Liberals have hit back at ASIO chief Duncan Lewis’s phone calls to Coalition MPs urging them to use soothing language when publicly discussing violent extremism. Picture: Ray Strange
Liberal MPs say politicians have a duty to engage in an “open and honest” debate about Islamic extremism, and one senator has warned that telephone calls from the nation’s top spy chief about how to talk about radicalisation could dampen free speech.
The Australian yesterday revealed that ASIO director-general Duncan Lewis had phoned Coalition MPs to urge them to use soothing language when publicly discussing violent extremism, as had been the approach of Malcolm Turnbull.
Declaring the phone calls a “very unwelcome revelation”, West Australian Liberal senator Dean Smith said it was “not the behaviour” that people would expect from the head of Australia’s primary intelligence agency.
“The risk is that this has a chilling effect on the ability of MPs and the community to exercise free speech on these matters,” Senator Smith told The Australian.
“These sorts of things are better said publicly than left to operate in the shadows of the Australian community. I would argue for an honest and respectful debate about Islam and all religions in Australia.” Senator Smith said he had not been called by Mr Lewis.
Victorian
MP Michael Sukkar and Tasmanian MP Andrew Nikolic said the country
could not afford to shy away from a frank conversation on national
security and countering terrorism.
Mr Nikolic, a former brigadier who served with Mr Lewis in the army for 30 years, said while police and security agencies were crucial in protecting the nation and would “always help inform policy”, MPs needed to be free to discuss confronting issues.
Mr Nikolic said he was not one of the MPs Mr Lewis had contacted.
“In the case of national security, our police and security agencies have a vital role to play, but it’s for members of parliament to have an open and frank discussion and people would expect us to have (that) discussion,” Mr Nikolic said. “We should never shy away from debates. When it comes to national security then the head of ASIO and the AFP and others are prominent voices in that debate.”
Mr Sukkar agreed that members of parliament should be free to receive valuable advice from security experts and then “make their own judgments”.
“I believe that we have a duty and obligation to openly and frankly discuss the big issues of our time and Islamic radicalisation is one of those that quite frankly the Australian public and our constituents expect us to speak openly about,” he said.
Reports of the telephone calls stirred Queensland Liberal MP Andrew Laming to say it could appear as though Mr Lewis was playing politics.
“I just note that certainly there can be briefings from security agencies and partyrooms in Canberra benefit from those intermittently,” Mr Laming told Sky News.
“That’s by far the most helpful way of transmitting this information.”
Some Liberals believe the Prime Minister or his office encouraged Mr Lewis’s phone calls to MPs after being impressed by a briefing he gave state and territory leaders.
While a number of Liberals are angry at what they see as an improper intervention by Mr Lewis into legitimate political issues, others said they had no problem with the ASIO head, a former SAS commander, talking to MPs about the counter-terrorism debate.
Mr Lewis gave an interview to Sunday papers published by News Corp (also publisher of The Australian) on Thursday last week that was widely seen as a slapdown of Tony Abbott. Two days earlier on Sky News, the former prime minister called for a religious “reformation” of Islam, although Mr Lewis did not name Mr Abbott in his interview.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said yesterday it was appropriate for Mr Lewis to speak out if the debate on counter-terrorism in Australia was concerning him.
“If the director-general of ASIO has formed the view that a public debate in Australia has the potential to hamper the work that his organisation is undertaking in relation to counter-terrorism then of course it’s appropriate for him to speak out,” she said.
Victorian Liberal MP Dan Tehan, chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, said on ABC radio that terrorism was a real threat and the director-general would have been doing what he thought was in the “best interest” of the nation.
The Turnbull government has risked a rift over its message to Muslim Australia after a number of conservative MPs, including some cabinet ministers, criticised Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohammed’s leadership following the Paris terrorist attacks and warned of a “problem within Islam”.
The Prime Minister has made repeated calls for greater unity with Muslim communities to defeat Islamist extremism and said a “culture of mutual respect” was essential to preventing terrorists from turning Australians against each other.
Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Alan Tudge, who also said he was not phoned by Mr Lewis, declared it was “perfectly reasonable” for the ASIO head to “call whomever he likes”. “If he’s calling members of parliament, they will no doubt listen very respectfully to what he has to say,” Mr Tudge told Sky News.
“He’s a very highly regarded figure in charge of an organisation that does exceptionally good work and those people would listen to that advice, take it on board but ultimately would make their own decisions as well.”
Bill Shorten said it should not be up to Mr Lewis to contact Liberal MPs and ask them not to make “inflammatory comments”.
“Malcolm Turnbull needs to rein into line the far right wing of his political party and not leave it to our security agencies,” the Opposition Leader said. “Our security agencies’ time is better spent catching terrorists and preventing crime than having to ring up recalcitrant Liberal backbenchers to explain to them the basics.”
West Australian Liberal backbencher Luke Simpkins said he had not been contacted by Mr Lewis but would listen if he called and decide for himself what he said publicly on Islam and other issues. “I won’t be told by anybody what to say,” he said.
Craig Kelly, a NSW Liberal MP who has called for a debate on Islamic extremism without the “tyranny of political correctness”, said he did not object to Mr Lewis ringing parliamentarians and “whispering in their ear”.
“It’s not something that should be done publicly,” he said.
Tasmanian MP Eric Hutchinson, who said he did not talk to Mr Lewis, said he would write his own script.
“But if you can’t listen to people and sometimes take advice then you’re going backwards,” he said. “I think Australians are really a tolerant people and the issue for the faith is that they are having their faith misrepresented. And the Muslim faith is being misrepresented by people who are acting not in the name of Islam but they’re acting in a way that is fundamentally evil.”
Additional reporting: Tessa Akerman, Mark Coultan
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