The head of the Australian federal police has backed warnings about the rising threat of rightwing extremism and vowed to clamp down on terrorism regardless of the ideology behind it.
The commissioner, Reece Kershaw, used his address to the National Press Club on Wednesday to also raise the alarm about the growing number of child exploitation cases – and signalled he may seek new powers if tech giants like Facebook push ahead with greater use of end-to-end encryption.
Kershaw said the Covid-19 pandemic had not decreased Australia’s overall terror threat, which remained at the “probable” level.
He said there had been seven terrorist attacks in Australia since September 2014, but in that time there had also been “18 major counter-terrorism disruption operations in response to potential or imminent attacks” including two since December.
Mike Burgess, the head of domestic spy agency Asio, who was in the audience for Kershaw’s press club address, warned in February that intolerance based on race, gender and identity was on the rise across the western world. Burgess also warned that “the extreme rightwing threat is real and it is growing” in Australia.
Asked if what the AFP was seeing out in the field was consistent with the Asio warning, Kershaw replied: “We’re never going to argue against the director general of Asio. He or she is always right.”
Kershaw said the AFP was “turning over every rock” to go after terrorists of all ideologies.
“We don’t discriminate on what the ideology is,” he said. “If you’re out there to harm, through violence and trying to murder Australians, whether here or offshore, then we’re going to come after you, no matter what you believe in.”
Kershaw said counter-terrorism officers had to wrestle with how best to prevent potential attacks.
“It’s hard to know when to go and when not to because you don’t want to miss,” he said.
“Those officers, whether they’re from Asio, the state police, or the AFP - when they come to work they are on edge because they don’t want it to happen on their watch. They’re doing everything they can to make sure we keep Australians safe – that’s their mission.”
Kershaw, who began in the role of commissioner nine months ago, used the address to declare the AFP needed to “head in a new direction”.
He listed countering terrorism and foreign interference as among the key areas the AFP would focus on during his tenure. The other priority areas were child exploitation, transnational serious organised crime, cybercrime and fraud.
Kershaw said the AFP’s Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, which is based in Brisbane, received almost 17,000 reports of child exploitation last year, or about 45 a day.
But he said in just the six months from January to June 30 this year, the number of cases received by the centre had already reached 11,325.
He said the AFP had laid 1,078 commonwealth child exploitation charges against 144 people in the 10 months to May 2020 – a big increase from the previous year.
Kershaw said it was time for Australians to pay more attention to the growing problem of child exploitation, adding that it was “a confronting and despicable crime that often elicits an automatic response to tune out”.
He urged parents and caregivers to “stop turning down the radio or walking away from the television when one of my team, almost daily, reveal another child exploitation bust”.
Instead, parents and caregivers should learn how social media worked and teach their children how to safely navigate the internet.
“As a country, we need to be more outraged about those who produce and distribute child exploitation material, and we need to be better engaged when the inevitable debate arises with Facebook and other platforms when they move to end-to-end encryption.”
Kershaw did not spell out any potential legislative changes in response to efforts by platforms to boost personal privacy protection but indicated discussions were being held with the home affairs department.
This month, a report by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor called for the attorney general to be stripped of the power to approve orders that would force tech and social media companies to help security services potentially spy on the public.
In response to the increasing use of encryption, the Australian parliament passed a bill in 2018 that gave the attorney general the power to issue a notice requiring a communications provider to build a new capability that would enable it to give assistance to authorities – despite a range of privacy and technical concerns.
Kershaw said the AFP would “continue to push for new laws that make it easier and lawful to keep Australians safe” but said he understood that “when we do that, we need to explain why it is necessary”.
The early part of Kershaw’s tenure as commissioner has been marked by controversy over the AFP’s pursuit of journalists reporting on national security matters. Earlier this month, the AFP referred a brief of evidence to prosecutors relating to the ABC’s investigation of alleged war crimes by Australian troops in Afghanistan.
Kershaw insisted on Wednesday that the AFP under his leadership would be transparent and open with the community.
