Wieambilla killings a chilling reminder of far-right threat in Australia
December 14, 2022 — 7.30pm
As bombs rain down on Ukraine, Iranian police beat human rights protesters to death and mass shootings occur with tragic regularity in the United States, Australia can seem like a relative safe haven in a frightening and dangerous world.
Just last month, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess made the commendable
decision to return the nation’s terrorism threat level to possible – down from probable – for the first time in eight years.
Rather than overhype the possibility of an attack as a cynical way to secure government funding, Burgess was upfront that the terror risk had reduced from the days when groups such as Islamic State were at their peak.
ASIO director-general Mike Burgess has warned about the risk of anti-government extremist thinking.Credit:Rhett Wyman
But he stressed that the risk of violent extremism had not been extinguished in Australia.
While the allure of radical Islamic terrorism has declined, Burgess noted there had been an increase in “extremism fuelled by diverse grievances, conspiracy theories and anti-authority ideologies”.
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“Individuals are still fantasising about killing other Australians, still spouting their hateful ideologies in chat rooms, still honing their capabilities by researching bomb-making and training with weapons,” he said.
Only weeks later, Australians learnt the devastating news that
two young police officers and a member of the public had been shot dead near Brisbane after police approached a property while investigating a missing person’s case.
It has since been revealed that Gareth Train, the owner of the property,
had been an active participant on far-right message boards, espousing a range of paranoid views including that the Port Arthur massacre was a false-flag operation.
“If you are a conservative, anti-vaxx, freedom lover, protester, common law, conspiracy talker, alternative news, independent critical thinker, truther, Christian, patriot etc etc expect a visit from these hammers,” he said in one post, referring to the Queensland Special Emergency Response Team.
Police constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold were gunned down by a man who held extremist views.Credit:Queensland Police
Queensland Police are investigating what role, if any, Train’s extremist views played in the killings. At this stage, the federal government does not believe the killings constitute a terrorist attack.
But the tragic events in Wieambilla offer a chilling reminder that far-right extremism remains a serious threat in Australia, even as the angst over lockdowns and other COVID-19 restrictions fade from public attention.
When he released ASIO’s annual threat assessment in February, Burgess warned that some “angry and alienated Australians” could turn to violence after becoming trapped in an echo chamber of misinformation and conspiratorial thinking during their pandemic isolation.
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Lydia Khalil, one of the nation’s leading experts on far-right extremism, notes that while some COVID freedom warriors have moved on, the pandemic experience has had a long-term radicalising effect on others. “For some, it increased the sense of crisis and urgency to act – the sense that ‘we can’t take this anymore’,” she says.
As Khalil notes, it’s too early to definitively say what motivated the Wieambilla killings. But it’s clear innovative strategies are needed to help de-radicalise Australians who fall deep down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole.
In a democracy people are allowed to hold unusual, even whacky, views but when they drift towards violence lives are at stake. The energy and money Australia poured into combating the threat of radical Islam after September 11 needs to be summoned for the emerging threats of today.
