"I am comfortable with the definition that we use," Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told critics this week, rejecting a proposal to remove religious motivation from Australia's terrorism laws.
Tony Burke and the immediate policy decision
Burke's public response came after a submission to an inquiry urged a change to the legal framing of terrorism. The submission was lodged by Aftab Malik, identified in the record as the nation's special envoy to combat Islamophobia. Malik proposed an ideology-agnostic framework that would shift the legal focus from political, ideological or religious motivation to harm alone.
Aftab Malik’s proposal and its premise
Malik argued that removing ideology from the legislation and concentrating on harm would appear neutral and promote social cohesion. The proposal, as described in the submission, aims to avoid targeting anyone because of their religion, race or ideology. On its face it promises fairness by focusing legal attention on harmful actions rather than on the ideas that might precede them.
Why motivation remains central in law and operation
The counterargument, summarised in the article under review, is that Australia’s counterterrorism laws are not designed to regulate extremism or ideas. They are designed to regulate the progression from extremist belief to politically motivated violence. That distinction matters: democracies punish violence and its preparation, not ideas.
According to the source material, terrorism has a specific legal character that differentiates it from other violent crime. Terrorism is defined there as violence used or threatened to intimidate the public or to coerce governments in pursuit of political, ideological or religious objectives. Motivation, the article asserts, therefore performs an “essential legal and operational function” because it helps to distinguish terrorism from other forms of serious criminal violence.
Observable indicators: capability, mobilisation and intent alongside motivation
Operationally, the piece argues, motivation is only one of several interacting factors investigators must assess. The article sets out a four-part framework for assessing the risk of politically motivated violence: motivation, capability, mobilisation and intent. Each factor plays a distinct role: motivation explains why violence is attractive; capability determines feasibility; mobilisation shows movement from belief to operational preparation; and intent demonstrates that violence has become an operational objective rather than mere rhetoric.
The submission of this framework is grounded in observable behaviours, the source says. Progression toward violence leaves concrete indicators: acquiring weapons, conducting hostile reconnaissance, seeking explosives or bomb-making instructions, communicating with violent networks, raising funds, identifying targets and overcoming psychological barriers to killing. Those behaviours, not ideology alone, create opportunities for law enforcement and intelligence to intervene before violence occurs.
What this means for intelligence agencies, the courts, and Australian communities
- Intelligence and law enforcement agencies: The article urges these agencies to continue using motivation as part of a multi-factor assessment rather than discarding it. It warns that removing motivation from the legislative framework would risk weakening the focus on those progressing from belief to violent action.
- The courts: The piece argues courts need access to information about why an offender embraced violence. It asserts that pretending motivation is irrelevant would not prevent the motivation from being identified and publicised in an open democracy; rather, it would create greater cynicism and distrust.
- Communities and civic institutions: The article distinguishes counterterrorism from broader efforts to combat discrimination and support social cohesion. It advocates combating extremism through civic education, social policies and advocacy, while reserving intelligence and legal powers for protecting individuals and communities from violence.
The article invokes a recent example to make its point: could authorities meaningfully respond to the Bondi terrorist attack, it asks, without the courts or public being able to take ideology into account? The answer given is no — confronting motivation openly, the piece argues, helps a nation heal together.
Those who favour reform are not dismissed out of hand. The source says Australia should always be prepared to modernise its counterterrorism framework. But modernisation, it argues, should come from improving the understanding of how terrorists mobilise toward violence — by studying the interplay of motivation, capability, mobilisation and intent — not by deliberately discarding information that helps explain why politically motivated violence occurs.
In short: the debate is not about prosecuting ideas, the article emphasises, but about whether lawmakers and investigators ignore the motivations that drive violence. The decision by the Home Affairs Minister to retain the current definition of terrorism, as reported, has preserved motivation as a legal and operational criterion. Whether that choice will withstand further debate in the inquiry is the concrete question the record leaves on the table.
Original: Religious motivation needs to stay in our terrorism laws — The Strategist
