Peter Lloyd reported this story on Thursday, June 11, 2015 18:25:00

MARK COLVIN: The Prime Minister Tony Abbott has again gone against all the available evidence about the Sydney siege by calling it an act of the so-called Islamic State.



Investigating police told the Lindt cafe siege inquest that despite combing all Man Haron Monis' online communications, they'd found no evidence that he had any contact with Islamic State.



But Mr Abbott made the alleged link during the opening address to the regional counter terrorism summit in Sydney.



Peter Lloyd reports.



PETER LLOYD: It was a speech with a blunt force claim.



TONY ABBOTT: Daesh is coming, if it can, for every person and for every government with a simple message: submit or die.



PETER LLOYD: And not for the first time, apparent prime ministerial overreach.



TONY ABBOTT: The tentacles of the death cult have extended even here, as we discovered to our cost with the Martin Place siege last December.



PETER LLOYD: The coronial inquest into the Sydney siege still has a long way to run. If anything, the inquiry has shown how Man Monis was a mentally disturbed man in search of friends and identity, but with no affiliation to international terrorism so many conference-goers were surprised to hear Tony Abbott sounding so certain of a link between the siege and IS that is still anything but.



Dr Clarke Jones is an expert in deradicalisation.



CLARKE JONES: Yes, I think it's wrong and I think the Prime Minister's been a little bit prejudicial in his comments in a number of spaces in relation to talking about criminals and terrorists before they've even gone through trial.



With Monis, for example, the case hasn't been fully heard yet. I don't think he - legally it's termed a terrorist incident, but the more we look into this, it was really a crazy who was seeking attachment for whatever he could get.



PETER LLOYD: Mr Abbott was speaking to delegates mostly drawn from a law and order, intelligence and security background. But there were diplomats too, Nadjib Riphat Kesoema, Indonesia's ambassador to Australia, among them.



NADJIB RIPHAT KESOEMA: This conference is very important for Indonesia because we are going to discuss, to talk, to chat about so many things, how to face the problem of the world, not only the problem of Australia, not only the problem of Indonesia, but this is the problem of the world. This is a global problem. So we have to face it together.



PETER LLOYD: After the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Australia froze ministerial contact with Jakarta. So, any hope that Indonesia would send a higher-level delegation here must have been dashed.



Still, delegates like New South Wales deputy police commissioner Nick Kaldas thought the get-together was a valuable idea.



NICK KALDAS: I definitely think it's a very worthwhile conference. There are very important, key stakeholders in this equation who are all here and I think the networking alone is probably worth the effort. Certainly there'll be a lot of discussions with community leaders, with various government officials at state and federal level, all very much focused on the topic that we must get our head around. We must deal with this effectively over the coming years.



So I think the more we discuss these issues, the more we have full and frank discussions with each other and with community leaders, the better off we'll be. It's the only way this will work. We cannot solve this problem by sitting in our office on our own.



PETER LLOYD: Most sessions are closed to the media, partly because participants want the freedom to speak openly, but not in public.



MARK COLVIN: Peter Lloyd.