A delicate balancing act for the Turnbull government
It's not surprising that with a change of leadership comes an attempt to recast relations with Australia's Muslim community. As with Malcolm Turnbull's other political resets, it will take time to see what a shift in tone or a new approach actually amounts to. There is no talk of any weakening in the government's anti-terror resolve; quite the contrary, better anti-terror co-operation is a key rationale for seeking to build more trust between Australian Muslims and authorities. Sydney GP and Muslim community leader Jamal Rifi - our 2015 Australian of the Year - has welcomed Mr Turnbull's change of approach, saying: "We are hopeful and determined to change the status quo and roll up our sleeves to work with the present government to help protect Australia."  
As we reported on Friday, the government will seek to engage the Islamic community in a new, more inclusive way, avoiding what was said to be Tony Abbott's blunt, divisive language. His preferred term for Islamic State - "the death cult" - jarred with many, although its rationale was precisely to put distance between terror and the word Islamic. It's also said that the former prime minister put off his Muslim audience when in   February he said he wished more Muslim leaders would describe Islam as a religion of peace and mean it; this implied that Mr Abbott knew which leaders were insincere. It's true that Mr Abbott's language on Islamist terror was less careful than that used by John Howard after the 2002 Bali bombing.
But the ultimate test of a shift in tone or approach is whether it makes Australia not only more cohesive as a multicultural society but safer from terror attacks. The threat level remains high and our agencies must remain ever ready to prevent or respond to deadly attacks. The case of a British teen now before the courts illustrates the protean nature of the threat. The 14-year-old from Lancashire was in contact with an Australian Islamic State recruiter - Abu Khaled al-Cambodi, or Neil Prakash - about an Anzac Day terror plot in Melbourne, an English court heard this week.
Cases such as this show the potential for rapid, global radicalisation of far-flung individuals who are harder to detect than traditionally organised networks of terrorists. In these circumstances, it's vitally important for authorities to be able to rely on the eyes and ears of Muslim communities. Yet, as we reported on Friday, security agencies had told the government in the final months of Mr Abbott's leadership that relations with the Islamic community were at their lowest ebb, making it harder for authorities to gain the trust and co-operation needed to prevent and detect terror threats. Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who has been consulting 160 Muslim groups across the country on national security policy, said these communities felt marginalised (flashpoints of bigotry such as the anti-mosque mob in Bendigo do not help) and there was "a growing distrust" of government. She said: "Basically what has happened is they have clamped up, they are not really engaging, and therefore relationships have dried up â€¦ Of course, good intelligence is based on good relationships." The senator also said that Australia had wrongly dealt with violent extremism and the radicalisation of disenfranchised youth as a national security issue when in truth it was "a social issue with a national security angle". This may be a question of emphasis. It is one thing to say that youth alienation is sometimes the background to Islamic extremism and quite another to try to explain away the Islamist character of extremism that cuts across society and culture.Nor is it true to say that anti-terror laws target Australia's Muslims; they target murderous acts of a kind witnessed all around the world - with the victims often being Muslim. In   May, when we launched a series of articles on Muslim Australia, we said: "When a community is under siege, there are two possible responses. One is to turn away from the problem and cry bigotry or racism. The other is to face the problem squarely. Often it's misguided outsiders (the jihadi denialists of Fairfax Media, for example, being unable to discern terrorism in the Lindt cafe siege) who refuse to confront problems pointed out by brave insiders such as Dr Rifi. It's not about attacking Islam, it's about rallying to the cause of good Muslims who are struggling for the soul of Islam." This remains true. Of course politicians should avoid language that recklessly confronts and divides, but the language they use must also come to grips with the often anguished realities of our times - and it should not gloss over the robust anti-terror measures that our agencies are called on to take. Only time will tell whether the Turnbull government gets the balance right.