Australia politics live: 14 investigated over alleged display of terror symbols; Senate told of biosecurity breaches

Three search warrants have been executed and 14 people are being investigated for allegedly displaying a terrorist symbol at pro-Palestinian protests, Australian Associated Press reports.

Australian federal police officers have trawled through 90 hours of CCTV and body camera footage and seized mobile phones and clothing depicting a terrorist symbol.

“If relevant thresholds are met, the AFP will provide briefs of evidence to the commonwealth director of public prosecutions to determine if charges will be laid,” acting commissioner Ian McCartney said.

The AFP is further investigating whether rhetoric over killed terrorists or events in the Middle East reached the threshold of urging violence or advocating terrorism.

A special taskforce, codenamed ARDVARNA, was set up for the rally specifically due to the volume of evidence and referrals that had to be assessed, the AFP deputy commissioner, Krissy Barrett, said.

Police have spent some 1,100 combined hours investigating.

There were 113 reports relating to the display of prohibited hate symbols between January and October 2024, which resulted in 49 further investigations by the joint counter-terrorism team.

Of these, 28 remain active but no one has been charged since the hate symbols legislation came into effect on 8 January, Barrett confirmed yesterday.

United Airlines has breached Australia’s biosecurity reporting requirements three times in three years by failing to report that a dog was on a commercial flight, a Senate estimates committee heard on Tuesday.

Anna Brezzo, the department of agriculture’s first assistant secretary for compliance and enforcement, said in response to questions from Victorian senator Bridget McKenzie that the airline had breached the pre-arrival reporting requirements on a flight into Sydney in December 2022 and a flight into Brisbane in March 2024, and had breached requirements by invalid disinfection of a plane in August 2023.

“The dogs themselves were assistant dogs and they did have an import permit to arrive into Australia,” Brezzo said. “What we require however under the Biosecurity Act is that the airline lets us know ahead of time what is coming in on their airline.”

Brezzo said the breach was picked up by biosecurity officers at the airports because it’s “a bit hard to miss the dog coming off the commercial airline”.

United Airlines entered into a voluntary undertaking in August 2024 to undertake auditing, update its compliance framework and train its staff. Compliance with that undertaking will be monitored by the department of agriculture over the next 15 months, Brezzo said.

“Should they fail to commit or to abide by the agreement in the undertaking, we will take them to federal court and let the federal court make that decision.”

McKenzie asked why it took three breaches to enforce the voluntary undertaking.

“That looks like permissive parenting that we just let them keep getting away with a slap on the wrist,” she said.

The deputy secretary for biosecurity, operations and compliance group, Justine Saunders, said the response was “absolutely proportionate” and more effective in terms of ensuring long-term compliance.

“Our intent is not to punish but actually to address the breach,” she said.

Good morning and welcome to our live Australian political coverage. I’m Martin Farrer bringing you the best of the overnight stories and Tory Shepherd will be along to guide you through the day.

Our top story this morning is that ACT’s former director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold believes “something went terribly wrong” with the Sofronoff report into Bruce Lehrmann’s prosecution, which resulted in Drumgold losing his “dream job”, a court battle over its findings and a subsequent integrity commission investigation. He says media “hysteria” over the case fuelled a mob mentality against him but will return to work at the NSW bar.

The Reserve Bank’s caution about interest rates is becoming one of the biggest obstacles to Anthony Albanese winning a second term next year. Labor needs a cut by March at the latest, our political editor writes today, or his election chances will be much diminished. But RBA governor Michele Bullock is telling politicians that if they want a rate cut then they need to be careful with election promises.

Federal police have executed three search warrants and are investigating 14 people for allegedly displaying a terrorist symbol at pro-Palestinian protests. No one has been charged yet but we have more details coming up.