The country’s justice minister, Michael Keenan, said the planned attack was imminent. The premier of Victoria State, Daniel Andrews, said in Melbourne: “What was being planned were not acts of faith, they were, in their planning, acts of evil.” Since September 2014, 57 people have been charged ain Australia as a result of 25 counterterrorism operations. A series of tough counterterrorism measures were enacted by Parliament this year, including legislation that could keep convicted terrorists in prison after the completion of their sentences, and so-called control orders to monitor children as young as 14 if they were thought to be involved in, or planning, a terrorist act.
