Bourke Street attack: Scott Morrison slammed for Islam remarks

Scott Morrison’s strong response to radical Islam in wake of Melbourne terror attack draws ire of Labor MP Anne Aly.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison at a press conference on Saturday in response to the Melbourne terror attack.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been slammed for his remarks singling out radical Islam in the wake of the Bourke Street terror attack.

Labor MP and counter-terrorism expert Anne Aly said the PM’s response to the events in Melbourne was ignorant and “politically desperate”, after he called Islamic extremism the greatest threat to Australia’s national security.

“There is no country that is immune to the threat of terrorism,” Dr Aly told Sky News.

“I don’t care how politically desperate you are, now is not the right time to divide the community.”

At a press conference yesterday, Mr Morrison said he could not speak of Friday’s attack in Melbourne, which left an innocent man dead, two others stabbed and a car bomb driven into the CBD, without naming the threat of “radical, violent, extremist Islam” behind it.

Somalian-born terrorist Khalif Shire Ali, 30, had links to Islamic State and had been radicalised, according to police.

“Here in Australia, we would be kidding ourselves if we did not call out the fact that the greatest threat of religious extremism in this country is the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam,” Mr Morrision said.

.@ScottMorrisonMP: The greatest threat to our way of life is radical, violent, extremist Islam. I, however, applaud the brave and passionate Australians in the Muslim community who just want the best for their families.

MORE: https://t.co/NN0rvK6BPA #SkyLiveNow pic.twitter.com/p2aSFTREAo

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) November 10, 2018

But Dr Aly, a Professorial Fellow and former Associate Professor at Curtin University, said Mr Morrison needed to do “a little bit of terrorism 101 … and know what he’s talking about before he starts dividing communities and pointing fingers at radical Islam.”

“Yes, violent jihadism has been the predominant aspect of the religious wave of terrorism (of) the last 40 years or so (but) is it the biggest threat here in Australia in terms of violence and victims of violence? The biggest victims of violence in Australia aren’t victims of violent terrorism, they are victims of domestic violence.

“When we look at all forms of violence, violence perpetrated by violent jihadists — or radical Islam as the Prime Minister wants to put it — pales in comparison to the number of women who are being killed every week in domestic and partner violence.”

Dr Anne Aly in Parliament. Picture: Gary Ramage

Dr Aly said Mr Morrison had also missed an important distinction between cognitive extremism and behavioural extremism.

“Now every researcher, every academic, every practitioner and every person in law enforcement knows that being extreme doesn’t always necessarily lead to violence,” she said.

“In fact we have many case of people have become violent but have not shown a process of extremism or radicalisation. We also have examples of people who are extreme, who we may consider holding extreme beliefs, extreme world views who have never become violent.”

Mr Morrison yesterday told Australians to “keep being yourselves, keep being Australians,”

while urging Islamic religious leaders to protect their communities to ensure “dangerous teachings and ideologies” didn’t spread in Australia.

“They must be proactive, they must be alert and they must call this out in their communities,” he said, adding the government and wider community needed to work respectfully with them.

But Dr Aly said singling out Muslim leaders to do more was a cheap political shot.

“The Prime Minister is coming out and doing these three-word slogans and these shorthand platitudes and making these comments that the Muslim community needs to do more … they are doing more,” she said.

“They do more every time there is a terrorist attack. Time to change tact … instead of using the same old political lines to make a political point and politicise a very, very tragic event.”

Anne Aly: Every time there's a terror attack they call on Islamic leaders to do something and every time, the Islamic leaders are the first to come out and make a statement. It's time to change tact instead of the same old lines.

MORE: https://t.co/iJyhofut8g #WeekendLive pic.twitter.com/LY8KPOgpUx

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) November 10, 2018

Australian Federal Police yesterday revealed Shire Ali was known to authorities for his extremist views, and had had his passport cancelled in 2015 following an attempt to travel to Syria. But he was not considered a national security threat went unmonitored after that time.

AFP national manager of counter-terrorism Ian McCartney admitted the Bourke Street attack had come as a wake-up call to authorities.

“The event yesterday for us is a reality check, even with the fall of the Caliphate … the threat continues to be real,” he said.

Beloved restranteur Sisto Malaspina, co-owner of Melbourne’s iconic Pellegrino’s espresso bar, stabbed to death just a few hundred metres from the premises after trying to assist Shire Ali when he stepped out of a burning car on Bourke Street on Friday afternoon.

Two others were also stabbed before Shire Ali was filmed lunging wildly at police with a knife. He was shot by a junior officer and later died in hospital.