New laws needed to fight terror, says ASIO boss Mike Burgess

Displaying Nazi or Islamic State flags and possessing terrorist manifestos would be outlawed under new powers being sought by the AFP to combat violent extremism.

ASIO boss Mike Burgess in Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday. Picture: Gary Ramage

Displaying Nazi or Islamic State flags and possessing terrorist manifestos would be outlawed under new powers being sought by the Australian Federal Police to combat violent extremism.

AFP Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney told the parliament’s intelligence and security committee legislative changes were needed to prevent early-stage planning of terrorist attacks, the radicalisation of new and younger ­recruits, and the harassment of community members.

The call came as ASIO boss Mike Burgess warned his agency expected a terrorist attack to occur in Australia within the next year, following two lone-actor attacks in the past six months.

The terrorism threat level remained at “probable”, amid credible intelligence that individuals and small groups had the capability and intent to conduct attacks within Australia, he said.

He told the committee that ­Islamist terrorists still posed the biggest threat, but ideologically motivated violent extremism now accounted for 40 per cent of ASIO’s counter-terrorism investigations.

“If you look at our current caseload, we still think that Sunni-based violent extremism is still the major concern,” Mr Burgess said.

“However, given the growth we have seen in nationalist and racist violent extremism, we anticipate there will be a terrorist attack in this country in the next 12 months, and it could come from either ideology.”

The AFP told the inquiry into extremist movements and radicalism in Australia that there was a gap in the law preventing charges being laid for possession or sharing of ­extremist content, unless it related directly to the planning of a terrorist attack.

“We think certain aspects of current criminal laws are out of step with the community’s expectations,” Mr McCartney said.

“Outside of legitimate research, public interest reporting and other professional reasons, there are no circumstances where individuals should be accessing or sharing instructional terrorist manuals, propaganda magazines, and graphically violent images, videos and other content produced by terrorists.

“The consequence of the current (legislative) gap is that police are limited in the action we can take to disrupt radicalised individuals when they are at an earlier stage in … attack planning.”

He said Christchurch mosque murderer Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto was widely available on the internet — which he described as “a salad bar of hate” — inspiring other attacks around the world.

Mr McCartney said the AFP also strongly supported “criminalisation of the public display of flags and other extremist insignia”.

“In the current environment, the time has come to strongly deter actions aimed at harassing and vilifying members of our community,” he said.

The committee heard four of the 26 people charged with terrorism offences in Australia last year were ideologically motivated, while the rest were religious extremists. And, while religious ­extremists were predominantly found in the nation’s capitals, ideologically motivated violent extremists were spread across the country. The two most recent terrorist attacks were the murder of an elderly couple in their Brisbane home in December by a man later killed by police, and the November stabbing of an inmate in a Melbourne women’s prison by a convicted Islamic State devotee.

Mr Burgess also warned battle-hardened foreign fighters were seeking to return to Australia, and 15 convicted terrorists were due to reach the end of their prison terms within five years. “In addition, we are facing a growing assortment of ideologically motivated violent extremists — both individuals and groups — who are driven by a diverse range of grievances. Young Australians are being ensnared in these racist, supremacist and misogynist ideologies in a way that is deeply concerning.”