ROSS COULTHART: If the worst fears of our police and intelligence services come to pass — this is what may happen any day soon. Their instructions came from the Internet. The simple ingredients were easily obtainable. They're now ready to strike — to destroy a commuter train using explosives hidden in backpacks. This small cell has escaped surveillance and no-one knows this attack is about to happen.

They wait for the appointed time when they'll bring terror to Australia. So are we ready for a major terrorist attack…like this?

PHILIP RUDDOCK — FEDERAL ATTORNEY GENERAL: We'll never be ready. But are we as well prepared at this time as we could be? I would say yes.

PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD: We're as ready as a democratic society can be

VINCE GRAHAM — CEO RAILCORP: I don't think you should ever assume that you're ready.

ROSS COULTHART: But have all the lessons from 911 been learned by those responsible for protecting Australian cities against terrorist attack?

PHILIP RUDDOCK — FEDERAL ATTORNEY GENERAL: Yeah I thought you might come to that. I've been dreading you asking me the question let alone the prospect of having to make a decision on those matters.

ROSS COULTHART: The dread prospect in 911 was the decision as to whether or not to make a shoot-down of a commercial aircraft —

Do you believe it will happen?

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: I think it could happen. I don't believe it will happen. And I can't guarantee it won't happen. I can do my level best to through intelligence to prevent it happening and we are doing that.

ROSS COULTHART: In the last five years, Australia's national security planning has been radically overhauled. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on boosting intelligence, protecting critical infrastructure, and training our Police, military and emergency services. And several alleged plots have been foiled. But after September 11 and then the London, Madrid and Mumbai bombings there's every chance the terrorists can get through.

What's your worst nightmare?

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: I think there's a series of them. An attack on a major sporting event. A plane. Big buildings. Every time I go for a walk in the morning I see those big buildings and thoughts go through my head. I have to be honest and say that. And an attack on a crowded train

ROSS COULTHART: All assessments agree that one of the softest targets is public transport

VINCE GRAHAM — CEO RAILCORP: You've got high concentrations of people in relatively small areas. And what is it that these organisations are looking for and that is to inflict maximum damage for maximum profile.

ROSS COULTHART: Vince Graham heads Railcorp NSW — the State corporation responsible for moving a million passengers a day.

VINCE GRAHAM — CEO RAILCORP: The reality is in such an extensive network as complex and far reaching as this network you would never be able to thwart an attack on this network.

ROSS COULTHART: His staff are now constantly prepared for disaster. A realistic animation drives home the message. Well before 911, in an exercise called Red Rattler, 600 people had to be rescued from a simulated underground train fire. It was a wake-up call for emergency services — because everybody on board died.

VINCE GRAHAM — CEO RAILCORP: We've learned that the rate of evacuation from the end of trains in that exercise was inadequate. It was too slow. We have learned from the London underground exercise the need to be able to get emergency personnel into the tunnels a lot quicker.

ROSS COULTHART: This new rescue truck can drive on rail tracks into the tunnel system. NSW has also bought these portable electric trolleys since they proved vital in the London bombing rescues last year.

The big lesson from London was speed. Getting in there fast. Can you get in there fast?

VINCE GRAHAM — CEO RAILCORP: Well again from the trialling that we've done we know that from the point of making the call we have fire brigade in town hall in four minutes. That's actual testing. In real life situations. So the responsiveness in the met CBD of emergency services is well rehearsed and would be quite rapid.

ROSS COULTHART: In the high security Rail Management Centre staff deal with a real-life emergency in a central Sydney railway tunnel.

VINCE GRAHAM — CEO RAILCORP: The big lesson out of London was when the event occurred — and this is the way they put — this was just like an exercise. And when you think about what they're saying in that comment they had rehearsed through their exercising so well that when the real event occurred they felt that they were competent and capable to do exactly what they've trained to do.

ROSS COULTHART: Until late last year, David Templeman was the Director-General of Emergency Management Australia — the Federal body responsible for managing Australia's response to natural disasters and terrorist attacks. Despite all the valuable exercises held since 911, he's concerned that the emergency services haven't been fully tested in an exercise held without warning.

DAVID TEMPLEMAN — FORMER DIRECTOR-GENERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUSTRALIA: We really do need to probably think about testing these arrangements in a realistic no-notice circumstance

ROSS COULTHART: In New York seven buildings collapsed and 51 more were affected. An attack on Sydney on the scale of 911 would paralyse the CBD.

DAVID TEMPLEMAN — FORMER DIRECTOR-GENERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUSTRALIA: It would be catastrophic. Very significant. Really if you were to start down near Circular Quay where the harbour is and walk right up to this park, where this park, that's the footprint we're talking about.

ROSS COULTHART: You're talking about most of the Sydney CBD?

DAVID TEMPLEMAN — FORMER DIRECTOR-GENERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUSTRALIA: You could be talking about a very significant part of it yes.

ROSS COULTHART: After London's train bombings last year, there were 50 hospitals available to deal with casualties. Sydney has just four main emergency hospitals — could they cope with similar numbers of injured people, especially within the vital first hour after an attack?

DAVID TEMPLEMAN — FORMER DIRECTOR-GENERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUSTRALIA: We haven't really had to deal with a mass casualty event in Australia where there's been a significant number of injuries and also death toll since the 1977 Granville rail disaster. The capacity to deal with say a London type number of casualties, seven hundred and eighty people who needed hospitalisation, would severely stretch the capability of any jurisdiction to deal with that.

ROSS COULTHART: For the US Government's inquiry into the 911 attacks, investigators came here to Melbourne University. Professor Priyan Mendis, Dr Tuan Ngo and John Ramsay are World experts in the effects of explosions on city infrastructure.

JOHN RAMSAY: What really concerns us all I think is what happens underneath if there are tunnels or utilities, water, electricity, sewerage, what happens if that's all broken.

ROSS COULTHART: They've been thinking the unthinkable… modelling what would happen if Australian cities are attacked. And they found the effect of just one car bomb would likely be far greater that was ever thought possible. Here in Sydney, underground railways, power, water and communications links — they're all destroyed by a single blast.

JOHN RAMSAY: All of that would probably go with that size of explosion. If we've got to the point where people are suffering from horrendous burns, we'll not be able to get the ambulances through the streets because of shrapnel damage and clutter that's coming.

ROSS COULTHART: But what worries Professor Mendis and his colleagues most is that strong though they may look, the buildings in our city skylines are particularly vulnerable.

ROSS COULTHART: Are there any buildings on this street that you would say are safe from the kind of terrorist attack that's your worst nightmare?

ASSOC/PROF PRIYAN MENDIS — MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: No, not really Ross I can't say that

ROSS COULTHART: Few Australian buildings have been designed to withstand terrorist attack. Even a small bomb or being struck by a light plane — let alone a passenger jet — could mean they simply fall down. It's a structural failure called ‘progressive collapse' — the same phenomenon that brought down the World Trade Centre.

ASSOC/PROF PRIYAN MENDIS — MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY:
They've not been designed for any blast loading and because of that there are lots of problems.

ROSS COULTHART: So are you saying you could bring down any one of these buildings around us with a relatively small amount of explosive?

ASSOC/PROF PRIYAN MENDIS — MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: Yeah if they attacked the most critical elements it could happen. These columns are very weak at the top and a light plane could hit one of those columns and then the slabs will collapse and lead to a progressive collapse.

ROSS COULTHART: So it's an inevitability that if you hit even up top in a building a column in the right place it would make the whole building come down.

ASSOC/PROF PRIYAN MENDIS — MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY:
It could happen yes.

ROSS COULTHART: One of Australia's peak professional engineering bodies believes Australia's building codes need to be rewritten.

ANTHONY BARRY — PRESIDENT ASSOCIATION OF CONSULTING ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA: The problem is that our codes in Australia have not incorporated disproportionate collapse requirements. The UK codes have had it in place for some time. They've had to respond to circumstances in London which we've never faced. Our cities have never seen the sort of violence and terrorism which we've seen on our TV screens in the last few years.

ROSS COULTHART: So would you like to see this kind of protection against progressive collapse put into our building codes?

ANTHONY BARRY — PRESIDENT ASSOCIATION OF CONSULTING ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA: I would. Many consultants are already doing it as a matter of good practice but I think it's important that we codify these things that it becomes the norm.

ROSS COULTHART: Professor Mendis and his colleagues carried out these tests at Woomera in South Australia in April, trying out new technology to blast proof buildings. During this they made worrying discoveries about one of the most common terrorist bombs — one made using the fertiliser ammonium nitrate.

ASSOC-PROFESSOR PRIYAN MENDIS — MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: We found that commercial ampho — commercial ammonium nitrate being used — can make much more damage than we expect.

ROSS COULTHART: Do you think there's a reluctance by some building owners and some authorities to actually acknowledge or to deal with the scope of the problem you're confronting them with?

ASSOC-PROFESSOR PRIYAN MENDIS — MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: Yes, I think the reason is that because there's some extra cost. But some of the things that can be done, maybe extra costs can be five per cent or even less than that. You can do certain things to improve the building

ROSS COULTHART: It's five years since 911 and yet from what you're saying, we're not ready are we?

ASSOC-PROFESSOR PRIYAN MENDIS — MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: No, not only Australia but in other countries nothing much is happening as well.

ROSS COULTHART: With Sydney facing perhaps the biggest threat, it's worrying also that, according to risk management expert Neil Fergus, local government is blocking the installation of security bollards on key city buildings.

NEIL FERGUS — INTELLIGENT RISKS PTY LTD: We have identified bollards as a very useful mitigating factor in terms of the risk to that building but councils are not necessarily receptive to the notion of the placement of the bollards and in certain cases the answer has been an emphatic no, we will not have bollards there.

ROSS COULTHART: As Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty admits, there is a risk some Australians don't take the threat seriously enough.

MICK KEELTY — COMMISSIONER — AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE: There is an issue about complacency. There's an issue about trying to defeat the culture of complacency which when you think about it affects every person working in the security environment.

ROSS COULTHART: Are there plots that have occurred in Australia that the public generally doesn't know about?

MICK KEELTY — COMMISSIONER — AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE: Well that's obviously true to say that there are some and that would be because ah we're either observing the behaviour or that the matters were not sufficient to prosecute before a court.

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: This is the haunting dilemma of a free society and the terrorists know it. That terrible taunt of the IRA against Margaret Thatcher — You have to be lucky Every time, We have to be lucky only once. But that is the dilemma that a free society lives with. You can minimise the threat even further by closing the place down but who would want to live in a place that was closed down.

ROSS COULTHART: What is working well is the National Security hotline.

MICK KEELTY — COMMISSIONER — AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE: For every major CT investigation in this country, at some stage or another a member of the public has reported an aspect of their suspicion and the operation on that national security hotline number. And to me that's very reassuring.

ROSS COULTHART: If hard intelligence is the key, equally important is how it is used. After 911 it was realised that the FBI agents tracking Al Qaeda never saw crucial information on the future hijackers that was being held by other agencies…until it was too late.

MICK KEELTY — COMMISSIONER — AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE: Certainly we've worked hard to overcome that. We've seen the lessons from overseas. We've worked hard to if you like to get the joint executives of both organisations, ASIO and the AFP, to be working together. So the margin for error is much reduced if not wiped out completely.

ROSS COULTHART: The London train bombings and the recent alleged plot to destroy trans-Atlantic jets point to home-grown terror as a significant new threat…groups not linked to known terrorists but often radicalised by Islamist websites. It has led to claims that being part of the American war on terror has made Australia more of a target.

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: No self respecting country should alter its foreign policy under intimidation for terrorism.

ROSS COULTHART: But do you accept that our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is radicalising groups of young Muslims?

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: Well whether it is or it isn't is beside the point. What matters is, is it right? And it is right and that's why we are there.

ROSS COULTHART: So what will happen, if it happens. Australia's response would start here. This is what's called the Watch office….a secret room in a non-descript Canberra office block.

Let's say heaven forbid there's critical decisions that have to be made in minutes.

MARTIN STUDDERT — EX DIR PROTECTIVE SECURITY COORDINATION CENTRE: The mechanisms are in place to make those decisions incredibly quickly.

ROSS COULTHART: OK, a shoot down decision, on a commercial aircraft. A commercial aircraft loaded with passengers is hurtling towards Sydney at 900 km an hour. Who makes the decision to bring it down.

MARTIN STUDDERT — EX DIR PROTECTIVE SECURITY COORDINATION CENTRE: Ultimately that decision is made at the highest level, that is the National Security Committee of Cabinet.

ROSS COULTHART: 911 ushered in a new era. One where Governments now have to plan for the possibility that they might have to order the shooting down of a hijacked passenger jet with innocents on board to save a city.

ATTORNEY GENERAL — PHILIP RUDDOCK: Oh look, you're asking me obviously the delightful hypothetical question.

ROSS COULTHART: Well it's no longer hypothetical…

ATTORNEY GENERAL — PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well ah, it's ah it's hypothetical in that nobody has sought to hijack an aircraft in Australia and ah, the one point I would make is that the sorts of issues you are raising are last resort, they not something that is embarked upon lightly and in terms of giving you a legal opinion I am not going to give you legal advice on what the lawfulness might be in relation to hypothetical situations.

ROSS COULTHART: Are you sure that under the Defence Act of Australia you have the power to shoot down a commercial airliner if necessary to protect Australia?

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: Yes I am satisfied we have all of that power.

ROSS COULTHART: We have rehearsed that in exercises?

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: Well we haven't literally rehearsed it in exercises…

ROSS COULTHART: It is a heck of a decision to have to make isn't it?

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: Mm. Well I hope it remains completely hypothetical but in the end one has to do that. But let us hope and pray that that doesn't ever arise.

ROSS COULTHART: Terrorism has changed all our lives in the last five years. The Prime Minister admits that being in Washington DC the day a passenger jet hit the Pentagon had a deep personal effect.

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: The very day before that attack took place I met President Bush for the first time and we didn't talk about terrorism. We didn't know it was coming and that made it all the more horrific.

ROSS COULTHART: Do you think Australians all understand that level of threat that you perceive?

PRIME MINISTER — JOHN HOWARD: I think they have an appropriate concern about it. I don't want Australians to spend all their waking hours thinking about an attack. We've got to get on with our lives. To use that old cliché, the terrorists win otherwise. But I do think there's a mature realisation that the world has changed forever.


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