ABC Radio National - Asia Pacific Program

The Australian government is turning up the heat on people smugglers with an announcement that it wants to widen the brief of the country's security intelligence agency, ASIO, to include those who transport asylum seekers for cash. The new powers will also apply to investigating drug networks, in an important widening of ASIO's previously domestic focus. The announcement comes a day after the release of Canberra's new counter-terrorism policy, which has attracted some criticism for a lack of initiatives.

Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speakers: Professor Clive Williams, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University; Robert McClelland, Australia's Attorney General; Senator Russell Trood, chair, Australian Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee

MOTTRAM: Hard on the heels of the counter-terrorism policy release came news that the government wants to deploy the domestic spy agency, ASIO, in a significantly expanded role .. reaching beyond the nation's borders and beyond its usual brief of threats to national security and into crime. The government looks set to get the Parliament's agreement to legislation to allow ASIO to use it's mainly intelligence gathering role in the pursuit of people smugglers and drug networks. The minister responsible, Attorney General Robert McClelland on the aim of the new laws.

McCLELLAND: Giving ASIO the power to utilise its powers including surveillance powers in respect to the protection of australia's border integrity from serious threats which clearly includes people smuggling.

MOTTRAM: It's a response in particular to regional refugee issue and in an election year in Australia, to the particular political problem of boat arrivals. The new Australian laws are set to create new offences and put in place penalties ranging up to $AU220,000 or 20 years jail for people smuggling offences. Already the Australian Opposition has signalled it's support, but it continues to claim the people smugglers are encouraged by the Labor Government's less harsh policies towards boat arrivals - a claim strongly disputed by refugee agencies, including the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees. At the same time, analysts have been examining the Rudd government's counter-terrorism White Paper. The policy measures in the paper are few but they've won some support. Professor Clive Williams is the director of terrorism studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. He says a biometric visa measure, requiring applicants from 10 designated risk countries to provide fingerprints and facial images, is needed.

WILLIAMS: One of the concerns is people travelling to Australia using false documentation and this measure is going to be aimed at those countries where people are most likely to originate from.

MOTTRAM: The 10 countries Australia will focus on for this measure are not yet known .. because it's to be a collaborative measure with the United Kingdom. Attorney General Robert McClelland again.

McCLELLAND: There'll be 20 regions or countries that we'll focus on and we'll be working with the British to work out where they have coverage and of course, rather than duplicating their coverage where we may be able to value-add to theirs and respectively get the benefit of where they're locating their technologies.

MOTTRAM: Mr McClelland wouldn't be drawn on whether Indonesia would be included for the new measures, given continuing Australian concern about terror operations there - issues that are likely to be raised during a coming visit to Australia by Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Clive Williams doesn't believe the measures need to be applied to Indonesia, which he says has a largely domestically contained threat. He says the UK is looking at including Somalia, Yemen, North Africa and Pakistan on it's list. Bangladesh he says should be added and Australia should add India.

WILLIAMS: India's a source country for terrorism. It's also a conduit country for terrorism so I don't think any list that didn't have India on it would be really very valuable to us.

MOTTRAM: A key message of the paper is that so-called home-grown terrorism is a now a persistent and permanent feature of Australia's security environment. Clive Williams says Australian convictions on terrorism-related offences in recent years, though numbering only about 20 since 2001, make the point that the threat is real.

WILLIAMS: If the Pendennis group in Melbourne or Sydney or the Neath group in Victoria had been able to do what they'd planned to do we'd be looking at a lot of dead people, so it clearly is a very important issue.

MOTTRAM: And former foreign affairs academic, now Liberal opposition senator Russell Trood says domestically, there's a big omission from the report.

TROOD: If home-grown terrorism is now a serious problem then there is no strategy in this white paper to address it very effectively.

MOTTRAM: Clive Williams has also warned that a problem remains with young Australians travelling abroad for training in terrorism and returning to carry out attacks. He's also called for a review to ensure Australian government counter- and anti-terrorism funds are being spent on the basis of threat.