You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, August sixth. Brittaney Higgins lawyer says Senator Linda Reynolds was trying to help Bruce Lahman, the man Higgins accused of rape, by
sending his lawyer's text messages during Lahman's criminal trial. Reynolds is suing Higgins and her husband David Schiraz for defamation, but higgins lawyer Rachel Young sc says the senator retraumatized and harassed Brittney Higgins. Our coverage of that trial is live at Beaustralian dot com. The last standing Rat of to Brook, Tom Pritchard, has died at the age of one hundred and two. In nineteen forty one, the Rats held off Access troops for two hundred and forty two
days in North Africa. Pritchard lied about his age to join the army. As a nineteen year old. He served as an ambulance attendant at Tabrook. Probable that's the new terror threat level in Australia declared by the spy Agency ASIO, which is warning about the threat posed by young people radicalized online and armed with knives or guns.
We assess there is a greater than fifty percent chance of an onshore attack or planning in the next twelve months.
It's all about rising tensions in the Middle East?
Or is it?
Today we unpack the spymaster's careful wording. In the Middle East, Israel's bombardment of Gaza is morphing into something much bigger, a regional war. Rocket sirens in Israel as civilians sheltering place, a Lebanese ambulance races through the streets of Beirut, in Iran, prayers for a Hamas leader assassinated by Israel right in the heart of Tehran, And in Australia, a chilling new mood. Here's Anthony Albanesi.
Asia has decided to return Australia's national terrorism threat level from possible too probable.
Attacks are likely to occur with little or no warning and will be difficult to detect.
That's asy Oboss Mike Burgess. On Monday, he was part of a joint press conference with Albanesi and the Attorney General Mark Dreyfus.
An escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, particularly in southern Lebanon, would inflict further strain, aggravating tensions and potentially fueling grievances.
So the raised terror alert is about the Israel Gaza conflict, right, Well, it's not so clear.
Our decision is not a direct response to the tragic events in the Middle East. At this stage, we do not believe any of the terrorist plots we have investigated in the last year have been inspired by Gaza. Terrorist leaders offshore are not inspiring attacks on This is why we did not raise threat level in the immediate aftermath of the seventh of October. Indirectly though, there have been important and relevant impacts. The conflict has fueled grievances, promoted protest,
exacerbated division, undermined social cohesion, and elevated intolerance. After the seventh of October, I warned that inflame language could lead to inflame community tensions. Unfortunately, this is what's playing out.
So what's with all this opaque language?
I think Gaza is a very central aspect of what as here. Did Mike Purchase probably being a bit softer with his language than he might otherwise have been, because he doesn't want his own comments to exacerbate and fuel the divisions and the rhetoric and the passion that we've seen in Australia ever since October seven.
That's Cameron Stewart, the chief international correspondent here at the Australian.
I guess what he's saying here, Claire, is that the Gaza conflict has shown exactly the type of intolerance, political rhetoric and hostility that we were seeing generally speaking in Australian society. But basically Gaza is the best big example of it in Australia. So I think it's central to it really because I think what you've seen, for example, in Australia play out since October seven fits into the
categories that my Burgess is talking about. The whole announcement seemed to meet a reek of a government and a security service very anxious not to further fan flames and passions through the actual announcement itself.
Okay, So while the politicians and Burgess are not directly saying it, this is in large part at least about tensions in the Middle East spilling into Australian streets tell.
These great incidences of anti Semitism in Australia rose seven hundred percent after Hamas's terror attack on Israel and still remain alarmingly high.
Anthony Albanezi was quick to sheet at least some of the blame home to his natural enemies in Australian politics, the Greens.
It is not normal to have people in occupations for months outside electorate offices where the work of those electorate officers is to assist people in social security and health in other areas, they're not participants in the Middle East conflict.
We've seen the huge increase in racism, with the terrible rise of anti Semitism in Australia, levels that we just haven't seen before. We've also seen, if you like, a normalization of intolerance with the activist rump of the pro Palestinian movement, and by that I mean not mums and dads to God on the Sunday to event their displeasure. What Israel's response might be, it's really the activist rump them. You've had defacing of Australian war memorials which have absolutely
nothing to do with Gaza. You've had statues toppled You've had politicians' offices being targeted, You've had just a lot of personal abuse hurled at a whole range of people. I think that, if you like, that movement has very much crystallized exactly the sort of breakdown in civility and
political discourse that Mike Burgess is talking about. And what he's saying is, look, while we've had no direct violence or plots related to this, this is a trend that could easily lead to violence down the track.
He also said when asked about anti Semitism, he said, yes, there's plenty of anti Semitism, but there's plenty of his Lamophobia at the same time.
It's kind of almost equal treatment. Not quite, but almost equal treatment.
You've been covering this pretty closely, cam ever since October seven. Would you agree with that?
No, I don't agree with that now. Min I'm not privy to the reports that my Burgess has seen, but certainly, Claire, as far as visibility goes in Australia, I mean, the age of Semitism is just by far more visible than anti Islamophobia. We're not seeing marchers that are condemning Muslims, We're not seeing anything like that. We are seeing marches with the Nazi sort of paraphernalia, very anti Semitic content
in science and things like that. We've seen quite clearly actions against Jewish businesses, against individual Jews in Australia just because they're Jewish, nothing more than that. And so we're just not seeing that sort of visible anti Islamophobia. I do wander, to be honest, whether he is said that in the same way that Penny Wong has put the two together very frequently because they don't want to be
seen as particularly by us one way the other. But certainly from my observation as a reporter covering this, it's not nearly an even problem. It's a much greater problem of anti Semitism coming up.
So what will the attacks we're bracing for look like? While I've got you, the Australian subscribers are always the first to know. Join us at the Australian dot com dot AU. We'll be back after this break. We all have ideas about what superspies should look like, intense jewel lines, trench coats. Like Burgess, a sixty year old cyber warfare expert with a degree in electrical engineering, is bald with a neatly rimmed beard. He looks like he could be
any senior public servant, and maybe that's the point. The best spies are supposed to blend into a crowd. What does make Burgess different is his visibility. Once or twice a year, he fronts up to the cameras to deliver a fourth, righte sometimes scary speech about the big, bad world out there.
I think Mike Burgess is a very good director general compared to his predecessors. Something. He's very outspoken, He's very direct. I think that's the way that modern chiefs of security agencies should be. You know, the old days, the old days the chiefs are sort of whisper and say absolutely nothing. He is very on the front foot and saying it
as it should be said. I think you need to have an agency chief say this stuff because if you have a politician say it, the opposition will think it's spin, it's just alarmist, etc. The whole idea here is that it does actually have an impact, and hopefully it does prevent something like this actually occurring.
Burgess said, in the past eight months, there have been eight attacks or disruptions that either involved acts of terror or were investigated as potential acts of terrorism. He didn't name the cases, but he said they had four things in common.
Loane actors, an individual or a small group using rudimentary weapons such as knives, improvised explosives or a gun.
A fast pace of radicalization.
Violence with little or no warning, and little or no planning.
They're involving kids.
In recent cases, the oldest perpetrator was twenty one and the youngest was fourteen.
And they are not being driven by the same thing.
Individuals are being motivated by diversity of prievances and personal narratives. In some cases I refer to, the alleged perpetrators appeared to be motivated by extreme religious beliefs. In others, nationalists and racist beliefs.
It all sounds pretty worrying, and it's asio wearing this. The politicians are standing back, saying they're listening to the advice from the spymasters.
The threats I'm describing are significant, but not insurmountable. Probable does not mean inevitable. Australian should be aware, but not afraid.
One threat that Mike Burgess almost downplayed was the sort of thing that we would have been talking about if we'd done this interview three or four years ago Cam, which is young Muslim Australians being radicalized by ISIS or by radical preachers here in Australia. That was the big concern a few years back. He is now saying that that is not really what they're seeing now, that that's not really the big concern.
I think he's saying that is still a concern, but we've now got other things to match that concern, and that is politically motivated rhetoric, conviolence, which they hadn't seen. In other words, it's not just a religiously motivated problem. Now there's a whole layer of post COVID freedom movement that hates government authority. You know, there's the rise and rise and rise of conspiracy theories, especially fueled by the Internet.
You know, it's amazing what people are believing these days, and perhaps more unhinched people actually taking action on the basis of that. I think what he's saying is we now have a whole list of issues that are rising at the same time, and so it doesn't dilute Islamic extremism, for example, as a terror danger, because I think that's still very much a terrorist danger in Australia. I think what he's saying is we now have Unfortunately, we have other things to rival it.
If you believe a person you know is going down a dark extremist path, please talk to someone. They'll call the National Security Hotline on one eight hundred one two three four hundred.
Cameron Stewart is The Australian's chief international correspondent. It's back to the office today. The new South Wales government issued a blunt order to its hundreds of thousands of employees working from home is over. The move is designed to improve productivity and rescue the CBD hospitality sector. That story and how it'll affect the rest of our workplaces is live now at the Australian dot com dot au