Police in Victoria admit a focus on Isis-inspired terrorism meant the online presence of rightwing extremists such as Brenton Tarrant was not “front of mind” before the Christchurch massacre.
But national security agencies are now better placed to monitor rightwing extremists, the Victoria police deputy commissioner Ross Guenther said, while warning that individuals, rather than groups, remained the main threat.
Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslim worshipers at a mosque in Christchurch in 2019, had been active on social media in the lead-up to the massacre, posting racist and inflammatory statements publicly under his own name or a pseudonym, engaging with known Australian far-right figures, and making veiled threats about an Islamic school near his home.
Guenther, speaking on Friday during a Victoria police briefing about rightwing extremism, agreed that if a person made similar comments to Tarrant that related to Islamic extremism, they likely would have been placed on a counter-terrorism watch list and monitored.
But he said: “The lens we would use now would be very different to the lens we would use three years ago, to be honest.
“If you go back three years ago and look at Isis … that occupied our front of mind, because we had multiple disruptions in multiple states in this country,” Guenther said.
“So there’s no doubt that was our point of focus and … other issues, other [individuals] like Tarrant and others who posted similar material, that wasn’t front of mind for us. That’s a very different place we’re in now.”
Guenther said it was naive to think the threat from Isis had dissipated, but improved connectivity between state and federal authorities meant resources could also be used to better monitor far-right extremists.
Despite recent media attention on the recruiting efforts of militant far-right groups such as the Base, or on the federal government listing specific far-right extremist organisations, the threat was individuals who were likely to flit between entities, he said.
“The people who may be presenting the most risk won’t be affiliated with any one group.
“[They will be] known to groups, yes, known within groups, but that lone actor piece, where people are inspired by other information around the world and just decide to act alone, that’s the biggest risk to us.
“I don’t think we could be better placed. I would never say that we could get … every possible threat though, that’s just not possible, you just can’t say that.”
Police also said during the briefing that officers were investigating a case of rightwing extremism in the state, but would not provide further details.
It is the second far-right counter-terrorism investigation in the state’s history, following the successful prosecution of Phillip Galea last year – the first time a rightwing extremist had been charged with terror offences in Australia.
There have been other individuals charged with offences relating to rightwing extremism in the past year, including multiple cases in New South Wales.
About 40% of the work done by the state’s counter-terrorism command now focused on the far-right, assistant commissioner Mick Hermans said.
The force is monitoring overlaps between the far-right and a cohort of conspiracy theorists inspired by the pandemic, including those who are anti-vaccine, anti-5G and anti-lockdown.
Hermans revealed on Friday that there had been 198 threats related to the pandemic made against Victorian “dignitaries”, including MPs, that had been reported to the counter-terrorism security intelligence unit since March last year.
Nine of those reports had resulted in charges.
But Hermans said there had not been evidence uncovered by police of far-right groups actively recruiting from cohorts who had been energised by the pandemic.
Instead, they were finding individuals who had pulled their belief systems together from a “salad bar” of ideologies; they might post anti-Muslim and anti-mask content, for example, but not be more deeply engaged with the far right.
Counter-terrorism police investigating a fire at a phone tower in Melbourne’s outer south-east had also found no evidence its destruction was linked to the far-right, Hermans said.
