Base evil was reinforced by the Trains’ online gloating

The depth of the depravity of the Trains, who shot dead two young constables and a neighbour on a remote property in Queensland on Monday, continues to surface. On Friday, we reported the likelihood that the trio lured the officers to the fatal ambush with a tip-off. It now emerges that after committing the murders, Gareth Train and his wife Stacey, an ex-teacher and former wife of the third killer, Gareth’s brother Nathaniel, posted a deranged online message boasting that they had killed “these devils and demons”.

Surrounded by police on their remote property at Wieambilla, 290km northwest of Brisbane, they filmed and uploaded the message to YouTube. “They came to kill us and we killed them,’’ Gareth boasted. “If you don’t defend yourself against these devils and demons … you’re a coward.” Hours before the shootings, Stacey Train uploaded a reading from the apocalyptic Old Testament Book of Esdras: “For many of those who live on the earth shall perish by famine, and those who survived the famine shall die by the sword, and the dead shall be cast out like dung. And there shall be no one to console them, for the earth shall be left desolate and its cities shall be demolished.”

Boasting online about evil while carrying it out smacks of the diabolic mentality of Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, who slaughtered 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques in March 2019. Tarrant live-streamed video of the massacre on Facebook. Security authorities are well aware of the dangers; combating the threat is extremely challenging, however.

In his security assessment in February 2020, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess warned that while violent Islamic extremism was the agency’s primary concern, the extreme right-wing threat was real and growing. Part of the problem, Mr Burgess said, was online forums that “share and promote extremist right-wing ideologies, and encourage and justify acts of extreme violence”. Last year Mr Burgess warned of the dangers posed by people motivated by a “cocktail … of views, fears, frustrations and conspiracies”. A growing number of individuals and groups that did not fit on the left-right spectrum were “motivated by a specific social or economic grievance or conspiracy”.

That description fits the Trains, Ellen Whinnett reports on Saturday. Their grievances ranged from theories about government mind control and surveillance, and supposed health dangers posed by the 5G phone networks, to the Port Arthur massacre of 35 people by a lone gunman being a secret government plot to disarm the population. As Mr Burgess said last year: “Individuals who hold these views, and are willing to support violence to further them, are best and most accurately described as ideologically motivated violent extremists … More often than not, they are young, well-educated, articulate and middle class – and not easily identified.” Such as two former school principals and a groundsman, sons and daughter-in-law of a Baptist preacher.

Most conspiracy theorists mainly rant and rave. The Trains were driven by base evil, evident in their callousness before, during and after the murders, including their efforts to burn or smoke out Constable Keely Brough by setting fire to scrub where she was hiding. Regardless of Australians’ religious beliefs, if any, Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan’s invoking the patron saint of police, Michael the Archangel, to protect the “blue family” who serve society by upholding the law was well expressed.

Preventing similar attacks will take something of a miracle. In terms of practical action, the tragedy strengthens the case for mental health checks in gun licence applications. We agree with the call by Queensland Police Union head Ian Leavers for urgent action on a national firearms register, mooted after the Port Arthur massacre. It might or might not have helped in this case, which was a routine, NSW-instigated missing person inquiry over Nathaniel Train. But allowing police in different states ready access to firearms information would be preferable to the current piecemeal system.