Sky News PM Agenda with David Speers
E&OE
David Speers:
Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, thanks for your time. In the wake of what happened Friday, many once again are asking how does it happen, how does a 15-year-old end up so radicalised that they are going to do something like this. This morning one of this gunman’s classmates has been arrested, following some Facebook posts which are quite obscene as well. So clearly we’re not talking about a one-off here, there are people who are sympathetic to these sorts of views. From your experience, how is this happening?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Well, you have to understand why these young people are doing what they are doing. And that’s really the question that I’ve been asking. Prime Minister Abbott at the time, double hatted me and gave me responsibility not just in the Social Services area, but also in Attorney-General’s to undertake community engagement, to look at it and what was happening in the CVE space. From a social policy perspective you have to ask yourself why are these young people doing that. What makes a young 15-year-old do this? What made the young man from Toowoomba do what he did, the young boy from Epping boy’s high school undertake this? If you step back and look at it as a social issue with a national security perspective, then you can start to see why these young people are marginalised, what is the reason for their disengagement. Some of the kids who do this want to go over there, as I said this morning, to rape, plunder and pillage. One leading Imam indicated to me that these kids, he deals with young boys, second and some third generation, he has helped some of them on the road back. They think that they are going over there to play with AK-47’s, get drugs and women and at night-time go off to what they were doing here, go off to McDonalds and do other things. This is in the words of one leading Imam who shared it with me.
David Speers:
Then this is the important point. They are not just preyed upon, victims, they are young men in particular who actively want to go and do this.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells: There are young men, that’s the realisation, there are young men who want to go over, maybe they’ve watched one too many Hollywood films. What is it in their lives that has pushed them to the point where at their most vulnerable they are preyed upon and susceptible to undertake this fatal step. That is one group. Another group is kids who really want to go over and do this. This is their new way to rebel as a one leading Muslim figure told me. A new way to rebel.
David Speers:
That is an interesting point, because we have all experienced teenage years and rebelling in different ways, whether it’s drinking or whatever. Is this part of it? Is this an extreme version of a teenager rebelling?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
When young people go off the rails, young people today, given what they are exposed to can go off the rails for all sorts of reasons. If the person who befriends them at the most vulnerable point is a drug dealer, they will turn to drugs. If the person that befriends them is in a gang, they will turn to that gang. If the person who befriends them is a gambler they will turn to gambling. What we are seeing in these instances is young people being preyed upon. I have been told of instances where young people are actually being approached at the margins. Since Prime Minister Abbott gave me this responsibility in May, I wrote to 160 organisations and I have spent my time virtually going door-to-door, around Australia, behind closed doors, having very frank and open discussions with organisations, some of whom are dealing better with this issue than others.
David Speers:
So in dealing with this issue then, there are responsibilities for governments, federal and state, responsibility for police, there’s responsibilities for Muslim community leaders, for the schools and for the parents as well obviously. What needs to happen that’s not happening right now, in particular schools, programmes, de-radicalisation programmes… they’re adequate?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Look David, I’ve been saying this for the months. The front line of this is the families, the home. Particularly in a home- and I’ve grown up in a bi-cultural bi-lingual home where your parents may not speak English properly or there are other issues at home. We now need to put in place practical measures so that we work with those communities. They have to own the problem as well as the solution and that’s really where I think we now need to put our resources. I welcome today people like Jamal Rifi coming out and saying we all need to deal with the terror within. All communities that come to a multicultural country at one stage or other have dealt with challenges in their communities.
David Speers:
How do you do that? Let’s talk practically here. Is it putting some sort of counsellor in schools that are deemed to be at risk, who can keep an eye out keep specifically, that’s their job, and get in and target those going off the a rails in that direction?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
I think there are a couple of things here, David. Because our focus has been on the national security end and please, I do the not in any way want to detract from the important work that is being done in the national security space, this is a national security issue. But as far as these young people are concerned, we have to look at the ways that we assist, we empower their families. We provide them with somewhere where they can go with their information, not just the National Security Hotline, not just the police. There has to be a road that they can go to before the airport. There has to be a road after the airport. If we are stopping them at the airport then these kids are even more motivated than they otherwise would be after they’ve been stopped at the airport. So what we now need to look at is look at those places and how we can support those people around them, whether it’s the schools, the families, the mothers. I have spoken to some of the mothers. Some of those mothers are at their wits end. They are so worried about their children. They don’t know where their children are going. Now they are paranoid that’s where their children are going. That’s creating even more tensions within families. So this is what I have seen at the grass-roots of these communities and this is where we need to work with them, to develop in practical ways those places where we can lend support. We cannot as a government do that alone. There has to be willingness on both sides.
David Speers:
What about the radicals who are reaching out to these kids? There’s limits to how much you can do about the Islamic State leaders on the other side of the world, the UK but what about those who are hanging around outside the mosque, handing out material that is pretty radical, is pretty extreme? What of can be done about that?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Well, part of a more open and direct dialogue with the communities is knowing who those people are, so then we can be take appropriate action, whether it be under the various legislation that is available to us and the authorities can take the appropriate action. We have got to know who those people are. If we don’t have good intelligence on the ground then we’re not going to have that. At the moment what appears to have happened, I have seen it first hand, there has been a clamping up, there has been a closing of the ranks, because if your only option available or one of the limited options available to you is to ring a National Security Hotline where your child could end a up in a very difficult circumstance, a mother or a father is going to think twice, understandably, about taking that step. That’s why there have to be other steps along the way. That’s really where I’m coming from. I’m saying let’s not detract from the importance of this as a national security issue but let’s look at it from the social perspective. Let’s look at it from the social services perspective. Look at how we can better assist the prevention end of the angle rather than the sharp end.
David Speers:
You’re talking about a non-government middle agency that can do that work, a middle ground?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
David, I have spent a lot of time talking behind closed doors in very frank discussions with the Muslim community and other people in Muslim communities around Australia. There are suggestions that have been put to me. I will certainly be providing advice to Prime Minister Turnbull, to Attorney-General Brandis, in relation to my findings around Australia. Let’s look at more ways that we can approach this in a more constructive way, but more importantly in a more practical way, at the grass-roots of these communities. Let’s deal with the issue at the grass-roots, from another angle.
David Speers:
We look forward to hearing more about your progress on that, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and thank you for joining us.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Thank you.
[Ends]