Credlin: Australians should be more concerned about terrorism risk than old whodunit

As important as it is to guard against espionage, the real news today is the terrorist attack we could face tomorrow, writes Peta Credlin.

Ever since ASIO chief Mike Burgess revealed on Wednesday night that a former politician had tried to recruit a family member of a prime minister to spy for a foreign power, the political class has been playing the mother of all guessing games.

Sam Dastyari, the former NSW Labor senator, who quit after making a speech to a pro-Beijing audience in favour of China’s maritime claims, and accepting personal gifts from a suspected Chinese agent, denied it was him.

Ernest Wong, the former NSW upper house MP, who quit after trying to disguise a $100,000 donation from a pro-Beijing source, denied it was him.

And Malcolm Turnbull’s son, Alex, said that he could be the family member in question because he’d been approached by people close to Beijing and offered equity in a company.

Yet after revealing that we had what amounted to a traitor in our midst, Burgess then said he wouldn’t name the former politician because it was a historic matter and the individual was “no longer of security concern”.

Director-General of Security in charge of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

But why raise a matter that would obviously set the hares running if it was of historic interest only, and why refer repeatedly to foreign powers that are targeting Australia and then leave us to guess their identities, too?

Voters are rightly cranky that they are being kept in the dark about something as serious as a politician – in the words of Burgess – “selling out Australia”. But as much as this “spy in the parliament” bombshell captured all the headlines – as well as some legitimate questioning about Burgess’s media savvy – the real issue in his annual security statement to Senate estimates was his assessment that an Islamist terrorist attack was a “realistic possibility … in the next 12 months”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should be reassuring the community he’s doing everything necessary to keep us safe. Picture: AAP Image/Morgan Hancock

Whatever the wisdom of Burgess’s revelations about an unnamed former MP, when it comes to insights into domestic security risks, he is the expert. And if he thinks that a terrorist attack is a distinct possibility, then that’s where the focus of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should be in reassuring the community that he’s doing everything necessary to keep us safe. And on current form, the government’s national security record is poor.

Last year, a combination of incompetence, lack of preparedness and panic resulted in Labor releasing 149 foreign criminals into the community when the High Court only ordered the release of one. If that wasn’t bad enough, after persistent warnings from the opposition that the laws were insufficient to properly monitor these murderers, pedophiles, and sex offenders, the government rushed through new and urgent powers to lock some up again.

Yet, only three months later, we find they still haven’t even tried to use the laws. Not once. Then there is the government’s decision to grant more than 2000 visas to people from Gaza when we have almost no capacity to vet the security risk of individuals.

And if we can’t vet them, why are we allowing anyone at all in from Gaza, given that the most reliable polling suggests about half of them back Hamas and about three-quarters thought the barbarism of October 7 was justified?

Israeli soldiers walk among the pictures of people taken captive or killed by Hamas militants during the Supernova music festival on October 7. Polling suggests about half of Gazans back Hamas and about three-quarters thought the barbarism of October 7 was justified. Picture: Jack Guez/AFP

But it’s not just who we are allowing in via an online visa process, it’s what we are tolerating on the streets of our cities and in many of our mosques. Almost every weekend now in Sydney and Melbourne there are pro-Hamas protests. And the bile from hate preachers in our mosques goes un-prosecuted and even unchallenged. With Burgess warning of the possibility of Islamist terror attacks, I worry that the PM and his frontbench are just as asleep at the wheel here as they have been on the issue of foreign criminals.

As far as anyone can tell, there’s been no action whatsoever taken against those creating a climate conducive to terrorism. Are we arresting and charging these hate preachers as we should? Are we cancelling the visas of Jew-baiting non-citizens and deporting them? Are we denying visas to radical imams? Are we removing their hate-filled speeches from the internet?

A Pro-Palestinian protest in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Swift

I think we all know the answers. We know that police are more than capable of breaking up protests as we saw during the pandemic. Why can’t we grow a spine and do the same to anti-Semitic demonstrations, especially now that the ASIO boss is warning about the radicalisation that can lead to terrorism?

We should be far more concerned about the risk of Islamist terrorism than the whodunit about a former MP from years ago.

As important as it is to guard against espionage, the real news today is the terrorist attack we could face tomorrow.

SHAM GENDER INQUIRY SET TO ENDORSE TRANS’ RIGHTS OVER WOMEN’S

What’s the point of having an inquiry but only hearing one side of the argument?

So far, attempts to hold a parliamentary investigation into the consequences of gender-affirmation therapy, with its possibly irreversible consequences for confused young people, have been kyboshed federally and in two states.

So now the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is going to hold an inquiry of its own – only it’s reportedly going to restrict submissions to specialists “in trans and gender-diverse matters”, meaning that, in practical terms, women will be barred from having their say despite the reality that it is their sex-based rights that are being eroded.

But no surprises here – this is the same AHRC that a few years ago insisted sporting bodies should permit biological men to compete in women’s sport and use women’s facilities.

As part of the inquiry, it’s reported that the AHRC will probe “discrimination, harassment, vilification and violence” levelled against trans and gender-diverse people and investigate “extremism and radicalisation”. This is a classic case of never having an inquiry unless you already know the answer. It has been set up with the predetermined outcome that trans’ rights trump women’s rights.

Queensland child psychiatrist Jillian Spencer, who was last year stood down as a children’s hospital doctor because she questioned the wisdom of chemically sterilising teenagers who thought they were trapped in the wrong body, says that this inquiry has to look at everyone’s rights, not just the rights of trans people. She says that “unskilled health professionals” have been colluding with vulnerable young people to “sell their patient a pretend solution of body modification”.

Last year, the Royal Australian College of Psychiatrists declined to endorse gender-affirming care. And Britain’s notorious Tavistock Clinic, which first championed this outdated care model, has now been closed after a high-level government inquiry.

In no other area of medicine do we allow a patient to self-diagnose a condition that defies biological and scientific reality, but when it comes to gender change, we do. Imagine the outcry if a 10-year-old told their GP they had cancer and the doctor just took their word for it and put them on a course of chemotherapy?

So why must we take the word of a 10-year-old and put them on life-altering hormones?

Before it is too late for our children, we must have a genuine medical inquiry into gender practices, and the fact that an inquiry is violently opposed by trans activists says it all.

Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm

Originally published as Credlin: Australians should be more concerned about terrorism risk than old whodunit