When a murky caravan becomes a toxic bandwagon, it’s time for restraint

There were good reasons for concern when police discovered the caravan in northern Sydney that has now become a test case in the politics of terror. The van held enough explosives to create a 40-metre blast zone as well as a note with the address of a major synagogue.

NSW Premier Chris Minns, Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have all referred to the Dural caravan incident as “terrorism”.Credit:

That discovery, on January 19, has cascaded through Australian politics in a toxic flow of mutual distrust and blatant opportunism ahead of the federal election. Only now, about three weeks after news of the caravan was leaked to the media, is it possible to assess a few more of the facts about this murky case.

The conclusion? Australia has too many panic merchants when the country needs to keep its cool.

The explosives turned out to be old and degraded. As this masthead revealed last weekend, the blast material was up to 40 years old and may have come from a NSW theft several decades ago. This does not mean the explosives were harmless, but it should ease the fear that this type of material has been going missing from mining sites in recent times.

There was no detonator with the explosives. Police and security officials were cautious about whether there was an imminent threat to the community. In a contrast with some previous investigations, they did not ring the alarm and go public. They wanted to run the investigation quietly.

Everything changed when word of the caravan leaked to The Daily Telegraph and it broke the news online on January 29. This was a free media in action, with a compelling news story and a clear public interest in the facts. This masthead also reported the news that afternoon, including real-time coverage when police confirmed the details.

NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Dave Hudson raised the possibility it was a “set-up” by criminals.Credit: Rhett Wyman

But the news coverage also launched a contest for political advantage. Once the fact of the caravan was public, the political calculations began. And the dynamic in Australia today is incredibly damaging: there is a political contest to catastrophise.

There are some basic rules to the contest. The leader who plays down a threat will lose. The leader who is reluctant to go public risks looking weak. The side that goes first in calling a threat terrorism will usually win because the other side has to play catch-up and use the same label. The way to talk tough is to amplify the threat.

But the police were cautious about the caravan. NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson told the media the case was being handled as a potential terror incident when “taken at its highest” and considering the notes and explosives found. But this was only one line of inquiry. Hudson also raised the possibility it was a “set-up” by criminals. The Australian Federal Police, meanwhile, made no statement.

NSW Premier Chris Minns took the reasonable step of talking publicly to confirm the leak, given that official silence can make the speculation worse. He uttered the key phrases that shaped all the coverage. “This is the discovery of a potential mass casualty event,” he said on January 29. “There’s only one way of calling it out and that is terrorism.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese backed this judgment the following day when asked if he agreed with the premier. “It’s clearly designed to harm people, but it’s also designed to create fear in the community. And that is the very definition [of terrorism],” he said.

The premier and the prime minister had some key facts on their side. The caravan was being investigated by a joint counterterrorism team set up with NSW Police, the AFP, ASIO and the NSW Crime Commission. But the investigation was incomplete. Whether it was terrorism was yet to be determined.

Peter Dutton did not wait to seek political advantage. Within hours of the leak, the opposition leader wanted to know when Albanese was told of the caravan. Albanese should be up front about this fact, but it is hardly the dominant concern. The police did not believe there was an imminent threat to the community.

Now, a few weeks later, some of the political rhetoric looks unguarded. The political noise probably made the investigation more difficult. It is possible the caravan was planted by criminals so they could reveal the explosives to police in exchange for a “letter of assistance” that would help one of their own get a shorter prison sentence. If that was the case, nobody should help the criminals by jumping at shadows.

None of this means the threat from antisemitism is overblown. It is real and getting worse. And terror remains terror even if some of it is conducted by criminals for hire who get their orders over encrypted apps and collect their pay in cryptocurrency. We still do not know who is behind the attacks.

With the caravan, however, there was a race to assume the worst and brand it terrorism. There was a contest for political advantage from the start. This was intensified by the barracking for Dutton in the News Corp Australia outlets – the daily dynamic that is obvious to everyone. With these outlets behind him, Dutton had an easier task in heaping pressure on Albanese about what he knew, and when, about the caravan.

Even so, there has been a total failure of logic in Dutton’s argument for an inquiry into when Albanese was told. “The prime minister has the questions to answer here. I don’t think there’s any breakdown in the process,” the opposition leader said on February 6. He has already decided the police did everything right with their process – the very process that decided who was briefed.

Being strong on terror and antisemitism does not mean doomsaying with every discovery. The national terrorism threat level is already at a high level – an attack is “probable” – and ASIO director-general Mike Burgess expects it to stay there for the foreseeable future. In his annual threat assessment on Wednesday night, he also warned of increasing antisemitism: “I am concerned these attacks have not yet plateaued.” Asked about the caravan, however, he would not comment on an active investigation.

The risk is serious enough without rushing to panic stations.

We do not know where this will end. The investigation into the caravan continues and all the options are still being considered, ranging from a criminal set-up to a terror plot. We know enough, however, to be careful about some of the dire fears spread just a few weeks ago.

David Crowe is chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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