Tony Abbott outlines details of funding for security agencies to help fight home-grown terrorists

Updated

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has provided more details about the Government's package of funding to boost counter-terrorism efforts.

Earlier this month the Government announced it would provide an extra $630 million to the country's security agencies.

Mr Abbott today said $64 million would be allocated to supporting community groups and security agencies to reduce the threat of home-grown terrorism.

"Obviously we are boosting our security services generally. We have got new laws to ensure that people who are coming back from terrorist activity in the Middle East can be arrested and detained," he said.

"It's also important, though, that we engage with the community so that everyone understands that the enemy here is terrorism.

"It's not any particular religion. What we are targeting is extremism, not members of any particular community."

Mr Abbott said there were at least 60 Australians fighting with the Islamic State (IS) in northern Iraq and eastern Syria and about 100 Australians working to support the movement.

"This is a movement, as we have seen on our TV screens and on the front pages of our newspapers, of utter ferocity, medieval barbarism, that is how serious and dangerous this movement is," he said.

"Because of the Australians who are involved with this movement, what might otherwise be a problem in a far away country is a problem for us."

In announcing the proposals earlier this month, the Government said travel to the Middle East would be permitted for "humanitarian, family or other innocuous purposes", but the onus of proof now rested with the individual.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus accused the Government of a backflip because it originally refused to fund programs established by Labor.

"We do have to work to make sure that young Australians don't become radicalised and I think we need to look at all possible means of doing that," he said.

"That's why Labor welcomes the Government's backflip – the Government's decision now to start funding something which they'd refused to fund in their budget handed down in May."

Measures to update and strengthen the powers of domestic spy agency ASIO have already been introduced to Parliament.

The Government also wants to compel phone and internet companies to retain customers' metadata for around two years.

But the announcement of the counter-terrorism measures alongside the abandonment of proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act upset some members of Australia's Muslim community.

More than 50 Muslim organisations and individuals signed a statement rejecting the Government's proposals, describing them as unjust and hypocritical.

Topics: terrorism, unrest-conflict-and-war, government-and-politics, federal-government, security-intelligence, australia

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