Barrett said local activists were increasingly destroying property and targeting businesses based on their owners’ religion.
“More and more since October 7, we are seeing what’s happening to social cohesion in Australia and the emerging prevalence of what we describe as hate crimes,” she said.
Commissioner Krissy Barrett at AFP headquarters in Canberra.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“It’s fear, it’s hatred, it’s humiliation.”
“Conflict, not just the Middle East, Ukraine, Russia, geopolitical instability, it’s all reverberating here in Australia, and we’re seeing some of that play out on our streets.”
Previously the deputy commissioner tasked with overseeing national security, Barrett unveiled a new mission statement in her address to staff on Monday, which tied the force even closer to the intelligence community.
Instructing her troops to “defend and protect Australia and Australia’s future from domestic and global security threats”, she spelled out the brief to shift the AFP’s emphasis from drugs and terrorism to emerging criminal threats to Australian sovereignty and democracy.
State governments in Australia have typically been reluctant to enforce laws around violent rhetoric and hate speech, but the AFP will now play a co-ordinating role to ensure such laws are prosecuted.
The force is already investigating the appearance of “Glory to Hamas” and “Glory to the martyrs” graffiti daubed on Melbourne billboards on Tuesday, as plans for anniversary protests triggered a legal challenge in Sydney.
Both Barrett, the first woman to lead the force, and her ASIO counterpart Mike Burgess have spoken of the challenges of policing the blurred lines between criminal activity and terrorism, displayed by the summer outbreak of antisemitic crimes that was revealed in August to have been funded by the anti-Israel state of Iran.
Highlighting the growing intersection between criminality and foreign attacks on Australia’s social fabric, this masthead reported in August that Melbourne tobacco wars kingpin Kazem Hamad was suspected of working with the Iranians.
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Barrett, in her speech to staff on Monday, alluded to Hamad’s alleged role in the synagogue attack and said she would refocus the force’s illicit tobacco policing to thwart profits going on to fund social unrest.
“The change in the geopolitical and criminal environment requires the AFP to pivot to a different posture,” she said in remarks provided to this masthead.
“We are in a region facing intense strategic competition, and we are witnessing nation states that are much more willing to test the resolve of democracies.
“States are using criminal proxies to destabilise adversaries.”
Barrett added that the security environment was becoming more dangerous due to the threat of cyber warfare, where Australia’s main rival was China.
Last year, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and her Japanese, US and Indian counterparts fast-tracked cybersecurity measures across the Pacific to counter China, although Wong would not identify the superpower by name when unveiling new defences.
Opposition acting home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the Albanese government had been extremely slow to give the AFP the brief to counter the more dangerous environment.
“It should not have taken two years since the atrocities of 7 October and the horrific antisemitism it unleashed in Australia for the government to finally institutionalise their response to this crisis,” he said.
