Experts have warned about the violent potential of Australians expressing anti-government sentiment and espousing sovereign citizen ideology, as Queensland police flag an investigation into the Wieambilla shooters’ online activity.
On Tuesday, Queensland Police commissioner Katarina Carroll told the ABC that police are looking into the web history of Gareth and Nathaniel Train, the two gunmen who killed three people, including two police officers, on a remote property in Queensland’s Western Downs.
An online user who went by the name “Gareth Train” was an active participant in Australian fringe conspiracy forums and websites. The account had frequently posted paranoid, bizarre comments that showed anti-vaccine, anti-government and anti-police views.
The user spoke repeatedly about the belief that the Port Arthur massacre was a false flag event carried out by nefarious forces to justify restricting gun rights in Australia. They also claimed they were being surveilled and shared anecdotes of hostile interactions with police.
“If you are a conservative, anti-vaxx, freedom lover, protester, common law, conspiracy talker, alternative news, independent critical thinker, truther, Christian, patriot etc etc expect a visit from these hammers — they are here to kill, maim and take you to re-education school,” they wrote.
Little has been made public by police about the shooters’ motivations for the attack. Experts who spoke to Crikey stressed that understanding the reasons behind an act of violence like this can be a difficult process and cautioned against speculation until more information comes to light.
However, they mentioned that aspects of what is known about the Wieambilla shooters highlight concerns about extremism and online radicalisation in the community and the potential for violence.
Deakin University senior research fellow and extremism researcher Dr Josh Roose said the information available on the Train brothers raised a number of red flags for extremist behaviour, including the apparent involvement in online conspiracy spaces and their isolated, rural existence — similar to that of the Australian responsible for the 2019 Christchurch mass shooting.
Roose highlighted that a belief in sovereign citizen ideology that Gareth Train appeared to espouse online was a major concern. Sovereign citizens are a loose movement of people who believe that government institutions and laws are illegitimate and do not apply to them, typically due to misinterpretation or misinformation about the legal system. Roose said that the anti-government sentiment inherent in sovereign citizen ideology leads to conflict between believers and the Australian legal system and law enforcement.
“It’s important to understand that sovereign citizenry is an inherently violent ideology,” Roose said.
Roose pointed out that the Gareth Trainer account’s COVID-19 denialism was consistent with a broader trend of a pandemic-fuelled radicalisation, a phenomenon warned about by ASIO boss Mike Burgess last year.
“During COVID-19, the seeds of distrust, the sense of anger and alienation were really seeded across the wide spectrum of the community,” Roose said.
La Trobe University lecturer and conspiracy theory researcher Dr Mathew Marques said that research generally shows that belief in conspiracy theories can contribute to anti-social behaviour.
Research conducted by Marques in 2019 found that 12% of Australians agreed or strongly agreed with the conspiracy theory that the Port Arthur Massacre was an orchestrated false flag event with the intent of restricting gun ownership.
Conspiracy theories like this provide believers with a way to understand a complex, random and unjust world, according to Marques, but seem to contribute to distrust in authority and violence.
“We know that belief in conspiracy theories makes people more likely to partake in everyday crime, and makes them feel like society is breaking down and getting worse or is in decay,” he said.
Marques said we may never know how the Wieambilla shooters’ fringe beliefs played into their actions, but that there is evidence showing how broader social factors can contribute.
Roose pointed out that social media companies have a responsibility to stop the spread of misinformation and disinformation on their platforms as a way of limiting the spread of these beliefs.
The link between conspiratorial beliefs and social factors such as social alienation, trust in government and even income inequality, he said, are a reminder of the importance of ensuring social cohesion.
Let’s face it, this was a matter of when, not if. The importation of American conspiracy theories and American-style belief in the right to post any information, no matter how egregious, false, violent, or nonsensical was always going to find an audience among the paranoid and alienated in this country. The problem is how to make media companies responsible for what they allow to be spread, and to get out of the mindset that believes that anyone should be able to say or post anything at any time without challenge.
Worth expanding on the Burgess comment . When our ASIO chief warned of a rising of right-wing terror threat (subsequently redefined as ideologically motivated violent extremism) he probably hadn’t imagined the circumstances of Wieambilla incident. But he did warn that ‘more “angry and alienated Australians” could turn to violence after being exposed to “an echo chamber” of extremist messaging, misinformation and conspiracy theories…'(Guardian).
Completely agree that media (msm-social) and mainstream political leadership need to be held to account. When DeSantis or Tucker Carlson rant about the dire state of democracy in Australia that feeds the misinformation of the local extremists, and then get a boost from the lose cannons of the L&NP or ON, who then get lots of airtime and insufficient challenge from the mainstream media or political leaders, it’s time for questions to be asked in our parliament. Dog-whistling and addressing the rallies of extremists was always loaded with dangerous implications.
Agree also on the US cultural-import, loaded as it is with a history of othering of ‘dem gubbermint people and the nefarious influence of the NRA. Unless you’ve become desensitised, it is hard to ignore the weight of ‘Merican accents on all that fills our screens.
How we respond should not be dictated by more of the same Hollywood shoot’em-up nonsense. I note that after the Brevik incident in Norway they chose not to arm and militarise policing there and have returned to 0.5 murders/year, per 100 000 inhabitants (cf 5 murders per 100 000 US inhabitants) with firearms securely locked away.
It is a sad state of Affairs that we have people like Pauline Hanson, and other One Nation Politicians getting voted into positions where they can not only spread their ridiculous assertions, but also have direct impact on sensible legislation.
We also have the likes of Peter Dutton claiming not too long ago that Islamic terrorism is left wing ideology and left wing extremism is every bit as dangerous and prevalent as right wing extremism.
It’s not just coming from far right fringe figures like Hanson. The Coalition have a lot to answer for in this space, too.
The point about reckless right wing media, politicians and influencers is central as experts including police in the US describe the related issue of ‘stochastic terrorism’.
Scientific American did article recently titled ‘How Stochastic Terrorism Uses Disgust to Incite Violence. Pundits are weaponizing disgust to fuel violence, and it’s affecting our humanity’ (5 Nov ’22).
Yes but then you get the sort of situation where Facebook took down a link to an article published by the British Medical Journal because their “fact checkers” flagged it as Covid misinformation. Limiting access to weapons is the best response.
Faecesbook have “Fact Checkers”????????????????
Agree. Those who grasp onto the American conspiracies and belief of “free speech” fail to consider that both our Constitution and our style of Democracy is quite different to the USA. We do have to do more about reducing and stopping misinformation from “news” (a very loose term these days) organisations and social media.
My youngest (adult) son has a disability and is on the ASD spectrum. The occurrence of what happened at Wieambilla has already had him saying to me that it’s about time the authorities start scrutinising all those conspiracy theorists because time and again it doesn’t remain online.
Yes, as a family we have been upset by this. Up until 2015, we lived in Chinchilla (where both my youngest and middle son grew up from birth until we moved) and before that, Tara. My oldest son (who did all his schooling in Chinchilla) still lives and works in Chinchilla. I’m well aware of “the blocks” and even had friends who lived in the area until they moved. We have connections to both places. I can understand the disbelief and the distress.
Public figures who promote looney behaviours (Sky After Dark springs to mind, but there are others like Palmer and Hanson) ought to be subject to big fines that rapidly escalate for repeated attempts, and leading to incarceration….their mendacious efforts have serious consequences.
Now we learn the 2 brothers belonged to a fundamentalist sect run by their pastor father in Toowoomba. Makes even weirder LNP Leader Littleproud’s “Gosh, what a stunning surprise that these kind of people were living in my electorate!!!” Like most LNP pollies he would be tight and cosy with every fundamentalist sect in his area as they supply the bulk of members and workers. Oddity also that today on ABC Brekky much was made of one brother being a teacher but silence on the woman who was also a teacher (with Ed Qld) until quitting rather than have a vaccination. The ABC goes for low-hanging fruit like piccies of flowers and teddy bears and locals asked “Were you surprsied that 2 cops were shot in your peaceful area?” I have yet to hear an ABC journo ask about anti-vaxx rallies in the Tara area. About Sovereign Citizen rallies in the area. I live in a similar Qld regioanl area (also in Littleproud’s seat) and during Covid the area was very, very active with Sov Citizen RWNJ rallies: the full monty of calls for citizen assemblies making laws, holding courts and punishing people. Littleproud said nothing as these RWNJ G-d Botherers were busily attacking the Qld and Vic Labor governments. Crazy thinking is the necessary precondition for crazy action.
As far as I know, the only ones reporting this aspect of Tara are Schwartz Media. I read it in the Monthly today.
The Guardian is among a number that have written about this now. The Guardian’s account puts a lot of distance between Pastor Ronald Train and the events at Wieambilla:
Supposedly no contact for 23 years, but Pastor Ronald will have planted dangerous fundamentalist seeds in the fertile minds of his sons when they were little.
Have you seen the incidence of people suing for defamation over untrue stuff written on comments and on facebook etc? Jeez Fairmind, I’d want to be very sure of myself before writing something like that!
Thanks for that interesting piece Cam. Like any other sane person, I just wish that the circumstances that caused you to have to write it had never arisen.
There are just so many things that could be said, or, if you like, points that could be made. It is hard to know just where to begin.
Your final sentence/paragraph is I think, in many ways, central to much of the problem. Addressing those all-important social factors, as well as addressing the much-neglected issue of mental health in the community, will probably never entirely remove this problem from society but I firmly believe that it would go a long way towards mitigating the issue.
The level of support for these crazy conspiracy theories is truly a major worry. The paragraph:
‘Research conducted by Marques in 2019 found that 12% of Australians agreed or strongly agreed with the conspiracy theory that the Port Arthur Massacre was an orchestrated false flag event with the intent of restricting gun ownership. ‘
is truly gobsmacking.
Your final sentence/paragraph is I think, in many ways, central to much of the problem.
I am not so sure that (lack of?) trust in government is a concerning social factor. From September 2013 for nine long wearying years I had almost no trust in government. I never once thought of getting a gun and shooting people.
Well, there’s government and then there was that government.
I haven’t been so active here lately but my memory of your contributions leads me to regard you favourably. I’d say you do have trust in government and can recognise when we lack anything worthy of the title.
That research, after a cursory scan, seemed legit, but I would worry about Aquiescence Bias, somethingin social science research to be guarded against, whereby many people tend to agree with any statement put to them.
Woop, I do not know whether or not you are suggesting that I might be suffering from this Acquiescence Bias phenomenon. But if you are, then please let me assure you that plenty of my interlocutors would only be too pleased if I was to suffer from such an affliction.
It’s not about you. I am noting that many people, asked by an authoritative-looking person “Do you believe X?” tend to answer “yes.”
That could be partly why the percentage seems so high.
The ‘god spot’ – aka obedience node – is what allows/prompts so many people to be vulnerable to hypnotism, advertising and other lies.
What is the strange (to me, very) willingness, nay eagerness, of our species to discard personal responsibility, even when it is clearly against the own best interests, so that they have the warm balm of being told what to do?
Too cynical. People have a natural desire to get on with others – otherwise society couldn’t function. When asked a question they’re not really interested in, most people will go along with what seems to be wanted.
Or to avoid conflict, which seems more likely with this loud minority currently infesting what passes for our public square.
Agreed woopwoop, and the way the question is asked can easily slant the answers to validate the questioners own bias.
If the question was “Who was responsible for the Port Arthur massacre?” I suspect few would volunteer “The government did it!”
If the research method is sound, that would have been tested and any problems resolved before the questions were asked “for real”.
It didn’t seem to be a forced choice question, that’s why it seems open to aquiescence bias.
It comforts them. Brings order to their uncertain world, reduces the apparent chaos (somebody is ALWAYS in control, one way ot the other). Stops weird things happening (it doesn’t occur to them for a minute that they are replaced with even weirder things).
ScoMo’s bleating “you can’t trust Government” and his contempt of Parliament has also contributed to this mess. I truly hope the repudiation of his ‘style’ will begin the healing.
The Robodebt RC is battling with his ‘style’ right now.
I’m starting to understand how the Liberal Party had no defences up to dealing with our former PM:
https://youtu.be/fY40gwUIzoM