Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McLachlan for the question. Mr President, as you'd be aware, a fundamental priority of the Morrison government is to keep Australia and Australians safe. Despite the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reality is that the threat of terrorism has, unfortunately, not subsided. The Morrison government has, however, invested records amounts of funding in our law enforcement agencies. There is the investment we're making into, for example, ASIO, AUSTRAC and other agencies within the Department of Home Affairs. It is directed at keeping Australians safe.

We know that during COVID-19 many terrorist organisations have sought to exploit the increased time that Australians have spent at home and online. Targeting young and impressionable minds, they have shamelessly exploited the situation to propagate information, ideologies and dangerous and destructive views that seek to do real harm to Australians not only in our country but across the Western world. What we have unfortunately seen in Paris and the United States and across Asia and the Middle East are the sorts of atrocities that these people would seek to perpetrate in Australia and on Australian soil against innocent men, women and children.

As a government we need to deal with the threat of terrorism whenever it may eventuate. Since September 2014, we have had 117 people charged as a result of counterterrorism operations, and there are 22 people currently before the courts for terrorism related offences. These are people who would seek to do significant harm to Australia and Australians, but the Morrison government is working night and day to make sure they are not successful.