For some teenagers, involvement with radical groups such as Islamic State is “a new way to rebel”, senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has said, likening the issue to drug use or joining a gang.

The assistant minister for multicultural affairs welcomed renewed dialogue between the government and Muslim organisations on Tuesday, but said action was also needed from within Islamic communities.

“Those communities need to be willing partners, in not just talking about the problems, but also actively engaging, in terms of developing programs and processes where they can assist,” she said.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, also highlighted the importance of practical initiatives by Muslim leaders, after 58-year-old Curtis Cheng was shot in cold blood on Friday outside New South Wales police headquarters in Parramatta.

He told 3AW radio: “[Leaders] should speak up, but it’s more important from a practical point of view that there is leadership in the Muslim community which continues to demonstrate that this type of violent extremism is not consistent with Islam.”



Fierravanti-Wells, who has consulted with more than 160 Muslim groups in past months, said many good initiatives were being conducted, “mostly without government assistance”.



She highlighted programs where young people who had formerly been tempted by Isis shared their experiences with peers.

“Young people will always take far greater notice of their own peers, particularly where those peers have had some experience and been exposed to Daesh and wanted to travel and have now realised that that was a wrong way of doing business,” she said. Daesh is Fierravanti-Wells’s preferred term for Isis.



The senator compared radicalisation to the threat posed by drugs or gambling. “When our young people go off the rails, if the first person that befriends them is a drug dealer, they will turn to drugs,” she said.

“If the person that befriends them is part of a gang, they will join that gang. If that person is a gambler, they will become a gambler.

“What we are seeing here is that young people who are disengaged, who are at the margins, are being preyed upon, just like paedophiles prey on young people, most especially at the margins of society.”

Statistics showed that most Australians felt a sense of belonging, believed “in the values of our Australian way of life”, and thought multiculturalism was a good thing.