Paris attacks: We’ll never bend to godless tyrants: Turnbull

Malcolm Turnbull has urged Australians not to bend to the will of terrorists and called for greater national unity.

ATTENTION EDITORS - VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH A member of the French fire brigade aids an injured individual near the Bataclan concert hall following fatal shootings in Paris, France, November 13, 2015. At least 30 people were killed in attacks in Paris and a hostage situation was under way at a concert hall in the French capital, French media reported on Friday. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Malcolm Turnbull has issued a rally­ing cry against the “religious tyranny” behind the bloodshed in Paris, urging Australians not to bend to the will of terrorists and calling for a greater national unity to confront the threat.

The Prime Minister toughened his stand on fighting terrorism and acknowledged that greater milit­ary power would have to be used to defeat Islamic State and seek a polit­ical solution in Syria.

He broke with his predecessor, Tony Abbott, on the scale of the danger from Syrian refugees who turned to terrorism, declaring that those born in Australia presented the greater threat.

The remark signalled a shift in the government’s message around the success of Australian multiculturalism rather than dwell­ing on its failures, amid fears the refugee intake could be used as an entry route for terrorists.

After speaking earlier to an Australian injured in the Paris attacks­, Mr Turnbull acknow­ledged the potential for further attack­s, saying “we can’t pretend the risk is not there” yet declaring that terrorists could not be allowed to dictate the country’s policies.

“They want us to bend to their will, and we will not. They want us to be frightened, they want us to change the way we go about our lives,” he said. “They want us to back off (from) standing up for freedom and standing up for the values that we are committed to.”

Mr Turnbull was speaking after a day of meetings with world leaders at the G20 summit in ­Turkey and briefings from the heads of the Australian Federal Police and ASIO as well as from his top counter-terrorism adviser.

Drawing on conversations with Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in recent days, Mr Turnbull said the terrorists were completely at odds with the precepts of Islam.

“As President Widodo said, these terrorists commit a double crime. They are murderers, they are mass murderers, they are barbarians, but at the same time they also defame religion.

“This challenge, this threat from terrorists, who murder in the name of God but are utterly godless — (it’s) very much in the forefront of the thinking of the leaders of leading Muslim nations.”

Earlier in the day, after a special memorial service at St Mary’s Cathed­ral in Sydney, acting NSW Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas described the ongoing threat of terrorism as “the new normal’’.

“I regret to say this is in some ways the new normal. The attacks are occurring, they are occurring widely, they seem to be well co-ordina­ted, if not complex, and it is the new reality that we must be prepared to deal with.’’

The G20 summit will now be domin­ated by talks on how to ­confront terrorism and pursue stronger action in Syria to defeat Islamic State, amid a splintering of views in Europe on whether to tighten border protections as ­asylum-seekers flee the Middle East.

Rather than focusing only on Paris, Mr Turnbull pointed to recen­t attacks in Ankara and ­Beirut and the downing of a Russian aircraft over Egypt as signs of the wider problem of terrorism.

He countered Mr Abbott­’s fear of terrorists cloaking themselves as refugees to enter the country.

“The history of terrorist activities in Australia and people of concern in this area is very much, for the most part, second and third-generation Austral­ians,” he said.

Leaders of the G20 nations arrive­d in the Turkish resort of Antalya at the weekend for a two-day summit, with terrorism moved to the top of the agenda. Mr Turnbull made it clear milit­ary action was crucial to success and signalled he might consider more troops being deployed there in roles such as peacekeeping.

“The outcome that we want is a resolution, a stabilisation in Syria, a transition to a government that has broad support and a restor­ation of peace so that order can be restored and, of course, those millions of refugees can return to those homes that they want to return to,” he said. A military ­defeat was critical and the long-term goal was a political solution.

“The most effectiv­e boots on the ground are going to be Syrian boots on the ground,” he said, adding that the Free Syrian Army would be crucial in this.

Mr Turnbull discussed the terror­ threat in his first bilateral meeting yesterday, expressing Aust­ralia’s soli­d­arity to European Council Pres­i­dent Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

In a joint statement, the three leaders con­demned the “atrocious” attacks­ in Paris and said they stood united in solidarity with France.

The meeting took place at about 8pm (AEDT), just as news spread at the G20 of a suicide bombing in southern Turkey.

Reports­ said the latest attack was claimed by Islamic State, and wounded four police officers in Gaziantep near the Syrian border.