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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Last month police arrested two people accused of possessing extremist material.

The arrests came at the same time as Australia’s security agencies were warning of an increase in far-right extremist activity.

But now Australian officials have introduced new terminology to talk about the threats we face -- and are carefully avoiding the term "right-wing".

Today, researcher at the Lowy Institute Lydia Khalil what’s behind this change… and why the language we use to describe a threat matters.

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RUBY:

Lydia, last month, there were two arrests that took place in South Australia. What happened and why were you particularly interested in these arrests?

LYDIA:

Well, I track terrorism and extremism as part of my research work. And so we got news that there were these arrests that were happening in South Australia.

Archival tape -- News Reporter 1:

“Police swooped on two men in the northern suburbs...”

LYDIA:

And they flagged that they had to do with some sort of terrorism related arrests.

Archival tape -- Unknown Person 1:

“What I can say is obviously we were concerned. We were briefed. It's a matter before the courts at the moment.”

LYDIA:

What was curious to me is that they weren't very specific about any of the detail, which, OK, on the details and who it was exactly. Sometimes agencies are a bit reticent. So that's no surprise. But what was surprising is that they didn't even make any reference to the type of group that these people were involved in, what type of terrorism and extremism we were dealing with here, what potentially would motivate these individuals that they had been, you know, clearly tracking for a long time.

Archival tape -- Unknown Person 2:

“There's been an ongoing investigation, which, as you're aware, resulted in two men being arrested in relation to violent extremism. But I can assure the community that the assessment of these two was that they did not pose a threat to the community at this point in time…”

LYDIA:

And also, you know, ASIO had flagged over the years that its right wing extremism caseload has shot up. So for me, I was curious, well did it have to do with that or did it have to do with, you know, jihadist terrorism that we've been kind of grappling for a number of decades now or any other type of group?

As a researcher and analyst would do you know you kind of follow the news. You try to find out more information from the press briefings, reach out to any contacts that you have.

But it wasn't really until the actual members of the movement who were related to these arrests announced on Telegram.

Archival tape -- National Socialist Network Member:

“Apparently at five o'clock this morning, the South Australian Police force...”

LYDIA:

That they had happened and we were able to piece together, ok, it's related to this group.

Archival tape -- National Socialist Network Member:

“And the Australian Federal Police raided the homes of about 15 of our Adelaide members.”

LYDIA:

And the group was the National Socialist Network, which is a neo-Nazi group that's emerged out of Australia.

Archival tape -- National Socialist Network Member:

“A harassment campaign against us and our members. They're not going to shake our morale. This only strengthens us.”

LYDIA:

So essentially, we found out from the group itself rather than government, what those arrests were related to.

RUBY:

Right, so members of the National Socialist Network, which is a far-right organisation were arrested, but what did police say about why they made those arrests?

LYDIA:

So not much. They said you know they had been tracking these individuals arrested. They had possession of material, and they said that they arrested them for ideologically motivated violence. So to me, that could mean anything. And it was kind of a new term that ASIO's been using. So that also piqued my curiosity as well.

RUBY:

Mm can you tell me more about that term - ideologically motivated violence? What does it mean in this context?

LYDIA:

Yes. So this is, this is a new change.

Archival tape -- Mike Burgess:

“Welcome to ASIO and welcome to the Ben Chifley building.”

LYDIA:

So in March of this year, the director general of ASIO, Mike Burgess, he delivers the annual threat assessment.

Archival tape -- Mike Burgess:

“Now, visitors to this building are often surprised how normal our people look. The Hollywood version of spies and spy catchers is a long way from reality.”

LYDIA:

He's done this for a couple of years now. And when he delivered the threat assessment, he also made an announcement.

Archival tape -- Mike Burgess:

“At ASIO we are conscious the names and labels we use are important, words matter. They can be very powerful and how you frame an issue and how they cause people to think about issues.”

LYDIA:

And that announcement is centred around the terminology, and he said that ASIO will be changing the language that they use to describe violent threats, if violent extremist threats that they're dealing with.

Archival tape -- Mike Burgess:

“So from today will be changing the language we use. When we talk about violent threats, we counter.”

LYDIA:

So he now refers to or the agency refers to, two broad categories.

Archival tape -- Mike Burgess:

“Religiously motivated violent extremism and ideologically motivated violent extremism.”

LYDIA:

So these are two new terms ASIO is using to talk about extremism in Australia.

RUBY:

Mm and so what does this change in language tell us about the way ASIO is approaching tackling extremism?

LYDIA:

ASIO is saying that they're making this change because a lot of times people are motivated by niche issues.

Archival tape -- Mike Burgess:

“Put simply, the current labels are no longer fit for purpose, they no longer adequately describe the phenomenon we are seeing.”

LYDIA:

And a lot of the extremist groups and movements that we see today do not fall cleanly within what is commonly understood to be the left/right wing political spectrum. That is ASIO's official rationale. And if you look at the Director Burgess's speech, that's what he refers to.

Archival tape -- Mike Burgess:

“As an example, thinking about the proliferation of violent groups, subscribe to various political ideologies, it's unhelpful to characterise groups such as simply extreme left wing or extreme right wing. ASIO does not investigate people solely for their political beliefs.”

LYDIA:

And therefore it's not useful to term something right wing extremism.

And I remember what I'm hearing that I said, well, this does not make any kind of sense to me.

As anyone, any student of extremist movements understands that extremism can be motivated by various issues, by various dogmas, by various political persuasions, various religions, but at the end of the day, it's all ideological, even jihadists who have an element of religion within their movements. It is an ideology that is informed by a religious belief.

And so to separate the two into religiously motivated and ideologically motivated just doesn't make sense. It doesn't add any clarity. It doesn't help us to understand any of the concepts and to organise our thinking about these groups.

And by way of comparison, you saw the same things in the United States, so under Trump and he actually even before that, there was a reluctance to talk about right wing extremism. When you talk about, you know, militias or neo-Nazis or white supremacists or the way that right wing extremism is commonly understood.

But what the United States has done, instead of putting forward an overarching term, they've actually gotten a lot more specific. So they have seven different categories of different types of what we would normally associate with right wing extremism, whereas in the Australian context, they've just gone broad and it’s just very vague.

And it really signals that there has been a lot of political influence in these decisions, that it was kind of a nod to political pressure from right wing parties.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Lydia, we’ve seen members of a far-right organisation arrested recently, but there’s been a reluctance from security agencies to really be explicit about their ideology. You’re suggesting the reason for these changes could be political pressure, particularly from the conservative side of politics. What sort of pressure?

LYDIA:

So when we talk about right wing extremism, it is diverse. And I should preface this by saying I have no evidence, of course, that there's a clear link between this political pressure and ASIO's changes. So I want to put that out there, that there's no direct evidence of that.

But it's very, very hard to ignore because there has been a lot of pushback from right leaning political parties across democracies who do not want the term right wing at all associated with extremism because they feel like they have a sensitivity about how that relates to the right side of, of politics.

Archival tape -- Senator Fierravanti-Wells:

“Senator Fierravanti-Wells. Thank you, Director General. I'm not sure if you saw some of the comments that I've made recently directly on this point. Yes, I see you nodding.”

LYDIA:

You know, you've had senators in Australia here who've talked about that.

Archival tape -- Senator Fierravanti-Wells:

“Right is associated with conservatism in this country. And there are many people of conservative background who take exception to being charred with the brush. And I think that you do understand that your comments, particularly when you refer to them solely as right wing, has the potential to offend a lot of Australians.”

LYDIA:

They say that unfairly tarnishes a whole group of people who have a political persuasion as extremists.

Archival tape -- Senator Fierravanti-Wells:

“And I think that Minister Dutton's comments, if I can put it up, mopping up after this, was very clear. And that is that, you know, it doesn't really matter what spectrum they're on. If it's extremism, it's extremism…”

LYDIA:

But those same calls were being made by the Muslim community for decades. And we never changed our terms in the way that we talked about it. We always said that it was Islamist motivated violence. And so the question is, well, why now?

RUBY:

Right, and so do you think there are other factors here for why the language being used by security agencies is changing that go beyond possible political pressure?

LYDIA:

So this has a bit of a context. So there have been kind of moves recently to change the terminology about how we speak about these type of extremist movements, because, look, what we're seeing is, is a really different landscape to what we've seen previously when it came to kind of terrorism and extremism. You know, unfortunately, in a lot of people's minds, when you think terrorism, you kind of automatically go back to the 9/11 days and you think jihadism, you know, Islamist type of violence and stuff, because that's kind of what we've been dealing with. But that's by no means the only type of terrorist or extremist threat.

And over the years, we've seen that that kind of that landscape, that extremist landscape is really diversified over the years. So you can be talking about jihadist actors, Neo-Nazis, anti lock down protesters who advocate for violence, you know, violent conspiracy theorists, incel movements, anti women activists. There's a whole amalgam of the different things and law enforcement and government and and the researchers as well. You know, anyone who's been paying attention to these movements, there has been a struggle to identify and define and to parse out where they fit. And so there is a struggle kind of to identify what right wing extremism exactly is.

But while the term right wing extremism is slightly contested, there is a common understanding of what it is. And the thing with this type of extremism, normally what we would associate with right wing extremism, broadly defined, is an anti-democratic opposition to equality. That's how I would term it, how a lot of different researchers and scholars have termed it and how it's commonly understood within government, whatever form that takes, whether it's white supremacy, neo-Nazi, violent conspiracies, they all have that in common.

And all of this is kind of a look, it might seem kind of a bureaucratic point or an overly academic point. I mean, who cares really about all this stuff? But I think it's important in terms of having clarity of understanding and thought in what we're, what we're dealing with.

RUBY:

What are the real world consequences of not labelling a threat specifically?

LYDIA:

Well look, I mean, I kind of I make a medical analogy to it. It's like imagine if you go to the doctor and you say, oh, there's something wrong with your torso. OK, well, that could mean that I have a heart condition or something's wrong with my intestines or my lungs or what exactly are we talking about here? And so to have to divide the body and its ailments in terms of general blocks like that, we would never accept that in terms of how we would look at identifying medical problems or categorising those.

Similarly to political and extremist movements and ideas. We need to know what it is we're dealing with in order to put resources to it, in order to potentially prescribe it, in order for society to understand the types of issues, potentially threats that our multicultural, democratic society is dealing with. So you can have the public on board with you understanding what you know, the security agencies are doing, what government is doing to keep us safe.

And it's also important to, you know, help people like me and researchers understand and parse out in order to explain and to advise about these different kinds of threats. So it has a number of real practical implications.

And the act of naming is really important as well. When you name something, you identify it, you identify where it places in our society, in the spectrum. It denotes priorities. It denotes what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. So this power of naming is really, really critical. And I think in ways and a lot of ways that maybe we don't consciously absorb, but we all know to be true.

RUBY:

Lydia, thank you so much for your time today.

LYDIA:

Thanks for having me. It's really great to talk to you.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

One million people aged 40 to 49 in NSW are now able to register their interest to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

The vaccinations will be available within weeks, according to the NSW government. The announcement came the same day the state government opened its first mass vaccination hub in Sydney.

And the United States government has said it’s "deeply concerned" about ongoing violence in East Jerusalem.

More than 300 Palestinians were injured after Israeli police attacked protestors gathered near the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israeli officials said 18 police officers sustained injuries.

The protests were in response to attempts to evict several Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem. Following international criticism, the Israeli government has announced it will delay the planned evictions.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see you tomorrow.

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