Some additional info:
"Mr Howard said the package contained a quantity of the bacillus bacteria, and that more tests were being conducted.
Most bacillus-type bacteria are harmless to humans, but one type - anthracis - causes anthrax in humans and animals.
MrHoward said it was the fist time a biological agent had been used in this way in Australia."
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=11702
Doesn't "bacillus" merely mean "bacteria" and then it depends what type of bacteria it is. Also, most bacteria aren't harmless, they may not all be deadly, but they make people sick.
The Genus Bacillus
© 2005 Kenneth Todar University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Bacteriology
Introduction
In 1872, Ferdinand Cohn, a student of Robert Koch, recognized and named the bacterium Bacillus subtilis. The organism was made to represent a large and diverse genus of Bacteria, Bacillus, and was placed in the family Bacillaceae. The family's distinguishing feature is the production of endospores, which are highly refractile resting structures formed within the bacterial cells. Since this time, members of the genus Bacillus are characterized as Gram-positive, rod-shaped, aerobic or facultative, endospore-forming bacteria.
The ubiquity of Bacillus species in nature, the unusual resistance of their endospores to chemical and physical agents, the developmental cycle of endospore formation, the production of antibiotics, the toxicity of their spores and protein crystals for many insects, and the pathogen Bacillus anthracis, have attracted ongoing interest in the genus since Koch's time.
http://textbookofbacteriology.net/Bacillus.html
Yes they are.