Timelines always tell a story.
Following may be a good example...
Late 1990s: Hassan Khalif Shire Ali arrives in Australia and is granted refugee status.
late 1990's - 2018: Hassan Khalif Shire Ali has no criminal record.
2015: Hassan Khalif Shire Ali has his passport revoked and he is added to the Terror Watch list.
2018: Hassan Khalif Shire Ali has given authorities no cause for concern that he is planning anything.
Oct 2018: Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is pleading through the Murdoch press for Australia to get behind proposed new laws requiring telcos to hand over encrypted messages when authorities are investigating crimes [read 'terrorism']. Spy agencies at the same time claim 95 per cent of their investigations now involve people using encrypted messages. Unfortunately for Dutton, not only are his plans opposed in parliament and by telcos, but also - surprisingly - by the broadsheet flagship of the Murdoch press.
Oct - Nov 2018: The family of Hassan Khalif Shire Ali has reported that he was becoming increasingly unstable during this period, in addition to having drug issues. Among other things, he has told them he is being followed by people with spears.
Nov 9, 2018: Hassan Khalif Shire Ali launches a "lone wolf" attack in Bourke St, Melbourne, stabbing 3 people, killing one, and attempting to kill others, including police who attended the scene.
Nov 10, 2018: Home Affairs Minister Dutton is back in the press - claiming that his proposed encryption laws would have prevented this attack, thus having "evidence" to support his claims for the new laws. He is also saying he wants to review pathways to citizenship - another plank in his longstanding agenda for a return to a white Australia policy.
All of which begs the questions... does a terror attack get any more convenient for one of the most loathsome politicians to walk the planet in recent decades?
In a postscript to the attack, a homeless man has been hailed as a hero for his desperate attempts to knock the attacker over with a trolley. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. The same people praising him, the same people he was helping to save, would be the same people who would on a normal day, walk over to the other side of the street to avoid walking past him. I hope the gofundme campaign for the poor bastard makes him rich. The story linked to here also notes in passing that the two officers who attended the scene, including the one who shot and killed the attacker, were fresh out of the police academy. Can someone explain how that works? The police get multiple calls about a man randomly stabbing people in Bourke Street - a situation which mimics that of past terror attacks - and they respond by sending in two rookies? Where were the negotiators, the explosives experts, the elite terror squads? Note for my American friends. I am not calling him poor - though he no doubt is - nor am I literally calling him a "bastard". Here "poor bastard" is an expression of sympathy for those in unfortunate circumstances.
But soon, we may all be "poor bastards" in losing more of our freedom - and in the process, being exposed to the possibility of criminals accessing our data, along with police. (read the article linked to above for the details) - and all through a very suspicious and very convenient terror attack. A potted history of government lies and deceits in Australia
Australia under threat of being invaded by Japan in WWII - a lie
few killed in the Darwin bombings - a lie
Hilton Bombing - Key players with links to the intelligence community as informants
Privatization of utilities would make them cheaper - a lie
Weapons of Mass Destruction - a lie
Sydney terrorist, Man Monis - red flags about his connections to intelligence all through his time in Australia
Some final thoughts:
The maths provided by authorities do not add up. On the one hand they are claiming that 95% of all investigations require access to encrypted messages. On the other hand, they claim they have successfully stopped 14 of 21 planned attacks. Since the proposed laws forcing access to such messages is not in place, we can see they have stopped two thirds of all attacks. Yet based on their 95% argument, statistically, they should have only stopped ONE attack. A 66% success rate is better than the murder clearance rate in NSW which sits at about 60%. To put it another way, you have more chance of getting away with murder in NSW than you do in attempting to plan a terror attack. Their own data proves they do not need access to encrypted messages!
Anyone caught planning, or carrying out a terror attack, should be kept alive where possible, for intelligence purposes and to learn as much as possible about the radicalization process so that it can be properly addressed in the general community. The current "watch list" should be handed over to an independent panel of expects in relevant fields to review whether those on it, deserve to be on it, and whether criteria for getting on it, should be added to, reduced, or left as is. Those found who meet the standards to be on it, should be deported if they are here on a visa, or watched even more closely if they have permanent resident status by birth or citizenship. The watch list should not be confined to those of any particular faith, beliefs or race, but include for example, members of White Supremacist groups known for violence and agitation and members of any other group advocating hate and/or violence.
Politicians who dog whistle should be put in stocks and publicly shamed. Politicians who have provably lied in order to further their own agendas (coincidentally, usually those agendas are the same as that of their biggest donors), should be automatically dismissed as a sitting member of parliament without their usual entitlements, if not also have charges filed against them. What would be good to see: Royal Commissions into the nexus between certain political parties, the arms, oil and mining industries and the intelligence communities - and another into the use of informants and infiltrators by intelligence communities. Such RC's would be good for open, honest government. Unfortunately The cans of worms these would uncover would be big enough to feed the entire bird population of Sydney for a year, so the chances of either happening in our current system are not much better than zero.