Youth Terror Suspects

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (15:21): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before directing a question to the Attorney-General about youth terror suspects.

Leave granted.

The Hon. B.R. HOOD: The head of British agency MI5 recently warned of online extremism aimed at children and highlighted that 13 per cent of cases investigated for involvement in UK terrorism are under the age of 18. Home Office figures reveal that UK police detained 242 people on suspicion of terror offences in the last year to June, and 40 of these were aged under 17. The latest figures on referrals to the UK government anti-terror program, which aims to stop people turning to terrorism, revealed that children under 14 now account for the second largest proportion of potential cases. My questions to the Attorney-General are:

1. Does South Australia capture similar statistics regarding the age of individuals suspected of state-based terror offences?

2. If so, what proportion of those investigated for involvement in terrorism are children or young people?

3. How many referrals have been made to the Inclusion Support Program to divert young people away from violent extremism in the last 12 months?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:22): I thank the honourable member for his question. State-based terror offences I think are a relatively little-used mechanism. I think the federal laws are much more often invoked. I am happy to go away, though, and see if there are—which I am not sure there will be—statistics for any application under state-based laws. It's the federal laws that are much more used and it's the federal authorities that have the much more sophisticated investigation powers in relation to terrorism than state-based jurisdictions. I am happy to see if we hold, as a state, any of those federal statistics and to see if they can be provided.

I agree with some of the tenor of the honourable member's question—it is a worrying trend we are seeing globally in terms of the radicalisation of people, particularly young people. That is one of the very strong reasons that we are taking world-leading action in relation to young people's use of social media.

I think it was the Director-General—and I stand to be corrected—of ASIO, Mike Burgess, who spoke I think at the Adelaide section of the joint forum that was held in Sydney on Thursday and then in Adelaide on Friday last week, of the increasing ease by which young people can find themselves confronted by extremist material and extremist influences, starting with social media today. As I said, that is exactly why we are taking world-leading action in looking at restricting young people's access to social media, which can have benefits but can have some grave dangers as well.