Wieambilla shootout sparked by ‘politically motivated violence’: ASIO

Australia’s terrorism alert level will remain unchanged “despite the slaying of two police officers and a civilian in Wieambilla”, ASIO chief Mike Burgess declared on Tuesday night.

Delivering the national security agency’s annual threat assessment, Burgess said that after working with the Queensland Police Service to examine possible motives for the shooting, ASIO had “reached independent but identical conclusions”.

Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train, who were killed in a shootout that left two police and a neighbour dead, have been labelled Christian extremists.

“We believe the shooting was an act of politically motivated violence, primarily motivated by a Christian violent extremist ideology,” Burgess said.

“Given the matter is still being investigated, I will refrain from going into more detail about ASIO’s assessment, other than to say we did not find evidence the killers embraced a racist and nationalist ideology or were sovereign citizens, despite their anti-authority and conspiratorial beliefs.”

Two Queensland police officers, Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, were shot dead when they went with two colleagues to execute an arrest warrant at the Wieambilla property, near Tara, on December 12. Neighbour Alan Dare was also shot dead.

The occupants of the property, Gareth, Stacey and Nathaniel Train, then engaged in a protracted shootout with specialist police before the trio were killed on site.

Last week, the QPS declared the Trains were not sovereign citizens, despite anti-government views that became stronger during the pandemic. Rather, they were long-time Christian extremists who believed in premillennialism and had been preparing for conflict.

Police will prepare a report for the coroner ahead of an inquest, likely to be some years away.

In his address, Burgess said, “proper, sober, accurate assessments require time and multiple inputs, including intelligence”.

“It’s disappointing some commentators and self-proclaimed terrorism experts were so quick to make definitive declarations about motivations, ideologies and political alignments in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy,” he said.

“Speaking more generally, I’m also concerned that all too often commentators fail to distinguish between extreme views and violent extremism. One can lead to the other, but that does not mean they are the same thing. It takes careful, nuanced work to disentangle groups and individuals that will engage in violence from groups and individuals that may have views that are awful but still lawful.

“It is equally critical to understand that every ideologically motivated extremist is not automatically a left-wing or right-wing extremist.

“There is a cohort of individuals motivated by a toxic cocktail of conspiracies, grievances and anti-authority beliefs. It is neither helpful nor accurate to reflexively assign these individuals to a place on the political spectrum.”