Quite rightly, we’re not calling it terrorism.
The killing of two police officers in Porepunkah, Victoria, on Tuesday has shocked Australians. A heavily armed man, reportedly aligned with the fringe sovereign-citizen movement, ambushed officers during a warrant execution.
While the violence was horrific, the response since reveals the maturity of the governments and agencies involved. Despite suggestions of ideological links, the label ‘terrorism’ isn’t being applied to the tragic event. That restraint matters: misusing the term risks diluting its meaning, confusing the public and undermining the way we respond to ideologically motivated threats.
Australia has long wrestled with how best to define terrorism. The law is clear: to be a terrorist act it must both advance a political, religious or ideological cause and be intended to intimidate the public or coerce the government. Terrorism, in other words, is not only about killing but about sending a message that resonates beyond immediate victims. It is this element of intent—to reshape politics or spread fear society-wide—that distinguishes terrorism from even the most brutal crimes.
What we have seen in Victoria appears to have been a case of an ideologue committing crimes that do not equate to terrorism, even when they cause shock and fear across the nation. The alleged offender’s reported beliefs, rooted in sovereign-citizen ideology, clearly shaped his hostility to authority. But the violence was directed against officers in a specific encounter, not as part of a wider plan to terrorise the public or alter government policy. By contrast, the 12 December 2022 Wieambilla killings in Queensland involved three religiously motivated extremists who lured police into an ambush and later recorded themselves to promote their ideology. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and Queensland Police concluded it met the full threshold of terrorism, driven by extremist Christian beliefs, premeditated execution and intent to send a broader ideological message.
The Porepunkah incident, by comparison, looks less like terrorism than like a heinous crime carried out by a perpetrator with an extreme ideology. The difference is not academic: it shapes how resources are prioritised, how intelligence is shared and how the public understands threats.
As Director-General of Security Mike Burgess has warned, we must be precise in our language. If every ideologically tinged act of violence is branded terrorism, the word loses clarity. Australians know what real terrorism looks like: the Wieambilla police killings, the Bali bombings in 2002, the Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney in 2014, the Melbourne stabbing in 2018 inspired by Islamic State. These were designed to intimidate and demonstrate allegiance to global causes. By contrast, violent refusals to recognise government authority, while deadly, sit in a different category.
This distinction does not mean the sovereign-citizen movement can be dismissed or that it is incapable of producing acts that do amount to terrorism. Ideologically motivated crime is part of the broader violent-extremism spectrum and requires sustained monitoring. Fringe ideologies can metastasise. The line between crime and terrorism can blur if networks grow, if organised groups harness grievances or if attacks evolve from targeting police to targeting the public as symbols of the state. The burden, meanwhile, falls most heavily on frontline police, who are increasingly asked to engage with people radicalised by conspiracies and fringe beliefs.
The challenge for government and law enforcement is twofold. First, they must ensure our counterterrorism frameworks remain focused on acts that genuinely meet the threshold of terrorism. Second, they must invest in the capability to understand and disrupt ideologically motivated crime, which often grows in the shadows and online ecosystems before manifesting in violence.
The Porepunkah incident also highlights the burden placed on frontline police. It is another reminder that law enforcement and intelligence officers face serious risk to help make the rest of society safer. They’re increasingly required to navigate the complexities of fringe ideologies while maintaining public order. The fact that two officers lost their lives underscores the real risks of ideologically motivated crime, even when it falls short of terrorism. Supporting them with intelligence, training and community engagement must remain a national priority.
The temptation in the days ahead will be to politicise this tragedy or to stretch the terrorism definition to fit it. That would be a mistake. Australians deserve clarity. Not every crime touched by ideology rises to the level of terrorism—but every act of terrorism is, by definition, ideology-driven. The distinction matters. Terrorism is only part of the wider spectrum of ideologically motivated violence. All such violence is destabilising and dangerous, but only some of it meets the legal and policy threshold of terrorism.
An inquiry is looking at redefining terrorism in the Criminal Code to remove either the religious element or indeed to limit the ideological element. Doing so would be a mistake.
Keeping the language right, whether in the legislation or in the media, ensures our counterterrorism frameworks stay focused on genuine terrorism while also investing in the capability to detect and disrupt the ideologically motivated crimes that too often fester in the shadows.