Why our pollies can’t handle the truth on terror

Both sides of politics could be accused of using terrorism to score points, but ignoring it is equally dangerous. Leaders must respond with debate and policy which keep us safe, writes Annika Smethurst.

Four years and two prime ministers ago, Tony Abbott made a private pledge to try and help the Victoria Liberals win the state election.

It was 2014, Abbott had been in office just over a year and was already on the nose with voters, trailing behind Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister.

Weeks earlier a teenage terrorist had been shot dead after a frenzied knife attack on police in Melbourne’s outer south east. Abbott saw it as a game changer, promising then-Liberal premier Denis Napthine he had the answer to turn the polls around.

“Jihad,” he told Napthine and his astonished and sceptical advisers in a private meeting. That would win them the election.

Abbott wanted to use public fear to launch a security debate which he believed the Liberals could win. It’s the sort of cynical manoeuvre we expect from politicians but the kind we are still shocked to hear.

Abbott had hoped the ISIS-inspired lone wolf attack would derail the opposition’s charge to office in the same way it caused havoc to Labor’s 2001 election campaign, run in the shadow of the September 11 attacks.

A teenage terrorist was shot dead after stabbing police in Melbourne’s suburbs in 2014, an incident then PM Tony Abbott saw as a game-changer for the Victorian Liberals. Picture: Channel 9

It was a political misstep and failed to save the Victorian Liberals who were thrown from office after just one term.

Abbott was not he first politician to think a terror attack could help shift political fortunes, but he failed to read the mood of voters who felt congestion at railway crossings was having a bigger impact on their days than radical Islam.

Yesterday’s Victorian election was again impacted by an Islamic-inspired terror attack which changed the backdrop to the final stages of the campaign.

Four years on, the threat of terrorism is felt more sharply in Australia than it was in 2014 when road congestion seemed to be a stronger force. While the statistics show us that Australians are at greater risk of being killed on our roads or by a family member in our own home, the seemingly random and unpredictability of terror attacks rightly scares us.

Since 2014, just seven Australians have died at the hands of terrorists on Australian soil and thankfully numerous plots have been foiled. But our fears have been shaped by memories of foreign attacks in Bali, London and New York which has claimed the lives of hundreds of Australians in recent years.

In the wake of the Bourke Street disaster our politicians were again tasked with walking the doomed tightrope between addressing security concerns while not fuelling public anxiety.

Few navigate it safely.

Scott Morrison’s declaration that Australia’s greatest threat of religious extremism was the “radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam” was uncharacteristically frank for a political leader.

The recent terror attack in Bourke St impacted the Victorian election. Picture: Twitter

It resonated with Australian fatigued with rhetoric from past leader who appeared to pussyfoot around the issue in public. Morrison also called for the Muslim community to do more, prompting some Islamic leaders to boycott a meeting with him, for which they were roundly condemned.

In Victoria, Labor Premier Daniel Andrews was criticised for standing alongside police bosses after the terror attack when in caretaker mode. Opposition leader Matthew Guy was also under fire for using the fact the terrorist was on bail to political point score.

But when is the right time to discuss policing and national security concerns which arise from terrorism?

It is a political truism that terrorist attacks usually benefit Governments of either persuasion. Voters prefer to stick with the stability the incumbent offers instead of the uncertainty of change.

While both sides could be accused of using terrorism as a political weapon, ignoring it would be equally as dangerous.

In the wake of an attack, terrorists crave a military response. They desire fear and over-reaction from Governments. It’s a temptation our leaders must ignore.

But raising legitimate policy concerns about national security and policing must not be met with constant criticism.

Governments and oppositions are right to respond to terror with policy debates which could ultimately keep us safe. It must be done without blame or point scoring but with a genuine desire to protect Australians.

Annika Smethurst is the National Political Editor for The Sunday Telegraph.

@annikasmethurst