‘We’ve had 3 terror attacks and all 3 involved refugees’

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has underlined what he says is a link between Australia’s refugee intake and terror attacks, saying that the connection between the two can’t be ignored.

But on the other side of the debate, The Project host Waleed Aly, a long-time campaigner for refugee rights, says that although there have been some refugees engaged in terrorism in Australia, suggesting there was a link between being a refugee and being a terrorist was wrong.

The war of words being waged over the existence of such a link came after Australia’s spy boss, ASIO director-general Duncan Lewis, told One Nation leader Pauline Hanson at a senate estimates meeting last week that there was no evidence linking terrorism and refugees. Instead, he said radicalised individuals were adhering to a violent interpretation of Sunni Islam.

Lewis pointed out that he was saying there were no terrorists who have been refugees or the children of refugees, but that the reason they were terrorists was not because of their refugee status, but rather their ideology.

But Abbott said in an interview with 2GB radio today, “We’ve had three terrorist attacks in Australia and all three of them involved either people claiming to be refugees or the children of refugees. I think that the ASIO director really needs to think again on this issue.”

Abbott has taken a hardline stance on terrorism in the wake of the Manchester bombing, criticising pollies who “pussyfoot around the fact that just about every terrorist incident of recent times involves someone killing in the name of Islam.”

He likened Lewis’ comments to making excuses for evil, adding that terrorism “has no place in the modern world.”

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Lewis’ stance, however, was backed up by Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Andrew Colvin. Speaking at the National Press Club yesterday, Colvin said the AFP’s number one priority was terrorism. 

“As I have already said and as others have said as well, we are dealing with a radical interpretation of Sunni Islam,” he said.

But Abbott’s not the only conservative taking issue with the ASIO boss’s comments. Hanson wasn’t impressed either.

ASIO boss Duncan Lewis has been forced to clarify his misleading answer to my question about Middle Eastern refugees. Good! -PH #auspol

— Pauline Hanson (@PaulineHansonOz) May 31, 2017

I never asked Mr Lewis about the refugee program. I asked about threats possibly being brought in with refugees from the Middle East -PH

— Pauline Hanson (@PaulineHansonOz) May 31, 2017

Conservative broadcaster Steve Price also locked horns with fellow host Aly in a discussion on The Project last night about the issue.

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Price pointed out that Man Monis, the man responsible for the 2014 Lindt Café attack, was a refugee, and Numan Haider , who stabbed two police officers in 2014, was a child of a refugee.

“If these people hadn’t come here as refugees, the people they killed wouldn’t be dead,” Price argued. But Aly accused Price of blowing the ASIO leader’s comments out of proportion.

Abbott has also proposed the creation of ‘special courts’ to hear evidence against jihadists who have returned from Middle Eastern battlefields to Australia, saying Australia needed to stop ‘tolerating’ extremist Muslims, The Australian reported today.

“Instead of demanding Muslims in our country conform to our rules, we try to create ‘safe spaces’ for everyone even though that sometimes means creating very unsafe spaces for us,” he said. “In other words, we tolerate from hardline Muslims what we would not tolerate for a second if it emanated from any other source.”

He also repeated calls to lift restrictions on police powers to allow them to ‘shoot to kill’ after the Lindt Cafe siege. 

Immigration Minister Petter Dutton said today, however, that the government wasn’t considering setting up special courts for jihadists.

What do you think of the conservative backlash? Do you think we need a tougher stance or do you think they’re ignoring the evidence?