COAG agrees to toughen parole laws

TOUGHER, nationally consistent parole laws will be introduced after Malcolm Turnbull and state premiers agreed yesterday to joint action to keep violent criminals with terrorist links off the streets.

The Prime Minister announced the agreement following a Coalition of Australian Governments meeting in Hobart.

It comes after terror attacks in London, Manchester and the Melbourne suburb of Brighton.

“We have agreed that states and territories will strengthen their laws to ensure that there will be a presumption that neither bail nor parole will be granted to those who have demonstrated support for or have links to terrorist activity,” Mr Turnbull said.

“Violent criminals with terrorist links should not be walking the streets. They belong in jail and this is a very important change and an indication of the resolution of the leaders of our governments, of Australia’s governments, to defy and defeat the terrorists.”

The PM also announced he would hold a special COAG meeting on national security to deal with the growing terror threat as soon as possible.

Ahead of the meeting, Mr Turnbull signalled he would not support a proposal for a federal prison for terrorists.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill had suggested a central prison as one solution to keep high-risk individuals off the streets.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews also backed the idea.

But Mr Turnbull said he believed current incarceration measures were working, although tougher, nationally consistent parole laws were required.

“Let me be very clear, if you have someone who has terrorist sympathies and who has a propensity to violence, every day they are not on the street is a good day,” he said ahead of the meeting.

“We face today threats to our security from Islamist extremism of an intensity that is growing greater all the time.

“We’ve seen a shocking attack in Melbourne this week following hard on the heels of a terrorist attack in London where two innocent Australians, young Australians, were killed ... and of course, not long before that a young Australian was killed in a terrorist attack in Baghdad.”

Mr Andrews told reporters before the meeting all Australian governments should be doing more to combat the threat of terrorism.

“I support the notion of us looking very, very closely at having perhaps a fit-forpurpose centralised prison where all of the offenders can be properly jailed and where we can have one policy, one focus, on what is a very big threat to every single one of us,” the Premier said.

“As I said before, it’s called national security for a reason.”