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The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has criticised European security arrangements, arguing they were allowed to “slip” before Tuesday’s attacks in Belgium.

Turnbull had been asked whether an terrorist act similar to that in Brussels could occur in Australia.

He told the ABC:

You cannot guarantee that there will be no terrorist incident. But I can assure Australians that our security system, our border protection, our domestic security arrangements are much stronger than they are in Europe, where regrettably they allowed security to slip.

Turnbull said vulnerabilities in European security were “not unrelated to the problems they’ve been having in recent times”.

The federal opposition leader, Labor’s Bill Shorten, said it was too soon after the attacks for “the prime minister [to] be telling the Belgians what they did wrong”:

For me, today, is about recognising that people have lost their lives – innocent people have lost their lives. No doubt the hard questions will be asked in coming days.

Australia’s official threat level currently indicates a terrorist attack is “probable”.