Australia in January 2026: the most important developments in security
Public safety and policing dominated Australian security news in January 2026. On 20 January the New South Wales police commissioner announced a decision on restrictions on protests in Sydney. Later in the month, on 28 January, an "explosives" scare at a Perth Invasion Day rally was not declared terrorism. Separately, the federal government was considering new hate speech laws following a shooting in Sydney.
Several violent incidents and investigations ran through the month. Police in Canberra said 11 improvised explosive devices had been found on city streets over recent weeks, and by 18 January a man had been charged over pipe bombs found in the capital. On 22 January a PhD candidate working at the national science agency CSIRO was accused of planning a terror attack for Australia Day. The same day, three people were killed in a shooting in a lakeside town in southeastern Australia, where the gunman was still at large and the area was placed under lockdown. In Melbourne, a beauty salon was firebombed for a second time in two days, a Muslim leader and his wife were allegedly abused and assaulted, and police fired shots after a vehicle rammed a police car.
Other security matters were also reported. Iraqi authorities arrested the exiled Australian gangland figure Kazem Hamad, who is wanted in connection with Victoria's tobacco wars, along with another suspect linked to a 2023 attack on a Melbourne synagogue; Australian federal police said they were working with Iraqi counterparts. Australian officials said the AUKUS security pact remains on track despite reported delays in the UK's submarine program. An Indonesian fisherman was jailed for repeatedly fishing illegally in Australian waters, and a Queensland man flew a drone to a second foreign fishing boat operating there.
by WorldBrief & Maksim Micheliov | AI-generated summary
Click a day in the chart above for that day's brief.