Australian rightwing groups will remain an ‘enduring threat’

An annual report from Australia’s spy agency has stressed that the threat from extreme rightwing terrorism in the country has increased, and groups will remain an ‘enduring threat’.

The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation warned that ‘extreme rightwing groups in Australia are more cohesive and organised than they have been in previous years’, following similar warnings made in the UK over the last few months.

The killing of 49 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, for which 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant was charged, prompted renewed scrutiny of the far right by Australia’s Home Affairs department.

The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation maintains that the national terrorism threat level is remaining at ‘probable’ because ‘credible intelligence … indicates an intention and capability to conduct a terrorist attack in Australia’.

The Asio report linked the threat in Australia to the global context, where terrorist attacks are ‘now an indelible feature of the security environment’, with attacks like that in Christchurch, demonstrating that ‘it takes only a single individual to embrace and act on a violent extremist ideology to have a global impact’.