‘Left-wing extremists using Covid to inflame tensions’

Victoria Police warns left-wing extremists are ‘mimicking overseas movements like ANTIFA’ to justify violence.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton. Picture: Paul Jeffers

Victoria Police says the right-wing extremist threat does not “exist in a vacuum”, and warned left-wing extremists have used the COVID-19 pandemic to inflame tensions over the environment and “authoritarian” governments.

In its submission to a parliamentary inquiry into extremist movements and radicalism, ­Victoria Police said right-wing extremism was “directly influenced by a symbiotic relationship with the threat of left-wing extremism”. It said that in addition to violent conflict at organised right-wing extremist events, left-wing extremists were “mimicking overseas-based (left-wing extremist) movements (such as ANTIFA) to justify the use of violence to promote civil unrest and target perceived enemy groups”.

Victoria Police, in its submission, said the far-left presented the pandemic in various forms “from a manifestation of the human impact on the environment … on the one hand, to a deliberate ­attempt by governments to achieve authoritarian control over their populations”.

But in a separate submission, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation said the vast majority of its counter-terrorism operations were still focused on the threat of Islamic terrorism.

“Australians as young as 13 and 14 are involved in onshore terrorism, both in Islamic extremist and extreme right-wing circles,” the submission from ASIO reads.

Australia’s domestic intelligence agency also noted right-wing extremism including white supremacy and Neo-Nazism was becoming “more organised, sophisticated and security conscious”.

“The threat from extreme right-wing groups and individuals in Australia has increased, and ASIO continues to see more people drawn to and adopting extreme right-wing ideologies,” the ASIO submission reads.

“ASIO remains concerned with the threat posed by small groups or lone actors inspired to conduct an attack. These threats are difficult to detect, and can emerge with little forewarning.”

The Christchurch mosque attack of 2019 continued “to be drawn on for inspiration” by right-wing extremists, it said.

The ASIO submission noted left-wing extremism was “not currently prominent” but there were “several overseas groups who attract individuals adhering to an extreme left-wing ideology”.

The Weekend Australian understands the nation’s security and law enforcement agencies will use the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security inquiry to stress that threats should not be confined to one form of extremism. The AFP, which outlined the increasing threat of right-wing extremism since the Christchurch attack, said its policy was focused on “criminality not ideology”.

The Victorian police submission warned that “(left-wing extremist) groups and individuals have also been particularly vocal in calling for action and encouraging unlawful activity during the pandemic.” “Their willingness to flout government restrictions for ‘the greater good’ has already been evident in Victoria.”

The AFP submission said threats posed by Islamic extremists were “enduring and diversifying and shows no sign of abating”. Since July, the AFP had ­“arrested six released convicted terrorist ­offenders and charged them for breaching a control order”.

In its submission, ASIO said a right-wing extremist was last year, for the first time, prevented from “travelling offshore to fight on a foreign battlefield” due to a passport cancellation based on an adverse security assessment.