David Speer
A man armed with a knife kills five women and a male security guard at a Bondi Junction shopping centre. The majority of those he injured during the stabbing spree were also women. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb says it’s “obvious” to her that the offender “focused on women and avoided the men”.
Targeting women, however, is not deemed an act of terrorism.
Days later, a 16-year-old boy armed with a knife stabs a bishop and a priest at an Assyrian church in Sydney’s west. Within hours, it’s labelled a terrorist incident. Commissioner Webb made the call on grounds the attack was “religiously motivated”.
Both these shocking incidents were obviously terrifying. Both involved extreme violence. Both caused fear in the community. So why was one labelled terrorism while the other was not? Is targeting someone for being a woman somehow less serious than targeting someone for their religious views?
Clearly not, but police insist they can only act with the evidence before them and within the law.
What constitutes a terror incident
In Australia, a terrorist act is defined as one that “intends to coerce or influence the public or any government by intimidation to advance a political, religious or ideological cause”.
In the case of the Wakeley attack, police reached a speedy conclusion this was religiously motivated. Too speedy for some. Federal MP Dai Le said she felt “sick in the stomach” about the terrorism declaration, worried it would only worsen community cohesion.
Lebanese Muslim Association Secretary Gamel Kheir said the mental state of the 16-year-old was still unclear and “surely there was time for the police to do a more thorough investigation and a review before they labelled it a terrorist act”.
Commissioner Webb says she can understand these concerns and points out that the declaration of a “terrorist incident” doesn’t mean the child will necessarily be charged with a “terrorist offence”.
Declaring this a “terrorist incident” was important, she says, to trigger “detention, access, and search powers” and cooperation with federal agencies to quickly establish what’s happened and whether there are any ongoing threats to the community.
In other words, this was a necessary tool to deploy in the circumstances, despite the risks in doing so.
What about in Bondi Junction…
Given heightened community tension over the war in Gaza, any declaration of a religiously-motivated terrorist incident would presumably not be done lightly. Police commissioners are well aware of what’s at stake.
The fact Commissioner Webb’s decision was backed in so swiftly and publicly by the Federal Police Commissioner and the Director General of ASIO suggests an effort to demonstrate this was beyond doubt.
Security agencies don’t want any impression they will pull punches on declaring something to be a terrorist incident because of the current environment.
So, what about the earlier decision to quickly declare that the Bondi Junction attack was not an act of terrorism?
If the perpetrator Joel Cauchi had an “obvious” focus on attacking women, why doesn’t this fit the definition of an “ideological” motivation?
Put simply, Commissioner Webb acknowledges they aren’t entirely sure what was going on in his mind. Police have only cited “mental health issues” and are continuing to put pieces of the puzzle together.
Was he inspired by an “incel” (involuntarily celibate) ideology, which involves a hatred of women? Police don’t know. Cauchi’s devastated father Andrew says his son “wanted a girlfriend and he has no social skills, and he was frustrated out of his brain”.
Debate over definitions is inevitable
In November last year, a Canadian court sentenced a man to life in prison for an “incel” inspired terrorist attack. The offender was 17 years old when he fatally stabbed a woman in 2020. It was the first time gender-based violence was labelled terrorism in Canada.
Independent MP Zoe Daniel is amongst those calling for a much more robust approach to gender-based violence in Australia. While not suggesting the Bondi Junction attack should necessarily be labelled terrorism, she does argue “mental health issues should not be cover for violence against women”.
Given these two horrific attacks happened within days of each other in the same city, the debate over how they’ve been differently labelled is perhaps inevitable.
It would be unfair to suggest NSW police — or federal agencies — showed any more or less seriousness in their response to either. Indeed, police on the frontline, in both cases, demonstrated enormous courage in extremely difficult circumstances.
The police inspector who confronted and shot dead Cauchi has been hailed a hero. Those who responded to the Wakeley attack were confronted with chaotic scenes when an angry mob turned on them. Two officers were injured.
The different definitions, however, has opened debate over what defines an ideologically motivated attack, and whether deliberately targeting women should count as an act of terror.
David Speers is National Political Lead and host of Insiders, which airs on ABC TV at 9am on Sunday or on iview.
The World Observer Media produces a daily online newspaper, a daily Arabic online newspaper and a monthly printed Arabic/English magazine and a weekly printed Arabic/English newspaper.
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