Labor candidate has ‘criticised our national security efforts’, foreign minister says, denying that the Coalition is engaging in Islamophobic dog whistling

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Julie Bishop has escalated criticism of the Labor candidate Anne Aly, claiming she does not support the government’s national security efforts and tried to secure reduced jail time for a “hate preacher”.

Aly, Labor’s candidate for the Western Australian seat of Cowan, is a deradicalisation expert whose work is funded by the government and has been invited by Barack Obama to attend a White House summit on countering violent extremism.

On Thursday, the justice minister, Michael Keenan, launched an attack on Aly, criticising her for writing a submission on sentencing for the radical preacher Mohammed Junaid Thorne, who was jailed for flying under a false name.

On Friday, the foreign minister told Radio National that Keenan had “quite rightly” pointed out that Aly “has criticised our national security efforts”.

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“She did write a letter for a known hate preacher ... in an attempt to get him off jail time,” Bishop said. “That is not part of the role the federal government was funding her for.”

She denied the Coalition was engaged in Islamophobic dog-whistling.

“The funding of the organisation linked to Anne Aly from the government was to mentor young people before they were radicalised. It was not to write references to release convicted criminals from their jail sentence.”

Bishop said Aly’s lack of support of the government’s national security efforts was “a pattern across the Labor party”.

“We now see there are about 50 Labor members and candidates who disagree with Bill Shorten when he backs the Turnbull government’s approach to border protection.”

In her submission, Aly explained that she had met Thorne and his co-accused, Mostafa Shiddiqzman, and encouraged them to re-enter higher education and access counselling. Aly did not personally vouch for the accused, nor did she advocate a lighter sentence.

Thorne’s sentence was reduced by one month on appeal, the judge making reference to Aly’s letter in his reasoning.

michael safi (@safimichael) here's key page of "support" letter from Anne Aly re Thorne. hard to see as anything other than her doing her job pic.twitter.com/6LM6XrEmLz

Keenan said the letter showed “pretty poor judgment” and he accused Aly of not supporting the government’s national security efforts.

Aly accused Keenan of a “despicable smear campaign” and, when she called into one of his radio interviews for a right of reply, he refused to talk to her.

On Thursday Shorten called on Malcolm Turnbull to “call his attack dogs off Anne Aly”.

“If President Obama and the [US] Department of Homeland Security regard her as a global expert on deradicalisation, I think we can do a little better than Michael Keenan trying to imply the opposite,” he said.

“Aly has made it clear because of her views of standing up, of counter-radicalisation, she has been put on the kill lists of extremist groups.

“Aly is an outstanding Australian. I know the Liberal party want to get votes by smearing Labor candidates. I think they should back off this one altogether.”