Protecting Australians from Convicted Terrorists
3 September 2021 and grabbing a knife. It took the police surveillance team only one minute to realize he was launching an attack and a further 30 seconds to shoot him dead. But, in that time, he injured eight people.
New Zealand, notably, has terrorist control orders but no comparable CDO policy.
To be clear, CDOs are not a silver bullet, but they are a last-resort measure when a terrorist offender is judged as posing too high a risk if released.
Australia’s community safety results from a national security strategy that includes a legislative framework to address the full range of threats, not just those that are most common, likely or current.
This framework must be able to respond to future threats, with the expectation that certain threats, such as terrorist plots, are prevented, not responded to once they’ve happened.
In addition to the focus on the risk assessment tool, the former INSLM’s recommendation to remove CDOs from the framework was based in part on the view that Australia faces a reduced threat environment, writing in his official report: ‘It is my judgment that CDOs are not proportionate to the threat of terrorism and are not necessary.’
We have made the mistake before of examining security in the context of current circumstances as though they are static. One example is the 2013 National Security statement, which effectively called an end to the era of terrorism, only to see the rise of ISIL that same year and, in 2014, the increase of Australia’s terrorism threat level to HIGH. While Australia’s terrorism threat level is now at POSSIBLE, reduced from PROBABLE in 2022, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said last month in his Annual Threat Assessment 2024: ‘Terrorism remains a threat—a real threat, a pervasive threat—even with a lower national threat level.’
Australians should be proud of our system and the security agencies that make our safety the nation’s top priority. While we are currently in a period in which a terror attack is less likely than recent years, we should not become complacent. CDOs have an important role as a last resort and, even if not used for many years, they remain relevant in both principle and practice.
Justin Bassi is the Executive Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). John Coyne is Head of the Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre and Head of Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement at ASPI. Henry Campbell is the coordinator of ASPI’s Northern Australian Strategic Policy Centre, Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement program. This article is published courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
