Counter-Terrorism White Paper released
The Federal Government has released its Counter-Terrorism White Paper, which has a particular focus on tackling the ‘home-grown' threat.
The White Paper says that a shift since 2004 has seen an "increase in the terrorist threat from people born or raise in Australia, who have become influences by the violent jihadist message".
The White Paper outlines a strategy based on four elements:
"Analysis: an intelligence-led response to terrorism driven by a properly connected and properly informed national security community;
"Protection: taking all necessary and practical action to protect Australia and Australians from terrorism at home and abroad;
"Response: providing an immediate and targeted response to specific terrorist threats and terrorist attacks should they occur; and
"Resilience: building a strong and resilient Australian community to resist the development of any form of violent extremism and terrorism on the home front."
One of the measures announced in the White Paper is the creation of a Counter-Terrorism Control Centre within the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
"The Counter-Terrorism Control Centre will draw together experts from the intelligence community to a centre within ASIO," Attorney-General Robert McClelland said.
"It will look at increasing the capacity to gather intelligence, analyse intelligence to communicate it to those agencies that may require that intelligence, or indeed to simply cross-check the intelligence, and to ensure that the intelligence as joined together is available for operational purposes."
Under the Protection element, the Government has announced it will spend $69 million over four years to introduce a biometric-based visa system, to collect fingerprints and facial images from visa applicants initially in ten overseas locations.
These countries are yet to be publicly identified, but countries like Somalia and Yemen are a good bet, having been identified by the Prime Minister as areas where extremist threats are growing.
Data from these applicants will be matched against the Department of Immigration and Citizenship's biometric database and against biometric databases of international partners.