With the alleged attempted bombing at Perth’s Invasion Day protest now declared a terrorist act, the release of coronial findings into the Bondi Westfield stabbing, and ever-growing fears around hate crime and extremism, there’s a difficult question to grapple with: what is terrorism?.
An immediate answer is found in Australia’s legal definition. However, this was created back in 2002, and the global threat environment has since evolved many times over.
While organised terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State persist, the threat landscape is now variegated. There are neo-Nazis, incels, sovereign citizens and more on the horizon.
