The long effort to come up with a future counter-terrorism policy has raised doubts whether Australia has fully faced the gritty threat.

 

A YEAR ago and just a week after the Mumbai terror attacks, Kevin Rudd rose in federal parliament to deliver Australia's inaugural national security statement. ``The first priority of government is the nation's security,'' the Prime Minister said, and the first element of national security was ``freedom from attack or the threat of attack''.

 

Terrorism ``continues to pose a direct threat to Australia and Australian security interests'' and will do so ``for the foreseeable future'', Rudd said. To tackle the threat, he promised an upcoming white policy paper to set out Australia's counter-terrorism strategy. There hasn't been a rush. By last August, Attorney-General Robert McClelland was saying the white paper would be out ``towards the end of the year''.

 

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has carriage of the review and as recently as this month was declining to say what had happened to it, how much work had been done or when it would be finalised, except to say that ``work is continuing''.

 

``The government is focused on getting this white paper right and ensuring it provides a clear future direction to protect Australia from the threat of terrorism. The paper will be released once this detailed work is completed,'' an aide for the Prime Minister told Inquirer.

 

The federal opposition and counter-terrorism specialists were unimpressed this month that, two years after its election and despite its vow that security was its first priority, the Rudd government had still to finalise a coherent strategy. ``It's been a disgrace in my view,'' says Coalition senator Russell Trood.

 

``We know terrorism hasn't gone off the international agenda, you just need to look at what's going on in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. I think they've been extraordinarily complacent about it.''

 

Some insiders who had seen a draft of the paper, which was circulated for comment in Canberra recently, were equally unimpressed, describing it as ``totally bland'' and a blancmange of generic statements with no strategic vision, no new initiatives and no specific recommendations.

 

``It doesn't define in any way what the government thinks about terrorism,'' said a source who had seen the document.

 

Despite no recent mass casualty attacks against Western targets, the terrorist threat has clearly not abated, in Australia or overseas. ASIO's 2009 annual report says the past year has brought the most intense ASIO operational activity since 2005.

 

This includes the discovery of an alleged terrorist cell in the Somali community in Melbourne accused of plotting an attack on the Holsworthy army base in Sydney, and marathon terror trials in Melbourne and Sydney in which 13 men were convicted of conspiring to plan attacks. Twenty-one people have now been convicted of terrorism offences in Australia.

 

Counter-terrorism experts are keenly awaiting a government response. ``It's obviously a real opportunity to set Australia's national security agenda for the next decade, so they've got to get it right,'' says Nick O'Brien, former head of International Counter-Terrorism for the British Special Branch and now an associate professor at the school of policing at Charles Sturt University.

 

O'Brien says the terrorist threat is creating new challenges for countries such as Australia. ``You just have to look at what's happening around the world with the issue of home-growns. The US has had its busiest year since 2001 with the number of arrests. And it's a similar pattern in the UK.''

 

Mitch Silber, director of analysis for the New York Police Department intelligence division, says the home-grown phenomenon in the US is ``substantially greater than we have seen in the past''. In Britain, Security and Counter-Terrorism Minister Alan West recently revealed that 2000 suspected potential terrorists were under surveillance.

 

It's part of a global pattern, according to former US homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff. ``A larger trend has emerged that is not surprising but is disturbing. You are beginning to see the fruits of the pipeline that al-Qa'ida built to train Westerners and send them back to their homelands.''

 

Amid expectations the Rudd government's white paper would focus on the home-grown threat, experts have stressed that domestic terror cells must be treated as part of, not separate from, the global terrorist movement.

 

A report this month from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute notes that security analysts believe ``there is no longer a sensible distinction to be made between internal and external security and between domestic and foreign policy''.

 

The report provides a damning assessment of the capacity of Australia's counter-terrorism regime to meet the challenge.

 

It says barriers between agencies and separation between overseas and domestic intelligence collection create a system that seems ``incompatible with the requirement to understand and defeat polymorphous and networked risks such as cyber security, transnational terrorism or state espionage''.

 

The report notes that almost $10 billion has been spent on new counter-terrorism initiatives since 2001 and that one in six commonwealth public servants works on national security related issues, yet there is still no formal mechanism to ensure the effective, cost-efficient use of those funds.

 

The report describes Australia's national security response as reactive, ad hoc and run by a Cold War era bureaucratic structure in which ``hard barriers'' prevent the exchange of information.

 

It cites a recent US Rand Corporation study of counter-terrorism arrangements in Australia, Canada, France and Britain that found a ``culture of mistrust and lack of communication'' between police and intelligence agencies constitutes a ``serious weakness'' in efforts to combat terror.

 

The inadequacies in the system make even more daunting the central challenge of modern counter-terrorism: tackling the ideology that underpins it.

 

The head of ASPI's national security project, Carl Ungerer, says terrorism can be defeated only by taking on the ``corrosive ideologies'' behind it. Ungerer says efforts until now have been divided between 95 per cent military operations and 5 per cent ideological operations, but that split must be reversed if the war on terror is to be won.

 

Ungerer points to a program in Singapore run by a Religious Rehabilitation Group to de-program Islamic militants in jail.

 

Another model is Britain's Quilliam Foundation, a think tank launched by a group of former Muslim radicals to challenge Islamist ideology. The British government also funds a Muslim grassroots initiative called the Radical Middle Way, which runs an interactive website to promote mainstream Islam.

 

``Compared to Singapore and the UK we're a long way . . . behind in that sort of thing,'' Ungerer says.

Some experts are sceptical about Australia's capacity to grapple with the Islamist narrative. ``Developing counter-ideology is very important [but] it's really very hard for a Western government to do,'' says Ken Ward, a former analyst with the Office of National Assessments.

 

``I don't think there's nearly enough knowledge of Islam in the Australian government for a counter-ideology strategy to be developed.''

 

Ward notes there's not a single government department in Australia that focuses on Islam and says Australian politicians are typically ``hopelessly clumsy'' on the subject. He says the push to promote ```moderate Muslims'' is highly problematic because they are often seen as ``stooges of the West''.

 

``Muslims have to be encouraged to do this themselves, we can't expect it to be successful if we lead it,'' Ward says.

 

``How a Western government can fight against a radical ideology, I don't know. It may be beyond us. It may be that the most realistic objective is to monitor communities and prevent violence taking place.''

 

Ward believes it's crucial for the white paper to recognise the effect of US and Australian foreign policy, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in fuelling terrorism.

 

``This government should not be allowed to say that participation in the war in Afghanistan will not increase the danger of attacks on Australian citizens.

 

That just cannot be defended. It is not true, it is a dishonest argument and I hope this government does not use it.''

 

While terrorism will be a key focus of the white paper, security professionals stress that Australia's national security strategy must be much broader in its scope.

 

``There's another element to it that I think is missing at the moment,'' O'Brien says. ``And that is the importance of constantly scanning the future to see what's coming.

 

'' He says future threats may include evolving high technology, creating new tools for terrorists to use, and the possibility of mass migration because of climate change. ASIO's recent report notes that ``internet-enabled espionage [is] a rapidly growing threat to the national interest''.

 

Ungerer agrees that strategic forecasting -- known by the new buzz phrase ``horizon scanning'' -- is another area where Australia is well behind allies such as Singapore and Britain.

 

The ASPI recommends: ``The immediate introduction of a dedicated and well-funded horizon-scanning capability at the heart of the national security establishment should be a top priority for government.''

 

By Sally Neighbour