Daily London
“The initial assessment from the Philippine National Police is that the individuals rarely left their hotel, and there is no evidence to suggest they received training or underwent logistical preparation for their alleged attack,” she said.
“What this points to, and I will again advise this is a point-in-time assessment, is that these individuals are alleged to have acted alone.”
“There is no evidence to suggest these alleged offenders were part of a broader terrorist cell, or were directed by others to carry out an attack.”
However, she said, this did not mean the AFP currently believed the Akrams were in the Philippines “for tourism”.
Barrett stressed that the investigation was still in progress and the AFP’s findings were not finalised, and that updates to the public were restricted by the fact that the matter was currently before the courts.
“I really want to be clear that this is one of, if not the most important investigation that the AFP and our partners will ever, ever do,” she said.
“We have got a grieving community and we have got a community that is looking for answers, and that is my focus, and therefore I won’t do anything or say anything that would potentially jeopardise our investigation and our prosecution.”
She said the force also continued to target domestic extremism and welcomed the government’s plans to strengthen hate speech laws.
“I remain concerned about vulnerable adults and youth who are susceptible or open to manipulation by religious and other extremists who encourage violence or desensitise (them to) violence,” she said.
“Radicalisation and extremism can provide a pipeline of recruits to terror groups who are willing to use violence to advance their cause.”
She said investigators had been going through sermons “line by line” and sought legal advice over potential charges.
However, currently, while investigations were ongoing, Barrett said no prosecutions were underway.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said one of the aspects of the government’s independent Richardson review into the Bondi attack was overseas travel alerts.
“Obviously there are some countries where there is almost no valid tourism industry there at all, and it raises a very high level of alarm,” he said.
“There are other countries where there is a mixture of people going there for legitimate reasons and people going travelling for nefarious reasons.
Bondi prepares to remember moment terror attack unfolded
“And then there are other countries where an alert might come up, but it wouldn’t necessarily raise the eye.”
He said national security expert Dennis Richardson was the best option to ensure the current system was “fit for purpose”.
Albanese said there had been multiple meetings with Richardson and the community in order to establish the remit of the inquiry.
“We wanted to make sure when we come to the references that Mr Richardson will consider what the agencies knew about the alleged offenders before the attack,” he said.
“The information sharing between the commonwealth and state agencies, what judgements were made and actions taken by agencies, whether there were any additional measures that commonwealth agencies could have taken, whether commonwealth agencies were prevented from taking prohibitive actions by the current legislative framework.”
Albanese also again defended the decision to hold a review instead of a royal commission, saying that he recognised the calls for the latter came from “a good place”.
“We want to make sure that there are no gaps in the federal system,” he said.
“So our position is not out of convenience, it is out of conviction that this is the right direction to go in, and the actual experts, who are the current experts, have all recommended this course of action.”
He, as well as Barrett, both promised to support and cooperate with the NSW royal commission.
In the meantime, Albanese said, AFP officers and some federal logistical support, such as surveillance measures, were being made available for NSW’s security arrangements.
But he appeared to pour water on the suggestion – one floated by NSW Premier Chris Minns – that the military could be deployed as part of a domestic policing operation.
“They perform a very different role,” Albanese said.
“What we are doing with NSW constructively is, I’ll discuss further with Premier Minns what is the best way in which the Commonwealth can supplement the work that NSW is doing.”
