PRIME MINISTER: Thank you very much, Greg – and if I may say so, very, very well spoken. I think all of us would agree entirely with the sentiments you expressed.
I'm very pleased to be here with the Attorney-General, the Justice Minister and the Assistant Minister for Multiculturalism, Senator Fierravanti-Wells.
I want to thank all of you for the work that you do. We are a big nation, we are a big Australian family and we have many agencies at the Federal level, State and Territory level, engaged in the vital task of ensuring that our community is safe.
And all of you – and your colleagues are in the frontline – and it is vital that we work closely together, absolutely critical.
Our efforts must be coordinated and we must share our relevant experiences. We are dealing – as Greg said – with an evolving threat.
The shocking murder of Curtis Cheng, a shocking act of terrorism perpetrated by a 15 year old boy, reminds us yet again that radicalisation, extremism, can be seen in the very young, people that we would regard as children.
This is a real home grown threat. And it appalls all Australians and it appalls all Muslim Australians.
What Greg said about engaging with the Muslim community is absolutely critical, as every one of you knows, the Muslim community are our absolutely necessary partners in this fight against extremism and we need to work very closely with them and as you can see, as we know, we have been, we are and it has been heartening to see strong statements of support for Australian values from leading members in the Muslim community, both in private meetings and, of course, in public.
The most critically important Australian value in all of this is that of mutual respect.
We are the most successful multicultural society in the world. Of that there can be no doubt.
There is no country comparable to ours which has such a diverse mix of its population and that is built on mutual respect.
And what extremists seek to do is to denigrate and preach hatred against one group or another, against another religion or other parts of their own religion and in so doing divide us.
And so the values of mutual respect are critical for all of us to stand up for, whether we are leaders, whether we are police officers, whether we are parents, teachers, bosses, colleagues, friends, family, this is what makes Australia great, that value of mutual respect.
Now, dealing with this threat in a, particularly in a modern 2015, 21st century world with all of the extraordinary power of the internet, with just about everybody having access to a device in their pocket which has the power that a supercomputer would have had 20 years ago and this technological transformation has been remarkable but it poses great challenges for security, as we understand.
And as we deal with these threats and the people that seek to turn children into terrorists, we have to be as agile as they are.
We have to be prepared to experiment and try new approaches and all of you and I know, are doing that.
And that’s why a meeting like this is so important because it enables you to share your experiences. Some of you will have tried things that didn't work. Some of you will have tried things that worked a lot better than you thought.
That's why we need to have regular meetings like this, to exchange ideas and make sure that as part of the effort of protecting the harmonious diversity of Australia, the diversity of your experiences are brought to bear and shared so that we can all learn from each other.
I know that Australia is kept safe by your efforts. I know that every waking hour – and I suspect some of your sleeping hours as well – is focused on our security.
We have the best police and security agencies in the world. We have so much confidence in your work and I know that as you work together, the more you co-operate, the more you share your experiences, the stronger you will be.
So thank you very much for coming to Canberra to speak with Greg and Andrew and all of our colleagues and share your experiences. This is an important step as we all unite to ensure that we keep Australia safe and ensure that we make it utterly clear to everybody, those who love us and those who seek to harm us too, that we will never walk away from our Australian values.
We will always stand firm to keep this country safe and we will have no tolerance for extremism, for extremist violence, for terrorism, wherever it may occur or whoever may seek to perpetrate it.
Thank you very much and I look forward to hearing the results of your discussions.
[Ends]