Following the latest Melbourne terror attack, one senior AFP officer was quoted as saying: "The event yesterday for us is a reality check, even with the fall of the [Islamic State] caliphate ... the threat continues to be real."
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This comment was somewhat surprising given that such attacks are the new normal, and the fall of the caliphate was never likely to lead to a reduced terrorism threat in Australia.
Indeed, Islamic State has been encouraging revenge against the countries that were part of the US-led coalition that caused it to lose its physical caliphate in Syria and Iraq - and Australia is well-known to have been a key player.
The Sydney plot to bring down an Etihad flight in July 2017 was also intended as revenge - both against Australia for its part in the US-led coalition and against the UAE for hosting our RAAF contribution at its Al Minhad Airbase.
Vehicle and knife attacks are now fairly common because they are easy to undertake and may occur with little or no warning. They may or may not be linked to terrorism. In fact, the likelihood with lone-actor attacks is that mental issues are going to be the major contributing factor.
The security community in Australia is well aware that such attacks can occur at any time, and most downtown areas of Australian cities now have physical barriers in place to prevent vehicles being driven into pedestrians.
Major events are now commonly protected by movable barrier systems. Buses are a good option for blocking streets because they can be easily moved to allow emergency service vehicles to enter protected areas if necessary.
Given that lone-actor attacks are hard to predict, the other safeguard is to have city centre loudspeaker warning systems to advise the public what to do if an attack occurs, and sufficient police on hand to respond quickly and close down an incident before a perpetrator can cause many civilian casualties.
Response to the latest Melbourne attack was a good example of an effective warning system and police being on hand quickly to limit the damage.
The Melbourne attacker, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, was said to have been inspired by Islamic State, but mental issues seem to have been a more significant factor. An imam and friend of Shire Ali's family told The Age the 30-year-old had complained of being chased by "unseen people with spears" in recent weeks, and noted he had been worried about Shire Ali’s mental state.
The Prime Minister was quick to shift responsibility after the latest Melbourne attack to Muslim religious leaders, even though the main factor contributing to such attacks is the poor mental health structure in Australia - and federal and state underfunding of mental health facilities.
The Australian Medical Association in January commented that “currently Australia lacks an overarching mental health ‘architecture’. There is no agreed national design or structure that facilitates prevention or proper care for people with mental illness … Mental health and psychiatric care is grossly underfunded when compared to physical health.”
Among the startling figures quoted by the association - almost 64,000 people in Australia have a psychotic illness.
The association noted the need for: improved service delivery; significantly increased funding; improved coordination; robust workforce and infrastructure solutions; prevention, education and research, and; e-health/ telemedicine solutions.
The problem of inadequate mental health resources is not limited to Australia. In the UK there has been a similar trend of closing-down dedicated mental facilities and pushing people with mental problems into the general community. As a result, when people who should be in care become violent, police have to deal with the problem.
In response, in 2006 the London Metropolitan Police set up a “Fixated Threat Assessment Centre”, or FTAC, where police and mental health workers could work together in the same facility to identify potentially violent persons who might mount attacks. For privacy reasons, police do not have access to medical records and health workers do not have access to police records, but they work cooperatively to identify and manage "high-risk individuals" who could pose a threat to the community. This has been a very successful model.
The Queensland Police set up an FTAC in 2013, and Victoria established one in February 2018. It was announced in 2017 that Victoria's FTAC was to be staffed by 13 specialist police, forensic and mental health experts. Up to 300 people were expected to be processed in the centre's first year.
"We know that centres like this help identify high-risk individuals and have the potential to stop violent incidents before they occur," Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville said. Even so, the new FTAC in Melbourne was unfairly criticised for being "loopy", "illogical" and lacking an evidence base.
If Australia wants to be better positioned to anticipate and prevent lone-actor attacks, we need to put more resources into our mental health management systems, particularly in Muslim migrant communities that may not trust security authorities.
Clive Williams is a visiting professor at the ANU’s Centre for Military and Security Law and an adjunct professor at ADFA.
