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‘So lucky’ that Invasion Day rally bomb did not go off, says Burke

Sarah Basford Canales

Tony Burke considers Australia “so lucky” that an alleged attempted terrorist attack against Indigenous Australians on 26 January did no harm.

In an address at an ANU National Security College dinner last night, the home affairs minister discussed the incident at this year’s Invasion Day rally in Perth attended by more than 2,500 people.

Western Australian police allege a 31-year-old man threw a homemade fragment bomb containing screws and ball-bearings surrounded by explosive liquid. The device did not detonate.

In Canberra, Burke told the audience:

double quotation markThe Australia Day arrest in Perth, for a number of reasons, it didn’t receive the publicity that it really should have. But can I just say – we got so lucky. We got so lucky.

This was not a stunt. The person who threw the pipe bomb into the middle of a crowd of First Nations protesters believed that – if you look at what it was – this was something where there was a reasonable expectation it would have gone off, and the number of people who then would have been killed. The fact that that didn’t happen is not through any planning. We just got lucky.

Key events

The government is weighing up a broader range of reform options than usual in the lead up to the budget as the treasurer braces for worsening inflation data later today, Australian Associated Press reports.

Jim Chalmers has expanded on recent comments framing the upcoming May budget as his most ambitious yet, telling a Business Council dinner last night he was confident of landing “something meaningful” with the business community’s help.

The government’s influential expenditure review committee, which is responsible for deciding what’s in and what’s out of the federal budget and includes finance minister Katy Gallagher, met for hours yesterday and will meet again today.

“We are absolutely full tilt now working through a broader than usual range of options,” Chalmers said.

Treasury has been drawing up a number of reforms that align with the treasurer’s stated principles of improving intergenerational equity, encouraging investment and simplifying the tax system.

Reported options include cutting property-investor tax concessions, beefing up the levy on windfall gas profits,and axing an expensive tax break for electric vehicles.

Rather than a choice between resilience or reform, Chalmers said the budget will be about both resilience and reform.

Australia was well prepared for the inflation and growth challenges the war in the Middle East would throw up, he said.

“But we will be buffeted.”

Headline inflation was already running at 3.8% over the year to January and is expected to climb even further from the Reserve Bank’s two to three per cent target band, as soaring oil costs result in second order price increases across the economy.

Sarah Basford Canales

Radicalisation now more likely to come ‘across a browser’ than a border, home affairs minister says

Tony Burke says it would be “reckless” and “ignorance in the extreme” for Australia to pretend that immigration is the solution to preventing violent extremism on our shores.

In a speech last night, the home affairs minister said it was very important Australia was careful about who it let in.

But Burke cautioned:

double quotation markIt would be ignorance in the extreme for us to pretend that that is the fix. It would be reckless in the extreme for us to pretend that immigration is the solution. It is something that is one of our tools, but the only way we deliver national security is to deal with facts and risks as they present themselves, not as you might want them to be.

Burke outlined four attempted or realised terrorist attacks in recent years, adding that all of those jailed for them were Australian. The attacks included the massacre at a mosque in Christchurch, an alleged attempted bombing of an Invasion Day rally in Perth, a foiled plot in Perth to attack mosques and the Bondi shooting in December.

Burke added that radicalisation now more commonly occured online, rather than being imported. He said:

double quotation markWhere we once only had to look at radicalisation potentially being something that might come across our border, it now comes across a browser. Where radicalisation used to involve – that you might have to go to a training camp in Afghanistan – it now comes to you in an algorithm.

Minister for home affairs, Tony Burke. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

‘So lucky’ that Invasion Day rally bomb did not go off, says Burke

Sarah Basford Canales

Tony Burke considers Australia “so lucky” that an alleged attempted terrorist attack against Indigenous Australians on 26 January did no harm.

In an address at an ANU National Security College dinner last night, the home affairs minister discussed the incident at this year’s Invasion Day rally in Perth attended by more than 2,500 people.

Western Australian police allege a 31-year-old man threw a homemade fragment bomb containing screws and ball-bearings surrounded by explosive liquid. The device did not detonate.

In Canberra, Burke told the audience:

double quotation markThe Australia Day arrest in Perth, for a number of reasons, it didn’t receive the publicity that it really should have. But can I just say – we got so lucky. We got so lucky.

This was not a stunt. The person who threw the pipe bomb into the middle of a crowd of First Nations protesters believed that – if you look at what it was – this was something where there was a reasonable expectation it would have gone off, and the number of people who then would have been killed. The fact that that didn’t happen is not through any planning. We just got lucky.