Warning, parents: if your teenager likes alternative music and is drawn to student politics and environmental activism, they could be on the path to violent radicalisation.
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So suggests a "radicalisation kit" released by the government for use in schools, which has been roundly mocked since it emerged on Thursday night, which links alternative music and left-wing activism with terrorism.
But two of the authors of the report have defended their work, saying it was never intended to be released in schools, and the notion the authors had equated alternative music and terrorism was "preposterous".
"I got into studying politics by listening to The Clash in the first place," associate professor Pete Lentini said.
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Terrorism Michael Keenan launched the "Radicalisation Awareness Information Kit" on Monday. It is available for download on the government's Living Safe Together website, and Mr Keenan said he had written to all state and territory education ministers to encourage them to share and promote the kit in their schools.
It contained a case study on a young woman, Karen, detailing her descent from an alternative-music loving, student politics-practicing environmentalist to a violent extremist.
After a tumultuous few years during which she clashed with police and was arrested multiple times for direct action protecting old-growth forests, Karen finally grew tired of the in-fighting in the environment movement, and realised she couldn't effect change unless she worked with the mainstream.
"She now thinks illegal or aggressive direct-action campaigns only produce short-term solutions, and she is much more interested in working towards developing a sustainable solution using the legal system," the booklet concludes.
The booklet prompted disbelief and mockery, with Melbourne Greens MP Adam Bandt sarcastically noting it equated alternative music with terrorism.
On Friday, the hashtag #freekaren was trending on Twitter.
One of the authors of the booklet, Emeritus Professor Gary Bouma, told Fairfax Media the kit was never intended to be distributed to schools, and the academics were taken aback when the government released it on Monday.
"It's a report we produced two years ago for informing professionals in social services, etcetera - not to be distributed to children."
Dr Lentini took umbrage with the suggestion that the case studies were fictitious.
He said that as part of the research, the team had interviewed dozens of former radicals and terrorists over three years, including the woman they euphemistically called "Karen".
"That [detail about alternative music] was taken from an interview and she would have included that because she felt that it was relevant to her story. So the view that we're linking alternative music and terrorism is preposterous. I love that sort of music myself," Dr Lentini said.
"In total, members of the team would have conducted something like three dozen interviews with former radicals and terrorists.
"The research was comprehensive and didn't focus on one form of violence or one social group, so there was always the possibility that somebody was going to get upset about something."
Jonathan La Nauze - acting campaigns director of the Australian Conservation Movement - said the kits should be withdrawn.
"I have to admit, at first it was funny, because I think it was just absurd," he said.
"And then I realised this kit is going out to thousands of school kids around the country, and this is the view they're being given of campaigns to save the Great Barrier Reef, and the Franklin Dam and other things which benefit us all ... and to associate that with something violent and anti-social and to give that to our school kids is very disturbing."
Associate lecturer and security and civil-military relations expert David Olney, from the University of Adelaide, said of the booklet: "It's not good, but neither is it bad".
The problem, he said, was its lack of subtlety.
"Radical thought and radical belief do not necessarily lead to violence," he said.
"You can have radical thoughts that change the world for good; the suffragettes for example. No one's picked up on that because that's a thought that's become normalised. And the environment movement is well on the way to becoming normalised."
The booklet, Mr Olney said, should have made it clear that there was a "spectrum" of radical thought, much of which did not involve violence.
"This is the problem with writing something by committee."
Greens leader Richard Di Natale called for the government to "recall and recycle" the document.
"To imply that exercising a legitimate democratic right and calling for environmental protection is a gateway to violent extremism is breathtaking."
A spokeswoman for Mr Keenan said the booklet was developed in conjunction with experts from Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Centre, who undertook the research that was the basis of the case studies.
"The purpose of the booklet is to help people (whether they be teachers, friends, parents, social workers, coaches) to make better informed decisions about whether someone they know may have radicalised to the point they will use violence to achieve a political, religious or an ideological goal - and importantly, how to help."
