Chris Uhlmann reported this story on Wednesday, December 17, 2014 08:04:12

CHRIS UHLMANN: It's a question echoing around the nation today: could the Martin Place gunman have been stopped?



Man Haron Monis had a history of violence, was on bail charged with not one but many serious crimes, and his life was defined by radical Islam.



Tony Abbott says the gunman was well known to state and federal police and the domestic spy agency ASIO but he wasn't on a security watch list.



I spoke to the Prime Minister a short time ago.



Tony Abbott, Australia lost two people yesterday in an act of terror and the nation is mourning their loss. How can you put into words what the people of Pakistan must be feeling this morning at the massacre of innocents?



TONY ABBOTT: Well it is simply impossible to put into words, the mixture of grief and fury that must be felt by people in Pakistan, and indeed around the world, at this latest terrorist atrocity. And I hope, I hope in my deepest heart that somewhere in the hearts of people who might otherwise be attracted to this, there is a realisation that it is never, ever right to kill innocent people. And that's what we've seen on a mass scale in Pakistan overnight.



CHRIS UHLMANN: And yet they are attracted to it. This does attract people.



TONY ABBOTT: Well it shouldn't. And I guess, I guess one of the encouraging things is the way there is less and less of people trying to explain, justify or rationalise away terrorism in the name of religions.



And whether it be in this country, whether it be in the Middle East, whether it be in the subcontinent, fewer and fewer people today are trying to justify, rationalise or explain terrorism because it is simply evil. It is simply wrong.



CHRIS UHLMANN: But you're constantly saying the attack had nothing to do with Islam. Surely they do? These people define themselves by that.



TONY ABBOTT: Well they certainly claim to be acting in the name of God. They claim to be acting in the name of religion. But there is no serious religious leader who is defending this.



And, if you take the ISIL death cult in the Middle East, it has been roundly condemned by all of the leading Sunni scholars. It's been roundly condemned, I think there's been fatwa after fatwa pronounced against it.



And the phrase I like to quote is my friend prime minister Najib of Malaysia who is a devout Muslim, but he says that the ISIL movement is against God, against Islam, and it's against our common humanity.



CHRIS UHLMANN: And yet excuses are constantly found and the West is often blamed for these acts being at its root, in some way a reaction to something that's happened to them.



TONY ABBOTT: Well I think that's happening less and less, Chris, I really do.



I haven't heard anyone talking about the Sydney attack in terms of, you know, some kind of justifiable response to something that Australia might have done. I haven't heard anyone say that. And frankly anyone who does even think that is dead wrong, absolutely dead wrong.



This was the act of a deeply unstable person with a long history of violence and mental illness. This was the act of someone who was way beyond any mainstream, any mainstream, and has been rightly, absolutely repudiated by all the communities of Australia.



CHRIS UHLMANN: And the question that many people will have today, given he was charged with not one but many serious offences, is why was this man on the street?



TONY ABBOTT: Well, it's a very good question and it's one which Premier Mike Baird is pondering. It's one that was certainly well and truly thrashed out by the National Security Committee of the Australian Cabinet yesterday.



These are the questions that we will be asking ourselves. These are the questions that we'll be having our officials ponder because he was a person who had been of interest to our security agencies. He was a person who was very well known to New South Wales Police. He was guilty of many serious crimes, including the crime of harassing the families of dead Australian soldiers.



So he was a very, very unsavoury individual…



CHRIS UHLMANN: And he wasn't on a security watch list.



TONY ABBOTT: Not at this time, Chris. And that's what we want to know why. We want to know why he wasn't being monitored, given his history of violence, his history of mental instability, and his history of infatuation with extremism.



CHRIS UHLMANN: As you say, he was mentally disturbed, he was violent, his life was defined by radical Islam. On November 17 he posted a message in Arabic on his website saying he's pledging allegiance to Islamic State.



He walked into that café almost three days to the minute after he lost a High Court bid overturning that conviction against him on sending hate mail to the families of fallen Australian soldiers. If he had been on a watch list, all the alarm bills would have been ringing.



TONY ABBOTT: Look, you're absolutely right, Chris. And look, the note of admonition in your voice is justified. And as you know, the Commonwealth has, we've upgraded security…



CHRIS UHLMANN: You've changed the law, you spent more money…



TONY ABBOTT: We're changing the law.



CHRIS UHLMANN: …and the system failed.



TONY ABBOTT: Well, the system did not adequately deal with this individual. There's no doubt about that, and this is why we've got to constantly learn the lessons of everything that happens. We've got to be constantly asking ourselves: is this the best we can do?



And frankly, we've got to always be better at this because if we aren't good at this, our people suffer. And the tragedy of this atrocity is that two delightful Australians, two very decent people are dead. Others are injured. Others are traumatised because of a madman who was roaming our streets.



CHRIS UHLMANN: And where did he get a gun, Prime Minister?



TONY ABBOTT: Well that's another question that will be looked at and we will no doubt found the answer in due course. These are very early days when it comes to this investigation.



CHRIS UHLMANN: He was judged not to meet the threshold for security monitoring so what's the threshold?



TONY ABBOTT: Well the threshold is that someone is regarded as at risk of doing violence against innocent people. That's in a sense, in a nutshell, what it comes down to, do we believe…



CHRIS UHLMANN: So are you satisfied, are you satisfied PM, are you satisfied with this?



TONY ABBOTT: Well, we can't monitor everyone all the time. I mean, that's impossible. So we have to make a judgement: who are the people who are potentially violent? And again, you've got to look at, you've got to look at the lists and decide where your priorities are. That's what we do, that's what sensible security agencies do.



CHRIS UHLMANN: You've ordered an investigation. Will it be transparent? Will the public actually ever get to see how the system might have failed?



TONY ABBOTT: Well Chris, the public will have access to me; they'll have access to ministers. And my intention certainly would be to publish a report on this so it will be out there for all to see.



CHRIS UHLMANN: Returning to where we began, Prime Minister, don't Islamic leaders in the West have to have an honest conversation about what it means to their community that significant minorities within them support and sympathise with violent jihadism? Isn't that conversation one that has to be had?



TONY ABBOTT: And I think it's one that is being had all the time within these communities, Chris. I've spoken to Islamic leaders in recent months and they know that the victims of all of this include them because they are injured when any of us are injured. I mean, this is the thing. All people are diminished when something like this takes place.



And the point I keep making is that every Australian is obliged to adhere to the law. Every Australian is obliged to treat other Australians, every other Australian with respect. And this mutual respect, this notion that we should treat others as we would be treated ourselves, this is at the heart of our society. I think it's at the heart of all decent societies. And I think all Australians, regardless of their religion, get that.



CHRIS UHLMANN: And this society is built on tolerance and on open conversation and it is not Islamophobic to notice that this is a religion that is resistant to scrutiny or criticism, that is utterly incapable of laughing at itself, and when it is criticised the reaction often tends to be violent.



TONY ABBOTT: Well, that's certainly a point of view, Chris. And I think that, if you look at, if you look at the history of Islam, it's certainly been different from the history of Christianity.



But things are changing all the time and what I hope to see right around the world is a spirit of pluralism, a spirit of engagement, a sense that diversity is not a good thing - is not a bad thing, it's a good thing.



And if you look at the Middle East, what you are seeing right now are a whole lot of new alliances because right around the Middle East people are coming to understand that this ISIL death cult has declared war on everyone. That's the point. It's declared war on everyone, not just - it's not picking sides so much as attacking everyone.



CHRIS UHLMANN: And Prime Minister, in a truly tolerant Western society of course we would hope for a day when Islam is so integrated that it can be criticised in the way that Catholicism is criticised.



TONY ABBOTT: Well certainly, Chris, over the years (laughs) Christianity and Catholicism has been criticised up hill and down dale, and you and I are both very conscious of that.



But we don't blame the Pope for the IRA, and we don't blame the Catholics living next door for the folly of some people, the folly and madness of some people who may claim a Christian motivation. And I think we need to be similarly carefully and cautious in these other areas.



CHRIS UHLMANN: Prime Minister, thank you.



TONY ABBOTT: Thank you so much.



CHRIS UHLMANN: The Prime Minister.