Not even terrorism is above the political blame-game

Mark Kenny

Published: June 8 2017 - 3:29PM

The country's political leaders will emerge from the Council of Australian Governments meeting in Hobart on Friday in the standard manner, emphasising their shared commitment to national problem-solving.

Such unity would never be more called for than at the end of a harrowing week scarred by terrorist brutalities, which stole three brilliant Australian lives.

Yet in the few days since, squalid political price-taking has already crept into the public space, and it began right at the top.

Within hours of the Brighton siege in suburban Melbourne, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was firing off barbs at the state government as a display of his hardened resolve against "Islamist terrorism". Why, Turnbull asked pointedly, was the gunman Yacqub Khayre on parole?

Yet the former practising lawyer already knew the answer. Khayre had been been charged with a violent crime for which the evidence had seen him convicted in court, sentenced, imprisoned, and eventually, paroled.

Turnbull's personal anger at the mindless futility of the Brighton siege and the London attacks, was fitting enough. As was his eagerness to pivot from his past emphasis on multiculturalism in the acute trauma of the moment. But the partisan note he stuck was discordant.

Daniel Andrews' bluff-calling response – offering to cede adjudication of parole applications to ASIO and the AFP amid the faintest national security concerns – was nonetheless, a tacit acceptance of the limitations of the Victorian criminal justice machinery. It was a win for Turnbull's point. Yet he read only its politics.

Rather than welcoming the Premier's preparedness to constructively engage, Turnbull again played the political angle, seeking to further diminish Andrews' prestige in the Garden State.

"I think many Victorians would be shaking their heads at the prospect that the Victorian Premier wants to abdicate his responsibility as leader of the government of Victoria," he said.

Turnbull has worked well with premiers in the past to establish indefinite post-sentence detention for convicted terrorists. Assuming he wants to extend that regime to non-terrorist violent offenders, he needs state co-operation.

In any event, voters could not care less which level of government or policing manages potential terrorist threats as long as it is done successfully – actual threats eliminated and potential ones identified.

Getting to that point means working together rather than pulling apart and fighting Jihadists rather than scoring points off each other, and engaging in tawdry inter-governmental blame-shifting.

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This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/not-even-terrorism-is-above-the-political-blamegame-20170608-gwn3fq.html