PRIME MINISTER:
Last night I spoke with Prime Minister Theresa May and conveyed to her the heartfelt sympathy, love and condolences of the Australian people to the people of Britain and to the victims and their families, of this shocking, criminal terrorist attack in Manchester.
I also conveyed to her our resolute solidarity. Now and forever, as always, Australians and Britons stand shoulder-to-shoulder in freedom’s cause, standing up to destroy the terrorists who seek to undermine our way of life. That seek to change our way of life.
We are partners in freedom’s cause, we always have been and we always will be.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister since that conversation with Prime Minister May, she’s had a meeting of her Cobra Committee and the threat level in the UK has been raised to critical. Defence Force personnel are being put onto the streets under the control of police. Do you know yet if there’s any information that the UK has that is pertinent to Australia that would cause you to take the same sort of action?
PRIME MINISTER:
My advice from our agencies including of course the Director-General of ASIO is that the threat level in Australia should remain where it is at probable and that the events in Britain do not at this stage indicate any heightening of the threat level in Australia. So that threat level is at probable. It is effectively at the same level in Australia in the UK, and the British has increased it by one level. Now the reason they’ve done that, as Prime Minister May indicated, was because they believe that the criminal, the killer, this terrorist, was not acting alone. That there was a network of some kind, a conspiracy of some kind that involved the manufacture of the bomb. Until that is rolled up, until the conspirators are identified, until the network is uncovered, there is the risk of further attacks. So that is why in some respects you can say the attack is not yet over.
JOURNALIST:
Is there something though to learn from the way the attack was carried out-
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah
JOURNALIST:
It was at the end of the concert when security tends to be more lax, so should security have concentrated not only at the beginning and during the event but also at the end?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look all of the, the answer is we learn from every attack in every part of the world and we respond to that here because all of these attacks have the possibility of inspiring others and to do so with similar methods.
So we must be more agile, more dynamic, more rapid in our response than our enemies are. And so the answer is yes. And we are in the closest communication with our partners in the United Kingdom, the security relationship could not be more close and our agencies and their agencies are in contact in real time on all of these issues.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister there’s a soccer match in Sydney tonight, the State of Origin next weekend, there’s Vivid Festival, what are we doing to prevent a similar event?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Police in the states and territories are working closely with our federal intelligence and police agencies with the AFP and ASIO, we are working closely with our coordinator for counterterrorism and reviewing the security arrangements and constantly upgrading them and refining them.
I want to say that you have seen and we have already seen - this has been as a consequence of recent attacks - you’ve seen a more visible presence of police at events of this kind, you’ve seen more barriers to prevent vehicle drawn attacks, but at the same time I want to emphasise the absolute critical importance of intelligence.
Since September 2014, 63 people have been arrested in Australia on terrorism charges. 12 terrorist plots have been thwarted, including one just before Christmas last year which would have involved among other criminal and destructive acts the detonation of an explosive device in or around Federation Square in Melbourne. Now intelligence is the key, knowing about these plans before they occur is vital. So that is why both signals intelligence and human intelligence are more important than ever.
Thank you all very much.
[ENDS]