Aus PM asks security agencies to be alert after Paris attacks

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday said there is a “real risk” of a terrorist attack in Australia and ordered security agencies to test their responses to a mass casualty incident following the Paris carnage.

In his first major address on national security issues to Parliament, Turnbull said he “could not guarantee there won’t be an attack in Australia,” but security agencies are “working diligently and expertly to prevent that happening.”  “From an Australian perspective, we see a real risk that terrorist groups in the region might be inspired by attacks such as we have seen in Ankara, Beirut, Bamako and Paris and we are very mindful of the fact that hundreds of thousands of Australians visit Southeast Asia every year,” he said.

He announced that the country’s four-tier terrorism alert system would be amended this week to a five-level system, as used in the US and UK.

“Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the federal police have advised me there is no evidence that the recent attacks, including Paris, will materially affect the threat level in Australia,” he said.