Asio chief says a terrorist attack in Australia is ‘probable’ in the next 12 months
ASIO #ASIO
Australia’s spy agency has revealed it believes a terrorist attack is likely to happen in the next 12 months, as the Australian federal police called for extremist insignia and online propaganda to be banned.
Law enforcement and counter-terrorism agencies gave evidence to the parliament’s extremism inquiry on Thursday, spruiking the need for new powers and an increased budget to tackle both religiously motivated and the growing threat of what Asio now calls ideologically motivated extremism.
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director general, Mike Burgess, told the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security the terrorist threat level remained “probable”.
Related: Asio boss says spy agency will dump terms ‘rightwing extremism’ and ‘Islamic extremism’
This is based on an assessment that lone wolf individuals and small terrorist groups have both the capability and intent to launch attacks in Australia.
While Sunni Islamist terrorism is still rated the greatest threat, there is a growth in nationalist and racist ideologically motivated extremism, he said.
“We anticipate there will be a terrorist attack in the next 12 months, and it can come from either ideology,” Burgess said.
Burgess confirmed that ideologically motivated terrorism now makes up 40% of its counter-terrorism work and is a threat that “won’t diminish any time soon”.
But he added it was “important to put it in context” because the National Socialist threat is not on par with Isil and the Grampians – where neo-Nazis staged a high-profile outing – “is not a caliphate”.
The Australian federal police deputy commissioner, Ian McCartney, argued there were gaps in the criminal law relating to dissemination of terrorist material which is helping to radicalise young people online.
“Outside of legitimate research, [and] public interest reporting … there are no circumstances where individuals should be accessing or sharing instructional terrorist manuals, propaganda magazines, and graphically violent images, videos and other content produced by terrorists,” he said.
McCartney said the AFP also “strongly support the criminalisation of the public display of flags and other extremist insignia”.
Chris Teal, the deputy secretary of social cohesion and citizenship, told the inquiry the home affairs department agreed in principle that such insignia should be banned.
Teal added that laws would need to take account of the “purpose of the display of flags and insignia” because there was “a difference between owning it and displaying it for a purpose of vilification”.
Through her questioning, Labor’s Kristina Keneally described proscribing individual terrorists – not just groups – as an “attractive proposition”.
But Burgess responded that he is “not sure how that helps” because listing individuals might “draw attention to them” and cause others to be “inspired by them”.
Asked if his agency needed more powers to combat encrypted messaging, Burgess replied that the AFP has particular needs, a reference to a bill proposing to give them access to the Australian Signals Directorate’s expertise to disrupt criminal activity.
Related: Far right ‘exploiting’ anger at lockdowns to radicalise wellness community, police say
Burgess said Asio already had the right “legal mechanisms” enacted by encryption legislation in late 2018 but signalled that it had sought further “capabilities” in a request that is now subject to “budget consideration”, indicating a request for more funding to help it break encryption.
Burgess also clarified what he described as a misreading of Victoria police’s submission, which had mentioned increased violence from leftwing groups.
Asked if this had created a false equivalence between left and rightwing extremism, Burgess said Victoria police appeared to be referring to protests and that leftwing groups “might get involved in a bit of biffo” which is “not what concerns Asio”.
In an implicit rebuke to some in his party lobbying for greater action on rightwing extremism, Labor’s deputy chair, Anthony Byrne, told Asio he believed the spy agency had never lost its focus or underestimated the threat.
Law enforcement agencies and the department of foreign affairs and trade all said they learned from Australia’s allies’ knowledge and experience of ideologically motivated terrorism.
In a speech to the US Congress on Wednesday, the president Joe Biden pledged that his administration “won’t ignore what our own intelligence agencies have determined – the most lethal terrorist threat to the homeland today is from white supremacist terrorism”.
Earlier this month the US director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, released a worldwide threat assessment report that said: “Australia, Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom consider white racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, including Neo-Nazi groups, to be the fastest growing terrorist threat they face.”