to this is cooperation amongst all of the international powers who are acting in Iraq and Syria against this evil group. All of the international community's efforts should be pointed at ISIL in this theatre of war. Coordination, too, with local resistance must occur in order for ISIL to be eliminated. We should work closely with those on the ground who are risking their lives to defeat this evil organisation. Most of these groups are not admirable, and many of them will have been involved in activities that we find deplorable, but we must embrace a practical policy with the paramount goal of destroying ISIL. Necessarily, this will involve working with groups that we would not otherwise support.

For hundreds of years, the politics of the Middle East have been troubled, and we cannot pretend that peace and prosperity are likely to reign in that region anytime soon. All governance options in Iraq and Syria are imperfect, but we have to confront the cold, practical reality that ISIL threatens the world in ways that other actors in that region do not. ISIL must be eliminated. It may be too ambitious to expect a lasting peace in that region, but a future without ISIL is infinitely superior to one with it. In concert with its military efforts, the international community needs to engage in negotiations that lead to a post-ISIL environment in which all racial and religious parts of Syrian and Iraqi societies are represented in their government. This will take years to achieve and will be extraordinarily complex, but it must be done if that region is to live with at least some level of peace.

We must deny ISIL territory and we must deny it any part of a political solution in Iraq and Syria. We must destroy it where it is based, but we must also deny it followers—many of whom come from places far away from Iraq and Syria, including our own nation. ISIL's propaganda activities are sophisticated, and we must acknowledge that it has been successful in spreading its evil message to the world. We have to be the equal of it in countering its message online and, importantly, we have to work closely with the local Muslim community in seeking to identify potentially vulnerable targets for ISIL. It is the family and surrounding community who are best placed to identify at-risk individuals. We need to redouble our efforts to work with community groups to stop the radicalisation process before it begins.

The murderous acts of terrorism in Paris and elsewhere are abhorrent to civilised people everywhere. They are the modern manifestation of the darkest capacities of mankind. We must completely defeat those who were responsible for them by destroying them militarily and supporting a political process in Iraq and Syria that leaves no place for ISIL and its sympathisers. Throughout history, peaceful people have confronted those who prosecute evil and they have won. We must win this modern battle against terrorism, and we will.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The terrorist attacks on Paris were designed with maximum human, economic and social impact in mind. More than just an assault on France's people, this was a strategic assault on her economy—to undermine her tourism industry, an essential part of the French nation's prosperity. France was visited by 84.7 million foreign tourists in 2013, making it the most popular tourist destination in the world. In 2012, travel and tourism directly contributed 77.7 billion euros to the French GDP, 30 per cent of which comes from international visitors. The total contribution of travel and tourism represents 9.7 per cent of GDP and supports 2.9 million jobs—10.9 per cent of employment in the country.

Paris is the third most visited city in the world and the most visited by Australians. For Australians, the love affair with France has continued to grow over the past decade. According to statistics from the French embassy, in 2012 more than one million Australians visited France. Additionally, in 2014 Australians applied for a total of 1,716 long-stay visas, with around 3,000 Australians living in France. No wonder so many of us have a story connected to this outrage. Australians will not be deterred from their love affair with Paris by this attack. We know of the horrendous death toll in Paris, along with the scores of injured, many critically. These killings were brutal; they were without mercy and without compassion. They leave nothing in their wake except death, unfulfilled dreams and ambitions and a nation of mourners who will never understand why—for how could any rational person really understand this insanity?

But for the bloody-minded fanatics of ISIL, the Paris attacks made perfect strategic sense. It is vital we do not become victims of that strategy, giving up hope or control of our destinies or allowing people to lose their sense of belonging in their own countries. We cannot jump at shadows or make those refugees we have sworn to welcome from Syria scapegoats for those who would tell you there are terrorists hiding around every street corner. Yes, our world has changed, but we are the ultimate controllers of its destiny. We have the power to push it in the right direction or allow it to slide in the wrong direction. ISIL, despite its destructive objectives, is not in charge; we are.

The Paris attacks were an all-too-familiar modern tale of people being murdered en masse to satisfy the blood lust and warped ideologies of a crazed few. The French, to their credit, will mourn their dead but will remain unbowed, continuing to cherish liberty, egalitarianism and fraternity. Many Australians feel somewhat French in this attitude. We too have a country that promotes a fair go for all, equality for all and egalitarianism. I think this is part of the reason we feel such deep empathy for our French countrymen. More than just an attack on people, the events of 13 November were an assault on what we all hold sacred. The evidence was there for everyone to see, as people across the world took to the streets in support of France's people and the French themselves defiantly sang La Marseillaise, embracing liberty, cherished liberty.

As consuming as the events in Paris have become, we must look past them to the broader picture. We must be mindful of what ISIL is trying to achieve and not fall victim to it. These attacks were designed to kill France and her allies from inside and out. They were designed, in ISIL's rhetoric, to further divide the world into two camps: 'one for the people of faith, the other for the people of disbelief—all in preparation for the final great war'. I am a man of faith, but I cannot profess to embrace anything ISIL stands for.

If we live in fear and decide to give up international travel to beautiful countries like France, so much the better for ISIL. If we decide to deride our own Muslim people as traitors, so much the better for ISIL. If we become insular and cannot embrace the future, so much the better for ISIL. As writer and social commentator Waleed Aly said in the wake of the Paris attacks:

They want to start World War III—a global war between Muslims and everyone else—that's what they want to create. They want societies like France and Australia to turn on each other.

They want countries like ours to reject their Muslims and vilify them … because this evil organisation has it in their heads that if they can make Muslims the enemy of the West, then Muslims in France and England and America and here in Australia will have nowhere to turn but to ISIL.

The idea of ISIL leading us to World War III is fanciful. The group has an overblown idea of its own importance. And yet it does have the ability—especially in a globalised world, where the media is everywhere—to shake the confidence of people, whether citizens or international travellers. It does have the ability to make people turn on each other, but only if we give in to that.

We embrace the future. We make the future. The future is ours, not theirs. We must embrace liberte, egalite and fraternite, now and forever more. To all our first responders: thank you for all that you do. God bless you and keep you safe.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of Gippslanders in relation to the terror attacks in Paris and to follow my good friend the member for McMillan in this place. Much has already been said and written about these barbaric attacks, but perhaps most importantly much has already been done to bring the perpetrators to justice and to help prevent further atrocities.

On behalf of Gippslanders, I offer my sincerest condolences to the people of France and extend the hand of friendship and solidarity. Throughout history, our nation's finest have stood shoulder to shoulder with our French compatriots through war and bloody conflict, and it seems we may have to do so again for many years to come, because I fear that terrorism and violent extremism in various forms are the challenge for this generation.

As we have heard the Prime Minister and many others say, maintaining the safety and security of our people is the government's highest responsibility. The security and the wellbeing of Australians, both at home and abroad, is the primary responsibility of any government. Australians understand too well the pain being experienced by the people of France because of the pain that we know ourselves through the Bali bombings, which forever changed our nation. And no decent person is immune from the pain and suffering we witnessed not only in Paris and Bali but in other indiscriminate, murderous attacks in places like Mumbai, Madrid, London and many other European capitals, and also on the African continent in recent weeks.

This violent extremism, clothed in a misguided and fanatical religious fervour, is a challenge for the world to face in the 21st century. It is simply not a problem for any single government alone. We need to keep collaborating with our allies and working with them as closely as possible. We need to share information, intelligence resources, deradicalisation strategies and counter-terrorism techniques, and we need to share the load if and when open conflict is justified.

I am pleased to say that, in my role as assistant minister, I have had the opportunity to witness directly how Australia is doing its share in relation to this issue, both internationally and on the home front. Our defence forces are deployed in the Middle East to train Iraqi forces, to take the fight to Daesh and the terrorists who seek to impose their rule over that country. Our Air Force personnel are also deployed, helping to degrade and disrupt forces in Iraq.

Particularly at this time of year, Deputy Speaker—and I know that you, as a member who represents an electorate with a significant defence presence, will understand this well—our thoughts and prayers are with the Australian Defence Force personnel involved in their dangerous missions throughout the world, but particularly at this time in Afghanistan and the Middle East. They will be away from their loved ones over the Christmas period. They are doing a dangerous job but they are doing it well. There is no greater service they could give than to put on our nation's uniform and go out there and help people who cannot necessarily help themselves. It was a great privilege for me personally and many other members in this place this year to have the opportunity, as part of the ADF Parliamentary Program, to spend some time with the Australian men and women deployed overseas. We had just a small insight into the challenges they face, and we wish them well over the Christmas period.

On the home front, the government has taken decisive action to protect Australians from the threat of violent extremism. As the Prime Minister informed the House last week, the alert level in our nation was raised to high and has remained there for many months. The government has introduced new legislation and has invested heavily in counter-terrorism activities and programs to combat violent extremism. But, just as this is not a task for one government, this is not a task for governments alone. Our police and our intelligence agencies cannot keep us safe by themselves. The challenges we face of the home front require partnerships with our community, with parents of young people, with schools and, most importantly, with churches and leaders of all faiths.

I support the comments of several of my colleagues that the Islamic community itself has a critical role in countering violent extremism. The messages that came after the terrorist attacks in Paris denouncing those attacks were very important. All of us in this place have the great honour to represent diverse communities. But our communities right now are on edge, and the language we use as elected members in this place and in public is critically important—as important as the actions that we take in our electorates. The Muslim community itself should be expected to do its share of the heavy lifting to counter radicalisation, but it should not be unfairly targeted or maligned in the process.

We all know that social media can be a force for good or a force for evil. Some of the items I have seen in recent weeks are irresponsible, to say the least, in seeking to blame all Muslims for the acts of a relative few. I refer to the Prime Minister's speech on this topic when he said:

Within Australia our counter-terrorism strategy calls for partnership between all levels of government, community and the private sector. The root cause of the current threat we face is a perverted strain of Islamist extremist ideology.

And further that:

The strongest weapons we bring to this battle are ourselves, our values and our way of life. Our unity mocks their attempts to divide us. Our freedom under law mocks their cruel tyranny. Our mutual respect mocks their bitter intolerance.

I appeal for calm and reasoned debate—not sensationalist and divisive ridicule.

Associating all Muslims with terrorism is simplistic and it is about as illogical as associating all Catholic priests with paedophilia. Just because some Catholic priests have systematically abused children, it does not mean by definition that all Catholic priests are evil. Likewise, just because some Muslims have killed in the name of religion, it does not mean that they are all terrorists. I hasten to add a crucial point: admitting there is a problem is the first step to solving it. It was only when the senior ranks of the Catholic Church acknowledged there was a problem with child abuse, stopped transferring the problem to other congregations and stopped covering up the abuse that decisive steps were taken to protect children throughout the world. Up to that point, paedophile priests hid behind the decency of the church until the brightest light was shone in the darkest corners and they were uncovered. It was those who are closest to the criminals who are best placed to uncover them.

I think it is the same situation facing our Muslim community today. A small minority of criminals who indulge in terrorism and violent extremism are like a cancer eating at the heart and soul of the Islamic community. It will take extraordinary leadership from Australian Muslims to shine the brightest light on the darkest corners of that part of our society. Again, we need to be partners in this piece, as we develop our strategies and our techniques to counter this extremism.

I have said it already tonight and I will say it many times in the future—governments cannot do this alone. It is not up to our police or our intelligence agencies or our Defence Force in isolation; we need to accept that there is a problem and work together to overcome this challenge in partnership with the Muslim community. This partnership will need to be based on our mutual trust, on our respect and our determination to uphold the values and the way of life which has made Australia such an extraordinarily successful and harmonious nation. This is a time for cool heads, for research and for reasoned and detailed analysis—not raw emotion or guesswork.

I have told this story about my own electorate previously, and it is worth repeating in the context of today's discussion. It relates to my local surf lifesaving club in Lakes Entrance, and I have been a member of the surf lifesaving club there for about 10 years. One of the local policemen once said to me, 'You know, I've never had to arrest anyone—not one person, not one young member—of your surf lifesaving club.' I asked him why. Part of it is probably that they are too tired after a day at the beach, but he said, 'What the older members of your club teach them is respect. You teach them about the spirit of volunteerism; you teach them about being part of something that is bigger than yourself.' I fear that there is a large section of the Australian community, particularly young people, who are not being given that opportunity at the moment. Our nation's great institutions, like the surf lifesaving movement, have helped to build communities and our nation. They have helped to build a bridge for disengaged youth to be given the opportunity to achieve their full potential—to make a meaningful contribution to our community.

It is not just about surf lifesaving clubs; we have other organisations and institutions in Australia—the Australian Defence Force Cadets where 25,000 young men and women get to participate in teamwork building exercises and learn about leadership—learn again about something that is bigger than themselves. All of our sporting clubs build teamwork and a spirit of camaraderie that give young people the chance to participate in an event that is bigger than themselves. The range of community groups like the Lions Clubs, Apex Clubs, Rotary, the Country Fire Authority, the SES—all of these great institutions have served our nation well and have been the glue that is held our communities together.

I believe we need to make sure that such groups are accessible to all sections of our community. At the moment a lot of our surf lifesaving clubs and our sporting clubs, even our ADF cadets program, are fairly poor representatives of the broader multicultural Australia in the 21st century. I was greatly pleased to see the Australian Defence Force Cadets has established a Navy cadet program in Western Sydney, TS Australia, which I have spoken about before and which is dominated by members of the Islamic community. I strongly believe that some of these national institutions are going to be critical in building that bridge from disengaged youth to a sense of something bigger than themselves and of what it means to be an Australian in the 21st century.

The former foreign affairs minister, Gareth Evans, wrote in today's newspapers along reasonably similar lines about the interventions that may take many different forms as we deal with and try to counter violent extremism. He said:

What is already clear is that the most successful programs are those that are least visibly associated with government and law-enforcement authorities; those developed in close consultation with local communities; and, above all, those that are most practical and specific, relying primarily on individual interventions.

Those young men (and occasionally women) who are susceptible to extremism's appeal respond best to those they trust — people who can help them step back from violence in a way that does not cause them to lose face.

I think there is great national institutions are going to be critical as we deal with the challenge of our generation.

I would like to conclude my comments tonight on a more positive note. I invited people in my electorate to make some comments in relation to tonight's speech—I indicated that I have the opportunity to speak about Paris—and I invited them to post some positive remarks. I would like to share a few of the comments from people in my electorate today.

My name is French, we loved French wine so much that we had to grow our own, we fantasize about holidaying in Tuscany or Paris and my Dad always wished that he had a hot French Teacher … where would we be without the French! Vive la France!

From Bronwyn:

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France to the people of New York. Those two cities are deeply connected by their commitment to freedom, and terrorism will never destroy that. We stand with you NYC and Paris, and anywhere else in the world that has suffered at the hands of terrorists.

Finally, from Cindy:

My husband and I flew into Paris as the horrific event was unfolding. Hearing the continuous sirens throughout Friday night and walking around a very solemn Paris the next day has had a lasting impact. Simply eating lunch at a cafe made you realise the absolute callousness of the attack. We may live half way around the world but our thoughts remain with the people of Paris—for what they have been through and the journey ahead.

As I indicated, we are being challenged—possibly as never before—but I remain incredibly optimistic and confident that we can unite against a common foe and win. To quote the great Martin Luther King, I have decided to stick with love—hate is too great a burden to bear.

Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, we live in troubling times. The recent terror attacks in Paris were a halting reminder that the threat of terror remains very real and present and that the decision to lift the national terrorist threat level to high in September was not an overreaction. Australians were heartbroken and shocked as news of the sieges that occurred in Paris filtered through. Millions took to social media in solidarity with hashtags like 'pray for Paris', 'je suis Paris' and 'peace for Paris' and filtered their profile pictures with the tricolours of the French flag. In Sydney the Opera House was lit with the blue, white and red of the French flag. In Brisbane it was the Story Bridge; in Melbourne the MCG and the arts centre spire, in Perth the Council House and in South Australia the Riverbank Bridge. Across the world the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro was bathed in the French tricolours and in London Tower Bridge and the London Eye were lit. In America, the One World Trade Centre and San Francisco City Hall and the Empire State Building were lit in the tricolours. In Las Vegas, the replica of the Eiffel Tower went dark.

Vigils were held around Australia and around the world. More than 200 people gathered in Sydney's Martin Place for a candlelight vigil to remember the victims of the Paris attacks. Those who gathered in Martin Place felt a special kind of solidarity for the Parisians as they held vigil at the scene of the Sydney siege. Perhaps we all felt a kinship in some way to Parisians because we have experienced events of terror in our own homeland. Almost a year ago, on 15 and 16 December, a single man wielding a gun took control of the Lindt cafe in Martin Place. There were ten customers and eight employees—all ordinary people going about their day. It was a shocking and confronting event that reminded all Australians that we are not immune to acts of terror and that we must remain ever vigilant to keep Australian people safe. With 130 deceased and 368 injured, victims of the Paris attacks were just like those who were held during the Martin Place siege—ordinary people dining in a restaurant, ordinary people attending a concert. They were ordinary people going about their day but their lives were taken in a cowardly, callous and brutal attack in the name of invoking terror and fear. We stood with many other nations in solidarity with the French in the wake of the attacks.

We must, and we do, also acknowledge the massive loss of lives at the hands of ISIL, otherwise referred to as Daesh. The day before the attacks in Paris, on 12 November, a suicide bombing in Beirut took 40 innocent lives. We mourn with the innocent, the displaced the grieving and the lost. Violent extremism as a very real and present threat to the liberties and freedoms we enjoy in Australia. The Prime Minister last week delivered a statement in relation to our national security. He said:

When innocent people are dying at the hands of violent extremists, no matter where in the world this is happening, hard questions are asked of societies like our own—hard questions for which there are no easy answers. For all freedom-loving nations, the message could not be clearer: if we want to preserve the values that underpin our open, democratic societies, we will have to work resolutely with each other to defend and protect the freedoms we hold dear.

The Australian people can be confident that we as a government led by Prime Minister Turnbull are working and will continue to work diligently and closely with our security agencies to prevent terrorist incidents from occurring. Security agencies such as ASIO, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Defence Force are continuing to work methodically and strategically to ensure public safety is maintained. Since September last year the terror alert level has been high and the government has been formulating and presenting five branches of national security laws which will assist the relevant agencies to have the tools they need to operate effectively in combating terror. The difficult task is that ISIL reflects a perversion of Islamist extreme ideology. As the Prime Minister put it:

Not all extremism ends in violence but all politically motivated violence begins with extremist ideology.

When ISIL emerged as an extremist terrorist group out of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria their territorial gains in Syria and Iraq fed into their own narrative of conquest. It is known that, by most measures ISIL is in a fundamentally weak position. As a country, we must not be fooled by ISIL's hype. While the ideologies it holds are archaic, the use of the internet to manipulate and extort our community is modern. The Prime Minister spoke about Australia's contribution to the coalition forces, saying:

Australia’s contribution to coalition forces on the ground in Iraq is second only to that of the United States and large relative to our population and proximity to the conflict. It is larger, for example, than that of any European nation, larger than Canada's or any of the neighbouring Arab states. We have six FA18s involved in missions in that theatre, with 240 personnel in the air task group, 90 Special Forces advisers, and around 300 soldiers training the Iraqi army at Taji.

Last April I was privileged to participate in the ADF parliamentary program and witness first hand the outstanding work being undertaken by our military men and women in the Middle East. Being able to participate in this program and meet with the ADF personnel deployed in the Middle East and Afghanistan was a huge honour and experience that I will treasure forever. I am in awe of the professionalism, attitude and dedication of our defence personnel and thank them for their commitment to protecting our nation.

The most important priority for any government is to keep their nation safe and secure. When it comes to national security, there can be no shortcuts. Currently we are experiencing testing times and this government is committed to ensuring the safety of all law-abiding citizens. We should never underestimate the threat of terrorism present in modern day Australia. Since the Bali bombings in 2002, which claimed the lives of 88 innocent Australians, we have been alert to the dangers of those who disagree with our freedoms and way of life. The government is working diligently to do all within its power to halt terrorism at its source or point of origin.

Australian counter-terrorism agencies must be able to share information in a secure manner with traditional allies and regional partners to prevent potential terrorist attacks. In May this year we were aware of 30 Australians who travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan between 1990 and 2010 to train at extremist camps and/or fight with extremists. Of these, 25 individuals returned to Australia and 19 engaged in activities of security concern following their return. Eight were subsequently convicted of terrorism related offences, with five still serving prison sentences. The number of Australians with hands-on terrorist experiences in Syria and Iraq is now several times what it was in Afghanistan and the challenge is much greater.

The government has already strengthened Australia's national security laws and provided law enforcement agencies with increased powers to address the threat from foreign fighters, including the ability to arrest or place control orders on those who return. In addition to these measures, I supported the government's moves to remove Australian citizenship status from dual citizens who are involved in terrorism at home or abroad. These are indeed harsh measures, but they are entirely fitting of the crime. Let's not for one minute forget that these extremists are fighting against the brave men and women of the Australian Defence Force—men and women who are placing their lives on the line to protect Australia's values and freedoms.

Recently foiled terrorist plots on Australian soil demonstrate the need to maintain and support both the Australian Defence Force and other government agencies at the very forefront of counter-terrorism actions. While the urgency to address the national security threat has intensified over the past 12 months, this government has been committed to enhancing the safety of Australians since its election. This is why the 2015 budget included $1.2 billion in new funding for national security, building upon the $1 billion announced last year. In total, the government is spending over $35 billion on defence, national security and law enforcement. This includes: investing in our own security—including protecting our borders from terrorism and crime—preventing Australians from joining or supporting terrorist organisations, and improving collaboration in our community and with our region to address the uncertainties we all face, including terrorism.

However, support and action from the community with regard to the acknowledgement of their own safety is also required. Only last week, I issued a media release strongly advising Central Coast residents heading overseas to ensure they have updated their travel plans with the government. The smartraveller website is the best source of information for those heading overseas to find out the latest advice for travellers and for consulate staff to utilise in case of an emergency. The recent attacks in France have highlighted the need to ensure that when travelling overseas details are kept up to date. It was only due to the vigilance of travellers who provided their journey plans at smartraveller that Australian consulate officials were able to quickly locate and gain an understanding of the status of Australians in France. While there is a continuing and a longstanding threat of terrorist attacks across the world, Australians are viewed by ISIL and other terrorist groups as a target. This fact is unfortunate—scary but true. Even in cases where attacks may not specifically target Australian interests, Australians can and have been harmed in indiscriminate attacks or attacks aimed at others. As Australian citizens, we need to make sure that we are all vigilant in our planning, and it is important we all do what we can to make sure our travel overseas is as safe as possible.

As a government, we are steadfast in our resolution to uphold and defend democracy, and the rights and freedoms of the democratic world. We must remember that well over one million Iraqis and Syrians have been driven from their homes by an extremist death cult determined to eliminate a particular group of people from our world. The shocking images of beheadings, crucifixions and mass executions will haunt our memories for the remainder of time. Australia is certainly a lucky country. Our democracy was not born from bloodshed, civil uprising or war, and to this end the concept of people wanting to do harm to our people remains a foreign one. Matters of national security should rise above the political divide. Not all sympathisers of the ISIL death cult will leave our shores to physically lift a gun and fire a bullet; some have a terrifying role to conduct from the comfort of the Australian suburbs. This includes supporting and facilitating terrorism through the provision of funds and equipment or by recruiting vulnerable young people to champion their cause, and even to die for it and, more alarmingly, conduct acts of barbaric terrorism here on Australian shores.

As a government and as a nation, failure is simply not an option. We must continue to demonstrate our resolve and defend our freedom. This government's determination to defeat the evils that wish to do us harm knows no bounds. We owe it to our Defence Force personnel who are currently abroad resolutely carrying out their duties to keep us safe. We owe it to the Australians who have lost their lives as a result of the senseless and barbaric acts of terrorist organisations. And we owe it to current and future Australians, who deserve to enjoy a safe and prosperous Australia free from the threat and danger of ideological extremists. Simply put, this is the greatest challenge a government can have. History will remember how we rose to the challenge.

There is no single measure to address the terrorism threat. The government has identified a suite of measures that, together, will best equip us in this fight, both at home and abroad. Australians of all races and religions unite to illustrate the power of what bonds us. Our unity will always prevail over those who seek to divide us. Instantaneously, we reach out to one another and are bound by common values. The various paths that make our nation great become converged into one. United people are always defiant in the face of adversity and tragedy. We are the envy of the world and, sadly, those who disagree with our democratic freedom pose a constant threat to everything that makes us unique.

However, it is becoming increasingly clear that Australia is losing its innocence to those who hate our freedoms and values. Many people have never imagined a terrorist event transpiring on our soil, but it has happened and, tragically, no doubt it may happen again. We are all too familiar with images each night on the news depicting intolerance abroad but never in our own backyard. Like those in Paris who marched in the aftermath of their tragedy, the people of Australia stand tall and defiant in the face of terrorism. We speak as one in that we will not tolerate hatred in our community. We will not tolerate those who sympathise with terrorist organisations or those willing to put Australians in harm due to their own reckless actions. We are stronger than ever before in our defiance of those who hate us and seek to do us harm. Australia is a beacon of hope and liberty throughout the world. Our values will never be compromised by those who want to suppress the freedoms of innocent men, women and children. We must not and we will not waiver from our obligation to Australia and its people.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to associate myself with all of the excellent remarks from members of both sides of the chamber in relation to the recent terrorist attacks around the world, not only those in Paris. I think it is very appropriate that this debate is cast in wider terms because, whilst the atrocities in Paris have brought this matter front and centre, there have been a range of attacks around the world that basically were carried out with the same motivation.

The attacks in Paris were devastating, though. We know that 130 people were killed at the hands of Islamic terrorists. In addition, there were 368 people injured, including what appears to be one very brave Australian. Obviously, this really resonates for Australians because, as the Prime Minister has said, Paris is a destination that many of us have visited—and even for those who have not visited, given that Paris is a beacon of art and culture, history, architecture, you name it. We all know it as the City of Light. Being an economic powerhouse and a city of around 10 million people, it really is a centre of Western history and civilisation; there is no doubt about it. So an attack on Paris really sticks with us all.

Notwithstanding the greatness of Paris as a city, at the hands of just a few Islamic terrorists it was brought to its knees in a way that has not happened since World War II. It is a city that, as we all know, has experienced its fair share of turmoil over the centuries and in recent history. While the French people and other Europeans have been grappling with terrorism for a number of years now, the rest of the world has not experienced it in the full force and fury of just some weeks ago. They are the worst attacks since the Madrid bombings in 2004 and they again highlight the seriousness of the threat that all Western liberal democratic nations face.

In the early 2000s, terror attacks such as those in Madrid and, most notably, of September 11 were carefully planned by remote operatives based in Afghanistan and loosely referred to at the time as al-Qaeda. The threat we now face in the West, as is evident from these recent attacks, originates from a far more sophisticated set of jihadists and is based around the ISIS death cult, and unfortunately the tentacles of influence of ISIS spread far beyond its geographic sphere of control in Syria and northern Iraq.

It is quite sobering to note that it is estimated that more than 20,000 people from across the world have travelled to Syria to participate in the conflict in that region since fighting broke out in 2007, and it is clear that a large number of them would have been motivated to be and would have ultimately become combatants for ISIS. Of the many thousands from Europe who have travelled to Syria to join the conflict, people from France, lamentably, are among the highest numbers.

This becomes, as it has become for the French, a national security concern when those citizens return to their home countries. In nearly all cases, I would say, we can assume they return home with very clear instructions from Islamic State, with additional training and an additional understanding of the ways and means to achieve their objectives. They are there to carry on that jihadist movement in the Western liberal democratic nation to which they have returned. It is clear that some of the attackers who carried out the atrocities on 13 November were people who travelled from Syria—taking advantage of weak borders along the way to get to Paris—as well as French citizens.

This is a very alarming set of facts and, in some respects, an inconvenient set of facts for all of us to grapple with. What is most alarming, quite frankly, is that these attacks could have happened anywhere: London, Berlin, Rome, Washington or even, heaven forbid, an Australian city—but for the grace of God. It has not occurred on Australian soil. Because of our amazing security services and others, it has not. But we must look at this template that Islamic State have used in Europe and ensure it is not a template that can be utilised here in Australia.

We have suffered our share of terrorist attacks. The Bali bombings and the Marriot Hotel bombings were directly targeted at Australian interests and at Australians.

As a thriving Western democracy we are not immune from hate groups like Islamic State. Unfortunately, we know that Australia, similar to France, has its fair share of recruits to the ISIS cause. This is why it is so important that we as a government have acted categorically to strip Australian citizenship from dual nationals whose allegiance is shown to be to a perverted, barbaric creed, cause or ideology rather than to Australia.

Clearly, it is the view of this government, it is the view of this House and it is the view of Australians that those who participate in acts of war for Islamic State, raping and pillaging with a medieval barbarity that we have not seen for centuries, do not deserve the privilege of calling Australia home. I am very glad to have seen strident moves in this House to ensure that that legislation comes into full force as soon as possible. Of course, the events in Paris also show the importance of maintaining strong border controls because governments must be able to appropriately vet every person who either is seeking asylum or wants to become a citizen of our country. We should never, ever cede that sovereignty. We have an obligation to all Australian people to guarantee, as best we can, that every person who wants to make Australia home is somebody who does not share in the world view of bloodthirsty death cults.

It is sad that a number of Australians have joined to initially fight with extremist groups such as ISIS. They are participating in conflicts in places such as Syria and northern Iraq. It is clearly a failure that we have people who, in many cases, were born and grew up here do not feel an allegiance to Australia. In many cases, they are people who have been able to revel in the freedoms and the relative prosperity that we have in this country but who, somehow, are drawn into or are instructed in believing this barbaric ideology. It is quite disappointing, and it is something that we must always remember when framing policies in this place. Our security agencies have publicly said that they are managing 400 high-priority counter-terrorism investigations—a number which has doubled, I might add, since the start of this year. This is an alarming statistic. I think that, if we spoke to most people in the street and said that that was the case, they would find it very hard to believe. As I said earlier, I have no doubt that much of the reason we have not faced similar attacks to the ones that we are discussing tonight is due to the outstanding work of our security agencies, including the AFP and ASIO. We really do owe them a debt of gratitude. The way that we can show them that gratitude in this place is to continue the modus operandi of this government—that is, when the security agencies ask us for any legislative or regulatory assistance in doing their job, we give it to them unhesitatingly. We, as a parliament, must always balance competing rights. There are the rights to privacy, the rights to freedom of movement and the rights to free speech. But, in my view, all of those rights are trumped by the right to life and the right of an Australian citizen to go about their daily life unhindered and without fear that they might be in a building, in a theatre or at a concert that is targeted by one of these barbarians who proclaim the creed of Islamic State.

We cannot pretend that, without constant review and constant change, it will be always be okay. As many around the globe have said publicly, Islamic extremism is a problem that we must confront honestly and respectfully but, ultimately, with a view to keeping our citizens safe. We must be prepared to have an open dialogue about why a small but, quite frankly, growing number of Muslims continue to be attracted to this extremist ideology that wishes to do harm to, in many cases, their fellow countrymen. I completely respect and understand the view of my Muslim friends and constituents who say, 'People like that aren't practising Islam. They are not practising my religion,' but the reality is there is something that they are using to justify their actions. There is a perverse reading of the relevant religious texts that is giving them, in their mind, the pretext that they need to do abhorrent things in the name of religion. We have to make sure that we confront these issues together. Often, confronting these things is uncomfortable. The truth can be uncomfortable. But what is our obligation in this House? Our obligation here is to do everything that we can to make sure that our citizens are safe and that our children and our grandchildren can grow up in the kind of safe society that we have all benefited from ourselves.

I will not be one of those people who allow a misguided view of political correctness to get in the way of calling things out and calling it as I see it. Clearly, Islamic leaders in our communities must continue to do more in condemning acts of violence from their own communities. These messages are much better coming from leaders within the community than coming from those without. There can be absolutely no excuse for the barbaric behaviour that ISIS espouses. I never want to again see any tacit excuses provided by an Islamic leader, because that, ultimately, is misguided and will give fuel to those who seek to perversely interpret Islamic texts. We in this parliament, and particularly in this government, are keenly aware that our first duty is to ensure the safety of our citizens. Our duty is to ensure that our Western, democratic, liberal values are upheld and they must take primacy over everything else. In my view, that obligation absolutely trumps any kind of political correctness that has enveloped our media and our political lexicon. I can assure you that I will continue to make sure that, to the greatest extent possible, the terrorist attacks that we have seen around the world are stopped from ever occurring in Australia.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I begin my statement on terrorist attacks, I congratulate the member for Deakin for his contribution. He has become a good friend. He is clearly a solid citizen—someone who in this chamber is in pursuit of the national interest and someone I am proud to call a colleague.

Terrorism could not be more antithetical to democracy. The use of force against civilians in order to promote political aims is abhorrent and immoral. As the elected member for Barker, it is trite to say that my job is to represent the views and interests of the people of my electorate in this place. So, with regard to that, I take this opportunity to convey and share the deep sorrow felt by people across my electorate when they heard of the atrocities in Paris—a city which has been visited by terrorists several times this year alone. It is the same sorrow we felt when we lost 88 Australians in the Bali bombings and when we heard the news of attacks in Martin Place and Parramatta. It is the same despondency we all felt when we saw the exploded remains of an iconic double-decker bus and watched as commuters, covered in soot, crawled out of tube stations in London in the wake of the 7/7 bombings. Indeed, the attacks in Paris delivered the same horror that transfixed the world when domestic airliners were flown into the World Trade Centre in the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and New York was consumed by a cloud of dust and ash.

Terrorist attacks rupture the very fabric of our everyday lives. Often our transport networks or places of leisure are targeted by terrorist groups as they attempt to shatter our perception of the safety that civil society facilitates. In Paris, London, Bali, Sydney and New York, terrorists mobilised their forces to attack each and every citizen, because their target was our perception not our reality. Our hearts go out to the families of the dead and the injured and to those others who have been affected by these events for their realities have been irreparably warped by the actions of these criminals.

Each nation has in its time faced a terrorist attack. In the modern world, we all feel the threat posed by terrorists as they rail against modernity while spreading their medieval exploits over modern technologies and socialised media platforms. Across this world, we have seen many groups mobilise terror tactics to instil fear into communities. That feeling of fear is the ultimate weapon in the arsenal of the terrorists, yet their greatest weapon is one which is fundamentally contingent on dislocating our resolve. It is a gamble which will fail. We have seen a rapidly changing world deliver an increasing flow of people, culture and ideas. We live in an increasingly connected world. The internet and mass media have spread information at an unprecedented rate. It is this increasingly globalised and networked world in which we live that lends itself to acts of terror, as terrorists seek to bring their wicked exploits into our homes through our televisions, computers, tablets and phones. It is their intention to fill us with a fear such that we change our way of life and yield them our values. It is an endeavour, as I said, which will ultimately fail. Those merchants of fear have a fundamental weakness: their strategy relies on our capitulation. They will not prevail because we will not bow to their demands.

I stand here in this place today reminded of the strength of such values as freedom and democracy. This building is a symbol of the civil, peaceful and cohesive civilization we have hewn from this wide, brown land we call home. Today we have a free, open and safe society, which fosters equality of opportunity, regardless of race, gender or creed. This country was built on those foundations, as was the republic of France. In many ways, the attacks in Paris have had a profound impact on us here in Australia because we have inherited so much from the French. We share their values of equality and freedom. The French are a passionate and cultured people. They care deeply, love fiercely and enjoy a freedom that they themselves fought for. Their national anthem rejoices in seizing freedom from their tyrannical oppressors. The French have always remained as committed to the ideals of freedom and democracy as the Australian people have. Not only do we share such values; we also share much history.

While Australians have enjoyed freedom for well over a century, we too have fought to keep our society liberated from domination. The fields of France hold many young Australians who fought during two world wars to liberate France from the clutches of tyranny and to keep the evils of fascism at bay. In the town of Villers-Bretonneux there is a sign in their local school which reads: 'Never Forget Australia'. Young Australians helped liberate that town from the Germans during the First World War and the people of that town continue to remember that contribution, notwithstanding that some 100 years have passed since that time. Now we face a great tyranny. We face a religious tyranny in the form of Islamic extremism. This religious tyranny is seeking to subjugate our free society through casting a haze of fear over our nations in the same perverted way that it has destabilised Islamic communities across the Middle East. As in the 20th century, when the democratic nations came together to defeat fascism and communism, we must now rally together once more and cast this religious extremism back into the abyss.

Australia stands with all those around this world who seek to live a free and peaceful life. We support their right to freedom and will continue to do our bit to destroy the spectre of terrorism. Democracy is, indeed, a great project, the product of thousands of years of social progress. It is in the face of that project that we see agents of darkness seeking to pull us back toward their medieval world view. We cannot afford to take a backward step as we face their barbarity.

Ultimately, they are cowards. They attack everyday people going about their everyday business, because they are devoid of the capacity to take their fight to our security forces. They take fear-reducing drugs to suppress their anxieties; such is the weakness of their commitment to their cause. Indeed, these terrorists fear our capable security services who stand eternally vigilant, ready to dispatch their duty. Whilst we may not be able to stop all acts of terrorism, it is imperative that we mitigate terrorism's effects through a resolute and unshakable commitment to our way of life, to our values and to our Australian culture. We must always remember how terrorism, as a manipulative tool, works and understand that if we redouble our commitment to building a stronger and more prosperous Australia and put freedom at its heart we simply cannot be defeated.

I am amazed to realise that there have been some 298 terrorist attacks across the world thus far this year in France, Nigeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, China, Ukraine, Israel, the Philippines, Denmark, Japan, India, Russia and, indeed, here in Australia. We have seen beheadings, suicide bombings, shootings, arsons, immolations, crucifixions, eviscerations and stabbings. We have even seen rocket and vehicle attacks. Just yesterday, a bus filled with presidential guards was bombed in Tunisia, killing 12. In 2015 there has been much violence in the name of religious tyranny, and yet I stand unafraid. I remain resolute in my undying commitment to the values of freedom and democracy, as do my constituents in Barker and, indeed, the people of this great nation.

I stand in our cathedral of democracy in which we can, and often do, disagree with each another, but we do not resort to violence. I am part of a liberal tradition which has long fought to conserve the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, defending freedom of speech and freedom of association. This nation is one which stands against violence against civilians in all its forms. I stand with all those people around the world that refuse to bow down and submit to this new tyranny. Australia stands with the people of Paris. We stand with the people of London, the people of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, the people of Israel, the people of the Philippines, the people of Denmark and the people of the Ukraine in the face of these acts of terror. Those agents of darkness cannot shake our fundamental belief in freedom. They cannot alter the course of democracy nor our desire to build a better world.

I again would like to take this opportunity to convey my deepest sorrow to all those across our world who have felt the effects of the acts of these terrorists. The Paris attacks sent shock waves around the world, and yet the response has bound us together. The collective grief of the world has been triggered, yet so too has a recommitment to the project of freedom. I am reminded of the words of Billy Bragg in his revision of the English translation of The Internationale, and I will quote it in fear that those opposite will always refer to me as 'comrade'; I will take the risk:

Freedom is merely privilege extended

Unless enjoyed by one and all

We remain a tolerant, multiracial society with a strong Australian culture. I am proud to be part of that democratic society and know that those wicked people who resort to mobilising terrorism to fight freedom will ultimately fail. Our resolve is concrete, our values firm, our actions decisive and, ultimately, our retribution will be swift.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Terrorism by any name is hard to understand. Terror, in itself, is irrational except to the perpetrator of the terror. Anyone who has a clear perspective on what is right and wrong cannot justify acts of terror. Whether it be a jet that is shot down as it is leaving a holiday resort in Egypt, a Mounty on duty at a monument in Canada, people attacking a parliament, people arriving on a boat and turning up at an exclusive hotel with machine guns, or whether it be what we have just recently seen in Paris or what we saw at Parramatta, it does not make sense to the rational mind. What is it that, at the moment, drives people to this terrorism?

Historically, we have seen terror applied, with the bombing of pubs and bars in the UK during the Troubles. That was terrorism. We saw the Red Brigades. That was terrorism too. We saw people attacking the Olympic village. All that is terror in its barest essence. But what we are seeing now is terrorism justified by a religious belief, and that is what I think the world needs to admit to. Depending on which suras of the Koran you read, you can get a different interpretation. But, in essence, whether it was in the Lindt cafe, Parramatta, Paris, Belgium—you name it—there were frequent cries of religious allegiance, there was a banner. You only have to see what is happening in Syria and Iraq. The whole region is a site of terrorism. The whole of the Middle East is fracturing before our very eyes.

It brings up how valuable society, the rule of law and our institutions are in this country. We value freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion and the principle of tolerance, and we have to defend those rights. We have to call out terrorism for what it is when it happens. Using euphemisms and soft terminology will not fix the problem. To combat terrorism we have to call it what it is and call out what generates it.

There have been misdeeds across history done in the name of various religions since history began. But, generally, in the Western world and in the areas where we are seeing terrorism raise its ugly head we are the beneficiaries of movements and adjustments that have happened over centuries that have not yet occurred in parts of the Islamic world. I am referring to the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation and the universal reassessment of what is involved in Christian principles. Theoretically you can find in the Bible justification to stone a woman to death. You could find justification in the thinking of the kings and queens of England for burning so-called witches and nonbelievers or Protestants at the stake. But Christianity got over that. We worked through it. We reinterpreted things in light of modern-day sentiment. There needs to be that process in Islam.

I know hundreds of Muslims in this country who are very fine, upstanding Australian citizens. They are model citizens—99.9 per cent of them are wonderful assets to the nation. But there are a percentage inside our borders who justify this sort of weird thinking by quoting the Koran. But that does not justify it, just as me stoning someone to death for adultery does not make sense in this day and age. Christianity realised that that is the Old Testament, and sacred texts in the Old Testament have been reinterpreted in view of the New Testament.

I do not think we are going to see the end of this scourge of terrorism soon. How do we defeat it? We defeat it not just by confronting violence with violence. Sometimes you need to point to your argument at the end of the barrel of a gun, but that will not solve the problem. As the President of Egypt himself said, Egypt needs to have its own Reformation. The changes have to come from within the various Islamic mosques around the world. The imams themselves and the prominent teachers and thinkers in chorus around the world need to point out that violence cannot be justified by selecting bits of the Koran. I do not know how soon this is going to happen, but there are signs around the world. There are publications and prominent Islamic thinkers and speakers who are saying that. I am encouraged by that. I am encouraged by the recent pronouncements by Islamic leaders in our country condemning the violence and also saying more than just passing on condolences.

All of our thoughts are with the victims of terror. We revile in shock and horror at terrorism, but we must continue to call it what it is. We must defend the principles on which our liberal democracy has been founded. That includes all the institutions and laws that we have inherited from 800 to 900 years of British history. That includes tolerance and respect for difference, but you can only respect and tolerate other religions and actions up to a certain red line. No matter what the religion—whether it is Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity or whatever—some actions are not justifiable.

It is a sad day that we have to be standing in this House passing on condolences for events that have recently become a scar on the world. It is going to be a long and tortuous period in human history in front of us, because there are many people who still think it is justifiable to do what we have seen recently. Syria and Iraq are at the epicentre of this battle, but it is being waged on a smaller scale across Africa. Even in Asia there are outposts of this weird and extreme Islamic ideology. I call on those who know that it is unjust and not justifiable to publicly repudiate it because, until there are masses of people within Islam who are publicly repudiating it, things will not be resolved.

We in the West seem to be the focus of their anger. But, from a true global perspective, the people who have the greatest fears and concerns about this Islamic extreme terrorism are other Islamic nations, which we see being turned into ungovernable, post-apocalyptic wastelands of shattered buildings and societies with masses of refugees. We are getting a snapshot of it, but it is going to be a much greater risk to Islamic society than Western society. Nevertheless, we have principles that we are all the beneficiaries of: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the ability to disagree with religion, the separation of state and religion, and a secular, liberal democracy.

My condolences go to all those victims—the hundreds, thousands and millions of people from the Middle East who are suffering from it, as well as those in Paris, Australia and across the world. I encourage all members to remain resolute in defending the freedoms that make our society what it is.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The speaker before me likened the terrorist incidents that have recently occurred as 'a scar on the world'. I have to say that I concur with the view put forward by the honourable member. The incidents that we saw in Paris were shocking to say the least. It is horrific to think of all those young people trapped in the concert hall, who were basically popped off one by one, and the people who had to cower under bodies for fear that they too would be gunned down. They could not have known what was about to unfold that night. You can only imagine the horror in the cafes and the sporting ground while the soccer game was going on. In all of those places across Paris, at roughly the same time, the forces of hell were unleashed. Those forces of hell, as we know now, were Islamic State.

We have seen many such atrocities across the Western world in recent times, going back over the past decade or so. We have certainly seen—and it has become almost commonplace, sadly—those sorts of atrocities happening in the Middle East, but, when they breach into a Western democracy and places where we, otherwise, have a peaceful existence and like to think we can all coexist with each other, it really is scarring. I could refer to 7/7 in London, where buses were torn apart by fanatical madmen, or the Bali bombings where, again, a bunch of young people, including lots of Australians, were torn to shreds because a jihadist put a bomb in a place knowing that it would kill as many Westerners—or infidels—as possible. I could go right back to 2001, when we saw those planes fly into the twin towers, a plane fly into the Pentagon and another plane, which might, perhaps, have been heading to the White House, fly into a field in Pennsylvania.

We see these images again and again and again around the world. They have even touched Australian soil. We saw Man Monis, a self-styled imam. He might have been self-styled, but so are many imams across this country, because there is no prerequisite for setting up your own Islamic centre and acting in a religious leadership role. He had thousands of followers on Facebook—tens of thousands of followers, I am led to believe—a lot of whom were in Australia. That is concerning. He walked into the Lindt cafe in Martin Place in Sydney and took that place hostage. As a result, two Australians ended up dead. We recently saw the slaughter of Curtis Cheng, where the guy ran out and started screaming, 'God is great'—'Allahu Akbar'—repeatedly, only to be gunned down by police, who were probably wondering what that hell was going on and why this madness had descended upon the police station.

We are starting to see the incursion into this country of the violent extremism that is coming out of radical Islam. It concerns me, and it concerns me greatly. What concerns me even more than that is the refusal of people in positions of leadership to call it out. It might be politically incorrect to do so; it might be jarring; it might be confronting and offensive to some people here. But it is also reality. In the wake of a terrorist atrocity that was committed by a group calling itself Islamic State, or when someone yelled out 'Allahu Akbar' before they detonated a bomb or shot someone, I get so distraught seeing someone in leadership saying that this had nothing to do with Islam. They are wrong. They are dead wrong. It has everything to do with Islam.

I am not saying that all Muslims—not even the majority of Muslims—would be capable of, or would even think of, committing such an atrocity, but the people who do do so in the belief that they are acting completely in accord with the tenets of Islam, under the guidance of the Koran and the Hadiths and in accordance with the supreme will of their god. They fundamentally believe that.

Islamic State has been behind many of the latest atrocities, even here in Australia. If we look to the Man Monis case, he wanted an Islamic State flag brought to him by the police. He might have been what they call a lone wolf, but Islamic State is encouraging lone wolves to act in its name. That is part of this new battle that we face in this world. If we look at the 18-year-old who stabbed a number of police officers at the police station in Endeavour Hills, he posed on Facebook with a photograph of the Islamic State flag. Islamic State has a lot to do with what is going on at the moment. It is just the latest in radical Islamic organisations that have come to the fore. We had al-Qaeda at one stage. Elements of that have left and now morphed into Islamic State. In this region, we had Jemaah Islamiah at one stage, which was acting in accordance with al-Qaeda. All of them have the common philosophy of Islamism, of the world view that there are two houses on planet Earth: the house of Islam and the house of war. The house of Islam is where countries and the people are subjugated to the will of Islam, under sharia. The house of war is those countries which have not yet accepted sharia and have not had Islam imposed upon them. It is called the house of war because the belief is that they will continue waging war, or jihad, until those places that are called the house of war become the house of Islam as well.

That is the world view that Islamic State holds, and it is no use to say that it has nothing to do with Islam. Actually, it is very Islamic; it is fundamental Islam, in fact. They take the texts of the Koran and the Hadith literally. They look at the later texts of the Koran and say that, because they were written later, they supersede the earlier, more peaceful sections of the Koran, which is why they can justify what they do. We should not be afraid to call that out and to say that there is a problem there—that there is a problem that obviously exists within a religion, which needs to be sorted out. I believe that it can only be sorted out, ultimately, by those within that religious faith.

The problem is even deeper than that. I could walk out of this place to the front of parliament, have all the cameras in front of me and burn a Bible, and I would probably get a press release from the Australian Christian Lobby condemning me. But if I were to walk out the front of parliament and burn a Koran, I think that everyone in this place would know that there would be a very, very different reaction. We have to ask ourselves, in this day and age, why would there be such a different reaction? What is it that is inherent there amongst a certain particular strand of the Islamic faith that causes that reaction? Those are the questions that need to be asked.

We do not need statements put out by the Grand Mufti the day after the attacks on Paris saying that the reasons behind this were the actions of the West and that the reasons behind it were, 'You are bringing in national security legislation that we don't like,' or something like that. It is justification for the actions of madmen. These actions have been going on long before any of the stuff that Grand Mufti complained about were enacted and were in place. We have had celebrity television presenters telling us that, in the face of this, all we need is to hold hands and have love for our fellow man. There is some truth in that; yes, we do. But it also is a bit cute, and it keeps us from dealing with the real issues and asking the hard questions that do need to be answered.

I, for one, think that as a government we should be doing more to empower those people within Islam to actually speak out and to tell people within their faith why those sections of the Koran and those sections of the Hadith that are twisted around by the murderous fanatics we see in Islamic State are not to be interpreted the way those people interpret them. I could point to someone who is very well-versed in Islamic scholarship—Professor Abdullah Saeed, at the University of Melbourne. I do not know Dr Saeed, but I certainly read a very thought-provoking article from him on the Islamic case for religious liberty. He is a Muslim and a scholar of Islam who believes that there can be a true Islamic separation of the religious from the political. That is something that would be an affront to Islamic State. Unfortunately, a lot, perhaps, of moderate Muslims believe that there is an intertwining of the religious and the political as well. I say that because I have seen data put out by the Pew study on religious views, which suggested that a lot of Muslims—right around the world and not purely in Australia; they burrowed it down to the United States, another western nation—did believe that sharia law to them was of higher value than the law of the land and that they would adhere to it more, even if it were in conflict. That is concerning. So we need people out there within Islam that are willing to say, with authority, that there can be a separation between the political and the religious.

When I hear other people in this place talking about a reformation, I suppose that that is what I think should happen too. There is one very brave woman, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is a former Muslim that has been calling for this for a long time. She has been calling for it for a long time and, as a result, has been subjected to repeated death threats. She now has to have security 24/7 wherever she goes. That is sad. So when those leaders in the Muslim community come out and advocate for this—something that we want to see happen so that we do not have more atrocities in this country or around the world—we need to ensure not only that their voice is amplified and heard in the Muslim community and in the wider community but that they are afforded our protection for being brave enough and bold enough to get out there and say that.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With much anxiety and lament, I participate in a debate of very considerable moment. The Prime Minister, on 24 November, made a national security statement. It has now been debated over some time, with many of my colleagues participating in the debate from this side of the House. Interestingly, it was only a little while ago that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was arguing that there should be a debate on these issues, and, in that context, I note that this particular debate is being conducted largely by members of the government.

My colleagues wanted to make it very, very clear that the recent mass killings of so many innocent civilians in Paris, France; in Turkey; in Iraq; in Mali; in Bangladesh and in Afghanistan have no place in the world in which we live. This is terrorism, conducted for reasons that are sometimes, for us, very difficult to understand. We have certain values; we are open, democratic societies. We want to function with people from all over the world—to be able to live together and share each other's culture, ethnicity and faith. I think the world has changed very significantly, but, by some, that is not readily recognised.

We have seen a problem emerge in the Middle East which has led to efforts to overthrow existing governments in Muslim societies, and to provide a place from which terrorist activity can be conducted and can pose a risk to us. They are about, as the Prime Minister said, fomenting resentment between Muslim and non-Muslim populations. They have been about creating an environment in which extremist groups are able to pursue objectives. But the Prime Minister noted that this organisation, as we see it, is essentially weak—and it is weak, in part, because we have allowed a situation to develop that has been extraordinarily difficult to resolve and where there are differences of view, even amongst our friends, about the way forward.

We have seen a situation where enormous numbers of people have been dislocated, and I have witnessed, personally, in the areas surrounding Iraq and Syria, the devastating impact that this situation of hostility has produced. People have fled into Jordan in their hundreds of thousands, into Lebanon in several millions and into Turkey in much the same way. In Syria, some seven million people are, additionally, displaced.

It is an extraordinarily difficult issue to deal with because the participants, and those that surround them, have different views about how this situation should be resolved. It is not hard to understand, when you look at the Assad regime, which has maintained itself in power by dividing and, inevitably, conquering. It remains there, in part, because it has been able to put together alliances involving the different populations of its own country—the Alawi, the Christian, the Druze, the Shiah and some of the Sunni Muslims—against what is often seen to be a Sunni Muslim majority. You have countries surrounding Syria, like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who want to produce change. You have other countries surrounding Syria, like Iran and Lebanon, where the Hezbollah want to maintain the Syrian regime in power. Similarly, you get the United States supporting, ostensibly, its allies in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and Russia focusing on how it can build linkages into Syria to maintain places for its own presence in the Mediterranean.

This is a situation which is extraordinarily difficult to resolve. In my view, it is not going to be resolved through countries like Australia seeking simply, with other allies, to bomb some parties into submission. ISIL have, over a period of time, been able to obtain a degree of power in areas of Syria and Iraq. They have done so through very considerable use of money and military capacity and they have been the most objectionable regime that you could imagine, in terms of what we understand as civilised society—accepting people with different views and different perspectives.

There is a 60-nation-strong coalition, as the Prime Minister says, whose objective is to disrupt, degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL. The Prime Minister argues that a full strategy, not just military but financial, diplomatic and political, is required. He recognised in his statement that Australia is a very significant contributor to the air strikes but that that is doing little more than disrupting the regime. What is needed is a political solution. We are endeavouring to support Iraq and to give it advice as to how it might be able to use its own forces to help resolve this issue.

But it is quite clear that, while some might regard a Western troop arrangement that could produce, in their view, a secure outcome, the problem we have with the way in which events have unfolded in the Middle East is that this can sometimes be enormously counterproductive. It is in that context that I think it is important to recognise that the air campaign has had limited success. It has halted ISIL's momentum. The capacity of ISIL has been degraded. Kurdish and Iraqi forces have won back some territory. But we have a long way to go.

It is from this genesis that we are seeing risks even to ourselves. With electronic communications, with the way in which these people are pursuing their objectives, we are in an extraordinarily difficult position. It is important to note, in the context of what we are experiencing with those people reaching out to people within our own community, that we have to have a very significant strategy to counter violent extremism here in Australia. The government has committed very considerable funds to doing that. We have been debating other laws, including the laws in relation to citizenship deprivation, that are part of an overall strategy. But I think it is very important to understand the importance of that strategy in the context of the nature of the society that we are here in Australia. As the Prime Minister notes, we are a community that has been supported by the government's four-tier approach, supporting our strong and multicultural society; helping institutions and sectors in our community to combat violent extremism and its ideology, wherever it emerges; challenging and undermining the appeal of terrorist propaganda, especially as we see it online; and intervening to divert individuals away from their violent extremist views.

Over a period of time, I have been very close to our culturally diverse communities. I think it is tremendously important to recognise that we have people of different faiths, different ethnicities, different cultures. It is never perfect, but I think it works better here than it does anywhere else in the world. It is very important, in the way in which we respond to these issues, that we do not undermine that cohesion. I mention that because, at times, we focus so much on the people who are seeking to undermine us that we think it reflects a much broader view in our society than it in fact does.

We have been extraordinarily well serviced by our policing organisations and by our security organisations, which I know have used intelligence in a way that can contain this threat to our society. We ought to be enormously grateful for the way in which they have identified those risks that can potentially harm us. That is not to say that we might not see some further extremist acts here in our community, but we need to be very careful that we do not divide ourselves or allow ourselves to be divided. I think these interests want us to overreact. In that context, I continue to take, to all the communities I meet with, a very strong view about the way in which this government is supportive of our cultural diversity, acknowledges the different streams, focuses on correctly identifying the real risks we face and seeks to address those rather than create more difficult situations for us in the future.

In the context of the Prime Minister's speech, I think it is very important that this battle in which we are involved has had a very significant impact in countries that surround us. It has had a significant impact on populations in countries that we see as our friends and allies. The events that took place in France, in Iraq, in Turkey, in Mali, in Bangladesh and in Afghanistan have troubled me enormously. This should not be seen as just a matter that has impacted upon our friends; this is an issue that has impacted upon the world community. Our approach to dealing with it needs to be clearly strategic and well framed. In the Prime Minister's address to the parliament you see very clearly that the government is about protecting Australia and its interests first and foremost. The government has a clear counter-terrorism strategy which calls for effective leadership in the Australian community and emphasises the importance of maintaining our cultural diversity but also identifying the risks that are there.

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate and I am grateful that the government has seen fit to give the parliament an opportunity to put this matter clearly before the Australian people.

Debate interrupted.