PRIME MINISTER:
We are still very much in mourning for the victims of this week’s terrorist attack in Sydney. We are still taking quiet pride in the professionalism and the courage of the New South Wales Police and the other agencies which responded to this appalling outrage. Nevertheless, we do need to reflect on what's happened and to ponder what might've been done better.
I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that I have great confidence in our police and security agencies and the Australian people are entitled to have great confidence in our police and security agencies. This is a Government which has responded very fully to the threat of terror in our country. We've responded very fully at home and abroad and part of that response has been renewing our faith in our police and security agencies, renewing our commitment to police and security agencies that had not always been as well funded as perhaps they should've been.
We’ve boosted funding for our police and security agencies by $630 million over the four year period, we've strengthened agencies' powers, we've passed legislation to deal better with foreign fighters and we’ve got metadata legislation before the Parliament which is critically important. But, I do want answers to some obvious questions that have been raised in the wake of this terrorist incident.
We do need to know why the perpetrator of this horrible outrage got permanent residency. We do need to know how he could have been on welfare for so many years. We do need to know what this individual was doing with a gun licence. We particularly need to know how someone with such a long record of violence, such a long record of mental instability, was out on bail after his involvement in a particularly horrific crime. We do need to know why he seems to have fallen off our security agencies' watch list, back in about 2009. Now, nearly all of this happened before Mike Baird's time, nearly all of this happened before my time, but we do need to know the answers and we do need to have the answers as quickly as possible so that any lessons can be put into place as quickly as possible.
So, Premier Baird and myself have today commissioned our respective secretaries – the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet in New South Wales, the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet here at the Commonwealth level – we have commissioned our secretaries to conduct an urgent review. I'm sure you've seen the press release. I'm sure you've seen the terms of reference. It does need to be thorough. It does need to be swift. We do need to put the lessons into practice as quickly as we can.
The most important duty of government is to preserve the safety of our country and its citizens. That is the first duty of government, and I say to every Australian: this Government will never let you down. I say to every one of my fellow Australians: I will not rest until I am confident that you are as safe as any government can possibly make you.
QUESTION:
We haven't seen the terms of reference…
PRIME MINISTER:
The press release will be going out, or it has gone out, and the terms of reference are attached. It's important that this review report swiftly and my intention is that it will report by the end of January.
QUESTION:
Would your confidence now in the security agencies and police agencies be shaken if it's shown that one of the hostages was indeed shot by the police?
PRIME MINISTER:
There are a number of inquiries that will be going on at this stage. There will be a coronial inquiry which I suspect will take some time. There will be a critical incident inquiry which the police normally conduct after incidents such as this and I imagine that that will be a quicker inquiry and that certainly will be looking at exactly what happened inside the stronghold, as they're calling it, in the hours of the siege.
Look, when you are in a fire fight all sorts of things happen. I'm not going to go into operational details, but the important thing for the police in the situation like that is to take care of the terrorists as quickly as possible.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, we’ve heard this afternoon that New South Wales prosecutors didn't actually try to oppose bail when Monis was charged with the 30 most recent sexual assault charges. That was just two months ago. Is that fairly clear evidence of the system failing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I certainly want answers to those sorts of questions and there was incredulity around the National Security Committee of the Cabinet yesterday when we were briefed on the details of his record and his life in this country and the incredulity was shared not just by the ministerial members of the National Security Committee but by the official members of that committee. Knowing Mike Baird as I do, speaking to Mike Baird as I have, I think he shares that incredulity and one of the things that he has done in the months that he has been Premier, one of the things that the new Attorney-General, Brad Hazzard, has done over the last few months is beef up the bail criteria in New South Wales and Mike is confident that were that application to have taken place under the new rules as opposed to the old rules, it would never have been granted.
QUESTION:
One of the apparent demands of this individual on Monday was to speak to you. Can you tell us what consideration you gave that, what your advice was and we assume you didn't speak to him?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I didn't. I said to my office when I became aware of this request that, obviously, I was prepared to do whatever the police thought best in those circumstances and the advice we got from police was to have no contact with him.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, have you asked national security agencies whether there might be other individuals similar to this perpetrator who are not on a watch list and have fallen through the cracks?
PRIME MINISTER:
What I have indicated is that anyone who we reasonably think is at risk of committing politically motivated violence, anyone who we think is a potential terrorist, needs to be monitored as carefully and as closely as we can. I mean, that's my standing instruction.
We must protect our community against those who would do us harm and, obviously, there are few things that rends our social fabric more grievously than terrorist acts – acts of violence, politically motivated violence, that strike people who are going about their ordinary, innocent business – almost nothing more rends the public of our nation, even a country as resilient, as cohesive, as stable, as peaceful, as free and as welcoming as ours. We suffer the strain at moments like this.
I'm pleased that we have responded with such resilience but it's very important that we do everything we humanly can to ensure that we are as protected as we humanly can be against this sort of thing.
QUESTION:
Does that mean that the security agencies are reviewing the watch list, going back to make sure that other people who should be on it are on it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we have a review; we now have an official review which will be a joint Commonwealth-New South Wales review, presided over by the two most senior public servants in each jurisdiction. Each agency is also, as you would expect in the light of what's happened over the last few days, each agency is asking itself: how can we do better?
QUESTION:
During the siege you were kept abreast of developments and you have spoken to police in the aftermath. To your knowledge, was there ever any consideration of taking this fellow out with a sniper's bullet or was it deemed to be difficult or too dangerous, or were there other reasons?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I was constantly asking the appropriate officials whether all was being done, but it's not really my job to go into that kind of operational detail. That's the kind of question that will be addressed in the various reviews that are now underway.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, back in August you said that there was going to be a review into – I think you called it the coordinating machinery of the agencies – is that going to still back at the end of the year? And if those agencies were more coordinated, do you think that an event like this could've been avoided?
PRIME MINISTER:
There is a very strong coordination between Commonwealth agencies and between Commonwealth and State agencies already. I commissioned that particular review because as the domestic terror threat escalated, I wanted to be sure that we had a machinery of government that was appropriate to this era rather than to the previous era when the threat level was somewhat lower. I expect to receive that review in the next few days. One of the reasons why both Premier Baird and myself want this latest review to be concluded by the end of January is so that both reviews can be considered together and early in the New Year, any changes that might be necessary can be put into place.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, you mentioned gun laws. What's your view on the adequacy at the moment or otherwise of our gun laws?
PRIME MINISTER:
Plainly there are questions to be asked when someone with such a history of infatuation with extremism, violent crime and mental instability should be in possession of a gun licence. I mean, plainly, there are questions to be asked here. Plainly, there are questions to be asked and I want answers to these questions when someone who has been involved in a horrific murder is out on bail. I mean, plainly these are questions that are begging to be asked which are requiring answers as swiftly as possible. We have very tough gun laws and, I guess, we can be pleased that he didn’t have a more potent weapon at his disposal, but why did he have a gun licence in the first place? That's the relevant question here.
QUESTION:
Why did he fall off the watch list in the first place and what does it take to get on watch the list? What's the criteria?
PRIME MINISTER:
The essential criteria for being watched is are you considered to be someone with the potential to commit a terrorist act and he was being looked at by ASIO, as I understand it, back in about 2008 and 2009 when he had been sending profoundly offensive letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers. I don't know why he dropped off the watch list in those days – I really don't – and that's one of the reasons why we need this inquiry; so that we can find out why he dropped off the watch list and try to ensure that people only go off the watch list if they really are no longer a potential threat and, plainly, this individual was.
QUESTION:
[inaudible] consider it expensive and resource heavy to monitor people? If this review comes back saying that more resources for say ASIO are required, are you prepared to consider that? And also, are you prepared to consider further lowering the threshold for say control orders that might have been useful in a case like this?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't want to pre-empt the results of the review. I just remind you that we have boosted ASIO, ASIS, the AFP, the Australian Signals Directorate resources by $630 million, which is quite a big boost. Their resources were substantially cut under the former government. Once it became obvious to us that the domestic terror threat was going up again, we certainly, as part of our consideration of these matters some months ago, boosted resources. Let's see what the review says.
We also, as part of the legislation that has just passed through the Parliament, have made control orders more effective, more obtainable. So, again, let's see what the review tells us.
QUESTION:
What's your understanding of the strength of the link between this fellow and Islamic State?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, plainly, he sought to clothe himself in the symbolism and ideology of the ISIL death cult. How much contact he had had with them, what individuals he might've been speaking with, what chat rooms or websites he might've been accessing, we just don't know at this stage. That's one of the many matters that will be carefully considered in coming days and weeks.
QUESTION:
Is it correct that Iran tried to extradite this man at some point?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not going to deny that, but I would rather not confirm it at this stage either. He has a very, very chequered history, a very, very chequered history. How he was given permanent residency and the circumstances under which he was given permanence residency, how he came to be for such a large part of his time in Australia on social security benefits given that he appears to be able bodied, if not necessarily of sound mind, these are all important questions. I share the exasperation of the Australian public at what appears to be someone who has been having a lend of us, at the very least, for so many years.
QUESTION:
On the ASIO watch list, could you just clarify how long precisely he had been on the ASIO watch list and give us an idea of how lengthy that list is now, like how many individuals are part of it?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'd rather not give you, Andrew, that kind of operational detail. My understanding is that he was a person of interest to ASIO for quite some time. Whether that was many months or several years, I'll leave that to come from people who are at the operational level or, indeed, from this inquiry. We do have a significant number of people who we are carefully monitoring at this time. But again, I don't want to go into numbers, date, times, places, I just think that would be inappropriate.
QUESTION:
One of the points that the terms of reference of the review is that the arrival of Monis in Australia, the decision to grant him asylum, permanent residency, then citizenship will all be considered. It sounds like you're considering perhaps potentially tightening the immigration laws regarding this country. Is that something you would look to legislate, if that's what the review recommends?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it's very important that we carefully consider the security status of people, particularly people who are coming to us from difficult countries and with difficult backgrounds and claiming asylum. Now, you know, I don't want to suggest that people who are coming to Australia under our various humanitarian programmes are security risks – I don't. Nevertheless, it is important that if there are any doubts they are resolved. That's why it's so important that ASIO and our other agencies are allowed to do their work and this is why, under the former government, we were so concerned when there were suggestions that ASIO should be streamlining or short circuiting these processes.
The important thing is to ensure that wherever there is a significant risk that people will do us harm, we take the appropriate action. The point I've been making all along is that we do have people in this country who are of considerable security concern. I mean, just to go through some of the figures, we've got about 70-odd Australians who are currently with terrorist groups in the Middle East. We've had upwards of 20 come back from serving with terrorist groups overseas. We've got at least 100 who are supporting and funding these terrorist groups overseas. So, there are not thousands of people here, but there are certainly hundreds of people who are at least of potential interest to our security services and that's as it should be given the reality of the world we live in.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can you confirm that Monis was on the FBI watch list and not our list at the same time?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I can't go into what he may have been to other countries, but I can let you know that I have spoken to a number of Australia's international friends, including President Obama. President Obama did reiterate to me an offer that Secretary Kerry had earlier made to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, that the American security services, the American criminal intelligence bodies, will be cooperating fully with us as we try to get to the bottom of exactly what happened with this gentleman.
QUESTION:
But do they have some knowledge that would be useful to Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Andrew, you're inviting me to speculate and I'm not going to do that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Given that the decision to grant him asylum, citizenship, permanent residency, all of that is being reviewed, will the security agencies – ASIO and what have you – review the other cases, other people who've been granted asylum who've come to this country who've been given permanent resident status as well? Is there a concern there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, James, we will do whatever we need to do to keep our country as safe as it can possibly be. I don't want people who are perfectly good Australians to be frightened of a knock on the door in the middle of the night. That's the last thing that I would want. People who are preaching hate, people who associating with terrorist organisations or with terrorist supporters, people who are railing against our country and our way of life, our freedoms and our tolerance and the welcome that we give to people, yes, these are things which do need to be questioned because we are a free, fair, open and welcoming society. That's the way we are, that's the way we always have been, that's the way we always should be and if there are any threats to that, obviously, they need to be dealt with appropriately. They need to be dealt with in ways which are consistent with the kind of country that we are, but they do need to be dealt with.
QUESTION:
Clearly, with the resources available to security agencies and police, value judgments have to be made and you can reach a point where the greatest ring of steel won't keep out a certain type of person. Have the agencies suggested to you that they need more powers or specific powers or more resources to deal with this sort of threat?
PRIME MINISTER:
Brendan, when the threat level was raised and when we started to see those big raids on terrorist sympathisers and potential terrorist activists, I asked both the New South Wales and the Commonwealth agencies whether there was more that needed to be done.
The resourcing that we committed to, the changes to the legislation that we are in the process of making are a result of their response to us. We said to them, knowing what you know, appreciating the situation as it currently is, what do you need to do your job as well as you humanly can? They made certain requests in terms of resourcing, they made certain requests in terms of the legislation and we have faithfully delivered as best we can on all of that.
Now, if in the light of this situation more requests come, they will be carefully considered, but again – and I will close on this note – my determination, the determination of this Government, is to do everything we humanly can to keep this country as safe as possible and to keep you as safe as possible. That is our duty and we will not let you down.
[ends]