Now as New Zealand tries to come to grips with Friday's horrific terror attack, security agencies here in Australia are on high alert.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton joins me now from Brisbane. Minister, good morning to you. We understand that national security officials will be holding urgent briefings today. Is there now a greater threat of retaliation or copycat attacks here in Australia?
Good morning Deb. Well obviously all of our agencies have been very concerned about those very real prospects and they've been working day and night to make sure that we keep Australians safe. But they've worked very closely from the moment this atrocity occurred with their New Zealand counterparts and they will continue to do that.
What extra measures, security measures, are in place to protect the community?
Obviously ASIO does a lot of work, as does the Australian Federal Police and our other agencies, AUSTRAC, behind the scenes. There is a lot of work they do with communities. They liaise very closely with communities and they obviously gather intelligence and they will deploy additional resources if they see a particular threat that might manifest itself, wherever it is in the country.
So we will see the physical presence of more police on the streets?
We've seen that already at a state level. The police have responded particularly around mosques or places of mass gathering. They would have taken a particular focus around activities on the weekend et cetera, particularly in relation to sporting events. They will have a look at the intelligence picture and they'll respond accordingly. So it's a very close working relationship between our law enforcement and our intelligence agencies.
Now, the Australian attacker acted alone. He wasn't on any security watch list. Will we see any extra powers or funding for our security agencies in the wake of this? We've already had suggestions from former senior police officer Nick Caldas that national hate crimes database is needed.
Well, Deb, we will provide whatever resources are needed, but we have put additional resources into ASIO, into the Federal Police, AUSTRAC, et cetera, in recent years. But we'll continue as the risk evolves to respond accordingly.
The important point here is that if you look at this individual, he had been in Australia I think for 45 days over the last three years. He travelled extensively over the last almost decade. So we need to be realistic about the work of the agencies. There are millions of posts, millions of tweets, messages et cetera that need to be trawled through and we need to have a process of priority for the agencies, particularly if they're looking at imminent threats. I think we're very well served by particularly ASIO and the Federal Police, I think they're the best agencies in the world and we should be very grateful for that.
Now you have condemned Senator Fraser Anning for his comments. It's been across-the-board from all parties. He, of course, blamed the victims themselves for this terror attack. A petition calling for Senator Anning to be removed from Parliament has received over a million signatures. But in reality can he be?
Well, his comments were appalling. Everybody rightly has called them out. In relation to our democratic process, as Chris Uhlmann has pointed out, petitions don't remove or put people into Parliament. We have elections and if people aren't happy with the way in which a particular senator or Member of Parliament operates, then their opportunity is at the election and at the ballot box.
[Talks over] Do you think more should be done though, against a senator who's making these types of comments?
Well, he should be condemned, and he is being condemned. His comments are absolutely appalling. Anybody who seeks to make opportunity – political opportunity – out of it, a tragedy like this, is right to be condemned. But in our process, at the election, people can be voted out and that's what they'll do in relation to Senator Anning. We've got an election due in May of this year. So people can express their view freely and respectfully at the ballot box, and I think that's the strongest possible message that can be sent.
All right. Peter Dutton, we thank you for your time this morning.