Infrastructure to protect RAC Arena from vehicular terrorist attacks to be upgraded in wake of New Orleans

Perth’s RAC arena is set for upgrades to prevent vehicular terrorist attacks such as the New Year’s Day tragedy that killed at least 15 people in New Orleans. VenuesWest — which also operates HBF Park and Optus Stadium — recently advertised for a tender for “hostile vehicle mitigation” works at the 15,500-capacity arena. The tender, which closed last month, reveals the works at RAC Arena will include bollards that can withstand heavy impact, garden beds, planters, urban seating and even art installations to block would-be attackers around the perimeter of the Arena. The arena mostly hosts basketball games, but is also a major concert venue with Kylie Minogue set to launch her world tour there in February. “VenuesWest has initiated this project to address identified risks around the perimeter of RAC Arena associated with the potential for hostile vehicle attack,” the tender document reads. A State Government spokesperson said the measure came on the advice of the Australia New Zealand National Counter Terrorism Committee, which is responsible for the National Counter Terrorism Strategy. The contract comes after a man drove a truck — with an Islamic State flag attached to his tow bar — into crowds on Bourbon Street in the iconic French Quarter of New Orleans. The terrorist, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was an army veteran from Texas, according to the FBI. Jabbar ploughed into partygoers along the footpath at 3:15am Louisiana time Wednesday, before exiting the vehicle and firing a gun. He was shot dead by police. Pipe bombs were discovered in the area, with authorities investigating if an explosion outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas was connected. VenuesWest previously awarded $4.2 million to MG Group to upgrade infrastructure to prevent vehicle ramming attacks around the perimeter of HBF Park. The upgrades included bollards that could withstand a vehicle ploughing into them at speeds of up to 64km/h. Works at HBF, as well as Optus Stadium, followed the 2018 report No Time for Complacency, aimed at protecting people in WA in public places following a series of terrorism incidents internationally. This included the 2016 ISIS-inspired attack in Nice, France in which a man drove a truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day, killing 86 and injuring hundreds more. WA Government Minister Reece Whitby told media on Thursday that it was “getting increasingly difficult to ensure community safety” and that it was “impossible to make every place safe”. “We know that a vehicle can be as dangerous as any other weapon when it’s used incorrectly,” Mr Whitby said. The Minister pointed to the January 2017 mass killing at the Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne when James ‘Dimitrious’ Gargasoulas — a schizophrenic experiencing drug-induced psychosis — deliberately drove into pedestrians, killing six people. “We’ve invested in bollards in areas of Perth where there is a risk to pedestrians,” Mr Whitby said. “We want to keep that sense of freedom in Western Australia, and people like to get out and enjoy the community . . . but I think we’ve got the balance right.” Australia’s terrorism alert level was unchanged at ‘probable’ after the New Orleans massacre, having been lifted from ‘possible’ in August. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said at the time that the intelligence had assessed there was a greater than 50 per cent chance of an attack or planning for one within the next 12 months.