Counter-terrorism experts have overwhelmingly backed spy boss Duncan Lewis in his assessment there was "no evidence" linking refugees to Islamic terrorism, cautioning his critics against inflaming tensions with Muslims.
Mr Lewis, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, also told One Nation leader Pauline Hanson there was no evidence the children of refugees were more likely to convert to radical Islam.
The comments sparked a wave of criticism from conservative circles. Former prime minister Tony Abbott suggested the ASIO chief was "tiptoeing" around the issue, while commentator Andrew Bolt called on him to retract or quit.
Critics pointed to Lindt siege perpetrator Man Monis, who was granted refugee status, and teenage terrorists Abdul Numan Haider and Farhad Jabar, who were born in Australia from refugee families.
Fairfax Media spoke with half a dozen terrorism experts on Tuesday, all of whom broadly supported Mr Lewis - though some acknowledged he and Senator Hanson may have been talking at cross-purposes.
Greg Barton of Deakin University agreed with the ASIO chief's analysis, arguing "there's a variety of backgrounds for people involved in terrorism", and refugee experience was not a significant factor in radicalisation.
"Lewis is seeing a much bigger and clearer picture than any of us," Professor Barton said. However, "he should have unpacked more of what he was saying", so as not to imply there was "zero connection at all" between migration and terrorism.
Professor Barton said comparisons to the bombing in Manchester, where there are specific problems involving the families of refugees who fled Gaddafi's Libya, were not appropriate. "That's not a dynamic we find in Melbourne and Sydney."
Clarke Jones, director of the Australian Intervention Support Hub at the Australian National University, said his research overwhelmingly endorsed the ASIO boss's position.
"If ASIO don't know, nobody knows," he said. "We've got to have faith in what Duncan Lewis is saying. If they don't believe research and they don't believe ASIO, who are they going to believe?"
Jacinta Carroll, counter-terror expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Centre, said Mr Lewis and Senator Hanson were talking at cross-purposes, and accepted migration was a "factor" in terrorism but not a "lever".
"It isn't a causal link. This is really what the director-general of security was getting to," she said. "He's talking about how you identify terrorism. He chose his language very carefully and it's absolutely correct."
Levi West, director of terrorism studies at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, also deferred to Mr Lewis and said it was "patently false" to suggest refugee status was a contributing factor to extremism.
"What we're looking at is a tiny, tiny, tiny slice of the refugee intake becoming involved in terrorist activity," he said. "Most of them just become taxpayers and mortgage holders and send their kids to school."
Ben Saul, a counter-terrorism law expert at Sydney University, said asylum seekers trying to enter Australia faced some of the strictest screening measures in the world and should be considered less than likely to commit violence.
"Trying to get to Australia as a refugee if you're a terrorist is the worst possible option for you," he said. "The research doesn't show any obvious or clear correlation between refugee status and terrorism."
Anne Aly, a radicalisation expert and now a Labor MP, said it was a "really long bow" to directly link refugee status with terrorism because of the tiny number of examples available as evidence.
In each case, "they didn't come in as radicalised individuals, they became radicalised here", she noted.
"I take his [Mr Lewis'] word over Pauline Hanson's any time," Dr Aly said. "Everyone's become an armchair counter-terrorism expert [but] what people observe is very, very different ... to understanding the whole complexity of the issue."
