Police and the federal government “are not the enemies” of Islam, the justice minister Michael Keenan has said in an address aimed in part at reassuring Australia’s Muslim community in the wake of social tensions.
Keenan, who is also the minister assisting the prime minister on counter-terrorism, spoke about the “significant ongoing threat of terrorism” during an address to the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Friday.
He moved to reassure Australia’s Muslim population that counter-terrorism measures were not aimed solely at them.
“Critics have attacked the police for targeting the Islamic community,” Keenan said. “But as I have said many times, we are not the enemies of Islam nor the enemies of any other religion. This is not about targeting Muslims.
“We should all be smart enough not to confuse the act of a violent extremist minority with the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Australian Muslims. However, our law enforcement agencies have a job to do. They must protect the community and they will apply our laws equally and without discrimination in order to do so.”
The minister said that countering violent extremism programs goes hand in hand with programs that promote social cohesion.
“If we can prevent vulnerable people from feeling further alienated by ensuring they have a sense of belonging or are part of a strong and supportive community, then we can stop some from becoming susceptible to violent extremism in the first place,” he said.
“We manage our diversity in a way that should be the model for the rest of the world and we have avoided the mistakes that I think are evident elsewhere. We have done this in the face of many challenges and we should reaffirm our commitment to it undeterred by the new security threat.”
He was speaking just days after the head of one of the country’s biggest Muslim organisations panned the government’s deradicalisation program as outdated and pointless.
Samier Dandan, the president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, said that the government only picked safe choices for consultations, which he labelled “box-ticking exercises”.
"[They are] opportunities for these departments to feel satisfied that they have ‘consulted’ with the Muslim community, without actually having done anything constructive,” he wrote in an op-ed on the association’s website. “It boggles the mind, then, that it would continue to exclude legitimate Muslim voices and widely accepted research from the discussions about how to tackle radicalisation.
“It exacerbates an environment of disaffection and disempowerment and does nothing but isolate the very community that best understands these challenges.”
Race relations have reached a low ebb following the release of the government’s anti-terrorism laws, which many Muslims say have dredged up Islamophobia in the community by equating terrorism with Islam.
The appearance of government MP George Christensen at the anti-Islamic Reclaim Australia protests last weekend has further strained relations.
Keenan insisted that the government was spending money on social cohesion and community-based anti-extremism programs, including $12m on the living safely together program which targets individuals at risk of radicalisation.
Critics of the government’s approach to deradicalisation have accused the Coalition of drumming up fear of terrorism in order to boost its electoral popularity on a national security platform.
Keenan highlighted the threat posed by terrorism during his Lowy Institute speech.
“It is no exaggeration to state that Australians are facing the most significant ongoing threat from terrorism in our nation’s history,” he said. “This government is not and has never been ignorant of the threat.
“The threat of terrorism has not been underestimated by your government. Our determined responses are far reaching. The threat of terrorism is dynamic but so is the resolve of this government to keep Australians safe.”