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Gareth and Stacey Train claimed in an online video they had killed police who had come to kill them.

“At this point,there’s nothing really to indicate that,” Linford,whose role includes executive responsibility over crime and counterterrorism,said in response to a question from this mastheadat Thursday’s media briefing.

Linford explained that while the three Train family members behind the violence appeared to holdanti-government,anti-police and conspiracist views,they were not linked to “any particular group” that may have helped or inspired them.

Despite this,Gareth Train had been active on aprominent sovereign citizen site,shared pandemic conspiracies,andlabelled himself an “extremist”,while an account linked to his wife,Stacey,had interacted with a US-based conspiracist.

Deakin University senior research fellow Dr Josh Roose said a formal connection to broader groups was “not a prerequisite of terrorism”,with many individuals radicalised alone online into violence by Islamic extremists still labelled as such.

While ideological,political or religious motivation was often difficult to prove,particularly when it came to prosecuting in court,Roose said that from Linford’s comments it could be “strongly suggested that she’s potentially speaking a little bit prematurely”.

“From what we do know based on reporting ... the individuals were highly influenced by conspiracy theories,sovereign citizen narratives,evangelical apocalypticism,and we don’t yet know what else,” he said.

Charles Sturt University terrorism studies director Levi West agreed that linking a person committing violence acts to a broader group was not a prerequisite of terrorism.

“I find it very difficult to not view this as an act of terrorism,” West said. “I can’t see what information at this point would explain away ideological motivation.”

West said there was a discrepancy in how the media and politicians or officials framed violence perpetrated under what is referred to as a jihadist ideology and that of people who hold beliefs closer to those of the Train trio.

Griffith University senior criminology lecturer Keiran Hardy said the label was a “balancing act” between signalling threats to the community and further angering those not already a risk,likely to have led to some “hesitancy” by police.

Both West and Roose said the discussion then boiled down to how to manage the inherent anti-democratic push behind sovereign citizen-style beliefs – in which people essentially exist outside the law – and newer conspiracies such as QAnon.

“[Wieambilla] is a useful reminder of the dangers at the very,very pointy end of what these kinds of ... ideas can produce,separate from the sort of slow chipping away at democracies that they achieve,” West said.

These are all potentially violent extremist ideologies and,in many cases internationally,have led to acts of terrorism.
Deakin University’s Josh Roose

Roose and others have previously told this masthead about the need to tackle the complex problem witha range of programs to disengage people from conspiratorial communities with positive alternatives,by addressing social inequalities,and better regulating online spaces.

ASIO boss Mike Burgessspoke earlier this year about growing concern at the national intelligence agency over online radicalisation fuelled by the pandemic and a “cocktail of views,fears,frustrations and conspiracies”.

Speaking after the Wieambilla shooting,Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said she expected radicalisation to formpart of the explanation for the shooting,as the government considers the policy responses needed to deal with “new forms of terrorism” linked to the far-right.

Existing long before the pandemic,both theFBI in the United States andNSW police have deemed sovereign citizens “domestic terrorists” or a “potential terrorist threat”.

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