In the wake of Friday’s terror attack on Bourke Street in Melbourne, there have been calls for the government to review the pathway to Australian citizenship.
Minister for Home Affairs, the Hon Peter Dutton MP, stated that ‘we should look at the way in which people are on a pathway to citizenship… I have been very open about the cancellation of visas. The law applies very differently to someone who has Australian citizenship by birth as opposed to somebody who is here on a temporary status’.
The attacker, a thirty-year-old Somali-Australian, was known to state and federal police and had had his passport confiscated.
The Prime Minister, the Hon Scott Morrison MP, highlighted the extremist nature of the attack, remarking that ‘radical violent extremist Islam opposes our very way of life… I am the first to protect religious freedom in this country, but… there is a special responsibility on religious leaders to protect their religious communities’.
Dr Anne Aly MP, a counter-terrorism expert as well as a member for Labor, warned against ‘singling out religions and singling out communities… causing divisions where we don’t need divisions to be caused’.
Crime and enforcement had already become a critical issue of the upcoming Victorian state election, and will likely remain a focus in the final week of the campaign due to this attack.
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