Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (12:24): I thank the Prime Minister for his words. There is no greater responsibility for every member of this place than keeping Australians safe. As I have said, and Labor has demonstrated for four years now, when it comes to fighting terrorism and Islamist terrorism we are all in this together. Today we note with grief that terror has again taken the lives of Australians, as far away as London and as close to home as Brighton in Melbourne. Innocent people murdered in the name of a perverted version of Islam. Brave souls cut down by cowards. Free countries, diverse cities and peaceful nations attacked by the enemies of freedom, diversity and peace. In London, 48 were injured, with eight dead from five nations, including two Australians, a South Australian and a Queensland, a nurse and a nanny, darling daughters loved and admired. Kirsty Boden was 28 and Sara Zelenak was 21—young people, free in an old city, living out a rite of passage for so many Australians, in London, in New York, throughout Asia and Europe, propelled by what Kirsty Boden described as a 'constant longing to go where I haven't been'. I think that is who we are and what we do. We produce bold and resilient young people, the kind of people who run towards danger bravely, without a second thought for themselves—people with the courage and character to make lives away from this country and to achieve great things in other lands, while always holding Australia in their heart. And, whether it is years or decades later, they come home. As Clive James has said, 'the same abundance of natural blessings which gave us the energy to leave has every right to call us back'. But because of a vicious act of violent cowardice, a lightning strike of terror, Kirsty and Sara will never come home. They are not going to walk through those sliding doors of the airport arrivals and embrace the loved ones they have missed and who have missed them. Instead, their families are left with a last conversation, forever unfinished—perhaps a cheery message about the night ahead, a friendly update from home, a routine exchange, an old joke or two, and the things we all say as parents: 'Take care of yourself. Have fun. We love you.' And never truly knowing the weight of those words until they are the last ones that we share with the most precious things in our lives. No matter how much they go up, they are always your daughter, your son, your life. As Nick Hao's mother said after he was murdered in Brighton last week, 'I feel like my world has ended'. Despite the swift bravery of the Victoria police, Nick, a new husband and loving father, was killed in the name of Islamic State. Nick came to Australia in 2002, thanks to the sacrifices of his parents. He studied at Monash University and dutifully repaid their faith by bringing them to Australia so that they could be cared for in their old age. At his funeral on Saturday he was remembered with heartfelt simplicity as a good man, a good man working hard and doing his best to be a good dad, a good husband and a good son. A good man killed by an evil deed in evil's name. Today, as a parliament and as people we offer our heartfelt condolences to friends and families of all who died in London and Brighton. I am sure I am not the only one who feels a sense of an uneasy, haunting familiarity about today's proceedings. Terror is random and unpredictable and alien to our values, our faiths and our way of life. Yet we have come to a pattern, a ritual: we light our landmarks and our candles, we share the stories of heroism and survival, we send sympathy and we stand in solidarity. There is value and merit to all of this—absolutely. But unity in grief is not enough. We owe the dead more than mourning. We have a responsibility to see justice done and to ensure that terrorism is prevented, defeated and eliminated. We must defeat terrorism in the open battlefield abroad. Both sides of this parliament support the international coalition mission in Iraq and Syria. Both sides of this parliament support, admire and salute the men and women of the Australian Defence Force, who right now are putting their lives on the line in our country's name and for the cause of peace. As the Prime Minister has said, important progress is being made against the so-called Islamic State. Its territory is being eroded and its resources depleted. Australia is doing its fair share as a good international citizen to deny safe havens for terrorists, restricting their ability to export violence. We must continue to work closely with allies and friends around the world to neutralise the transnational efforts of extremist groups, including choking off their financial and communications capabilities. We need a renewed focus on cyberthreats—from attacks on government institutions to breaches of individual privacy and identity theft, industrial espionage and interference in elections. We must ensure that our agencies and security personnel are properly supported in and equipped, funded and paid for the important work they do for all Australians. In the fight against terrorism, we must all play a part—governments and oppositions at every level. On this issue more than any other, we should throw the politics out the window. As the Prime Minister said in his very first national security statement, 'This is not a time for gestures or machismo.' We must be 'calm, clinical, professional' and 'effective'. Australians are not interested in a rhetorical arm wrestle. When real violence threatens our nation, there is nothing to be gained from a war of words. The true test of patriotism, of our shared duty as Australian citizens, is how we work together to defeat terrorism, the practical steps we take. Terrorism has no respect for human life and no regard for our laws, so there is no point in having circular arguments about jurisdiction or terminology. It is critical that we work together, using the combined resources of Commonwealth and state authorities, to protect our communities and to detect and prevent terrorist attacks. I think last week's COAG meeting was encouraging, with federal, state and territory governments all making worthwhile contributions. In Victoria, we are already seeing swift action to protect public spaces of mass gathering. Premier Daniel Andrews has literally overnight set up bollards and barriers to keep landmarks and big events safe. The cooperation displayed at COAG on the issues of bail and parole for those on terrorism offences was common sense. State borders should never stop us from sharing relevant information that can save lives. When you put yourself beyond the law, you belong behind bars. Labor will ensure that violent extremists who seek to do harm to Australians are rooted out of our society, are dealt with under the full force of the law and are not to be seen on our streets if there is a continuing risk associated with them. We need to recognise this as a 21st century conflict being fought online as well as in the streets. Terrorists are using sophisticated online strategies as well as crude weapons of violence. For a long time, Daesh have used the internet as an instrument of radicalisation. Through Twitter and Facebook, they boast of a propaganda arm that can reach into every home in the world, spreading hate, recruiting followers and encouraging imitators. With encrypted technology like WhatsApp and Telegram, they can securely communicate not just a message of violence but instructions on how to carry it out. I acknowledge that many internet providers and social media platforms already work hard to detect and remove offensive content, such as child pornography and other forms of violent crime. Facebook has created new dedicated teams, employing thousands of people specifically to monitor its Facebook live stream for this purpose. The big internet companies have very quickly become an essential part of our free, democratic society, but they need to realise this is a two-way relationship. They need to be part of our society in the sense of working with us as well as taking from us. They need to see this fight as their fight, not just our fight—not just a fight where they help when asked but a fight in which they come to us with ideas. We need them to be proactive, not reactive. Terrorism does not self-police, so we cannot rely on a self-policing system. These tech giants must wake up to the fact that they have the position, if not the authority, to tackle the underbelly of terror propaganda. In this context, Facebook are essentially a media company, not just a platform. They are involved in what gets put up online. Ensuring that terrorism is not enabled online will take more than just a whack-a-mole approach of removing offensive content when spotted. Our law enforcement agencies need to be equipped with the knowledge, skills and resources they need to detect and disrupt terrorism online, whether it is recruitment, organising and financing or the spread of hateful propaganda. The Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Cyber Security Centre have the technological ability to protect both government and small and medium business from cyberattack. We need the ASD and the cyber centre to be available to support small and medium businesses as they do with government. But in order to do this, they require better support and resources from government, especially when it comes to recruiting and retaining the best personnel. This is, of course, a difficult and complex area. There are two things we simply do not know enough about to deal with properly—I refer to the use of the digital currency bitcoin and the use of the dark web, a network of untraceable online activities and hidden websites, allowing those who wish to stay in the shadows to remain hidden. Terrorists are increasingly using this network to avoid detection, conduct planning and acquire capability and tools to carry out their evil actions. We must target this threat head on. As terrorists adapt their methods and seek to hide online, we must ensure our agencies have the tools, resources and technology so terrorism has no place to hide. Likewise, we need to track and target terrorists as they seek to hide and obscure their financial dealings through electronic currencies like bitcoin. We can allow them no sanctuary and no place to rest. We must dislodge them from wherever they hide. In doing this, we must always be mindful of the rule of law and of the proper protections of our citizens, but we cannot sit back when our enemies have access to a worldwide system to educate and fund extremists. The first major review of Australia's national security tactical response framework was the Hope royal commission following the 1978 Hilton bombing. That commission rejected a third paramilitary-style force in Australia and assigned the close quarter assault role to the ADF. Back in 1978, police SWAT-type capabilities were non-existent, and, as a result, officers were not trained or equipped for that kind of role. This meant that the SAS was given the task of training one of its sabre squadrons for counterterrorism. In the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics, the framework for calling out the ADF to assist civil authorities in incidents of terrorism was modernised in part IIIA of the Defence Act to deal with scenarios involving hostage taking and hijacking. The history of the civil policing approach to terrorism in a hostage taking stronghold or hijack scenario has relied on a doctrine that the ADF call-out or police assault would not be initiated unless a hostage was injured or killed and all avenues of negotiation were closed off. But the nature of the terrorist threat has evolved—from 9/11 to the Tokyo subway, to Nice, to Manchester, and to many other parts of the globe. The main aim of most terrorist incidents we see today is to cause instant mass casualties through improvised explosive devices or, indeed, whatever means are at hand. When hostages are taken, such as in the Lindt Cafe siege, it is right that we ask if the doctrine for waiting for a casualty is appropriate, and, more broadly, if the best framework exists for cooperation between the ADF and the civil police. Labor believes our counterterror operators, trainers and enablers should be working as closely as possible with state and territory police forces to ensure that all military and civil responders are as well trained and well equipped as possible to maximise the most timely and effective action. Just as we continue to do everything in our power to protect Australians, we must do everything in our power to foster cohesion in our society. This is a responsibility we bear as national leaders and also an obligation shared by the leaders of Australia's Muslim community. The recent bombings in Kabul, killing 150, and the suicide bombing in Baghdad that claimed the life of a 12-year-old schoolgirl from Thomastown, Zynab Al Harbiya, both prove yet again that Islamist terrorism does not respect Islam, does not reflect Islam, and claims the lives of good Muslims far too often. The wisdom of the former director of ASIO, David Irvine, from 2014 is always worth repeating in any discussion of national security: … the tiny number of violent extremists does not represent the Islamic communities of Australia—we are talking about a few hundred aberrant souls in a community of nearly half a million—and it is grossly unfair to blame Muslims, who see themselves as a committed component of Australia’s multi-cultural society … He went on to say: Our fight is with terrorism, not with Islam or with our Muslim community … the strongest defence against violent extremism lies within the Australian Muslim community itself. Wise words indeed! We must continue to work with and strengthen the moderate voices and leaders of the Australian Muslim community and to rigorously and relentlessly detect, challenge, contest, deny and defeat any and all sources of the promotion of extreme views that incite violence. The most powerful weapons we can wield against the division and fear of terrorism remain our belief in an equal, inclusive, multicultural Australia. When we surrender these beliefs and values, the agents and message of terror have succeeded. Defeating the scourge of terrorism requires our every effort, our total energy and our complete unity of purpose: unity in this parliament through continued thoughtful, bipartisan cooperation; unity in the nation, working with the Muslim community to identify people at risk of radicalisation and prevent them from heading down a path of no return; unity in the region, where we face the ongoing challenge of returning foreign fighters driven out of the Middle East by the efforts of Australian forces, amongst others; and unity with other free nations standing against terrorism's assault on the rights of their citizens to live in peace and security. Terrorists are never so strong as they pretend, and people are always more powerful than they know. Our citizens, our values and our way of life remain the best strategy for keeping Australians safe and for defeating terrorism. It is a stern test and a hard fight, but together, united, we shall prevail.