February 20, 2025
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JAMES GLENDAY: ASIO is sounding the alarm on increasing foreign interference in Australia with the release of the spy agency's annual threat assessment. For more, the Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson joins us now in the studio. James, good morning. Thanks for coming in.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning.
GLENDAY: ASIO has again said there's a big risk of state-sponsored assassinations and certainly harassment within Australia. You get all these sorts of briefings. Who's doing this? What countries?
PATERSON: Look, it was a very sobering and bleak assessment by Mike Burgess, and I know a lot of Australians were startled this morning by this revelation that a handful of nation states have planned and attempted to harm Australians, even kill Australians on Australian soil, as well as lure them overseas to kill them. It's not my place to disclose something that the ASIO Director-General has not, which is the nation states behind it. But there is a short list of obvious candidates for this kind of behaviour: malign states and authoritarian states that have an interest in harming our democracy and harming our citizens and silencing critics in them.
GLENDAY: Why come out and say this is happening if you're not going to say which countries? Because presumably people, maybe in some of the diaspora from those countries, might think, actually it'd be handy to know if this is a possibility.
PATERSON: I assure you that the specific targets in these instances will be well aware that they were the targets. They would have been briefed by ASIO and probably the Federal Police as part of the investigation and would have been warned to take steps to protect themselves. So they'll be in no doubt about it. And frankly, the targeted diaspora communities have a pretty sophisticated understanding of what's happening to them, too. It's a question about foreign policy really, whether you openly disclose which nation states are involved in this. And sometimes in the past, our intelligence agencies have disclosed malign behaviour by foreign states. For example, the Australian Signals Directorate has publicly disclosed that the Chinese government has been targeting critical infrastructure in Australia for the purposes of potential future sabotage. It's a very serious disclosure, cannot be made lightly and must be done with the support of government.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: For you, what were some of the other concerning elements in the ASIO chief's speech last night?
PATERSON: There were two other things that particularly stood out to me, one was Mike Burgess's concern about potential foreign interference in an upcoming federal election. We know this has been a feature of democratic elections around the world. We know that authoritarian states are particularly adept at using a range of means, including targeting diaspora communities and trying to influence their politics, using state backed media overseas to try and influence our politics and also using social media to try and influence political outcomes. It's critical that we stay on top of this task so that it's Australians who decide our elections, not anyone else. The other disturbing revelation for me was Mike Burgess's observation that he doesn't believe that the antisemitic attacks that we've seen in our country have plateaued yet. Not only have they not peaked, they haven't even plateaued. That's very troubling for our Jewish community, who have been under sustained assault for many months now and are living in real fear about their own safety in our country.
GLENDAY: An election campaign is going to shine a light on both those two issues, but just particularly on antisemitism. What do you think is driving this? Because we've heard a few different theories, to be fair, including from police saying actually maybe foreign actors are somehow involved in some of these attacks.
PATERSON: Look, I have been briefed on this and it's not my place to disclose those briefings. I look forward to more being disclosed publicly about all of these attacks, including the caravan alleged attack in New South Wales, but also the attacks on synagogues and childcare centres. I think you will find that there are a range of actors involved and they have a range of motivations. Some of them may well be motivated by antisemitism, some of them may have other motivations and the police have disclosed it's possible that foreign actors are involved. If that is true, that's a very, very serious thing. If people are sponsoring a wave of antisemitic terror in our country, whether they're a foreign government or a transnational terrorist organisation, that's a very troubling thing. And we need to see the strongest possible response from the Australian government if that's the case. It wouldn't be just a domestic crisis, it would be an international crisis.
BRENNAN: The attack on the two women in Melbourne at the shopping centre was obviously a religiously motivated attack, so troubling for those women and the community. What would the Coalition's approach to Islamophobia in the community be if you were to win government at the upcoming election?
PATERSON: Those reports of those attacks are absolutely alarming and the behaviour described in them is despicable. It is alleged that one of the women was strangled in her own hijab, a pregnant woman, in a completely unprovoked attack in a shopping centre. That is totally and utterly unacceptable, and we must send a very strong message that this behaviour is not tolerated in Australia. There must be severe consequences for the people responsible for it. I want to see the law enforced to the fullest possible extent. I want to see the perpetrator identified, charged and ultimately convicted and given a very serious penalty so that anyone else in the community contemplating any other similar attacks on Muslim Australians understands that there are very serious consequences.
BRENNAN: Are you alive to the concerns in the Muslim and Arab communities that this hasn't been taken seriously, that their concerns are not being listened to? And then we see an attack like this happened just last week?
PATERSON: Well, certainly in relation to this attack, as soon as it was reported in the media, I made strong comments denouncing it, as did Peter Dutton and a range of other political leaders. And I think that's the appropriate response when we hear about this and we also need an appropriate law enforcement response. We cannot have people think that they can get away with this behaviour in our country, and I don't care which community is targeted; if it is prejudice motivated, it is particularly egregious, and there must be serious consequences.
GLENDAY: Both major parties have been very careful not to criticise the Trump administration, but when you look at what's happening in terms of Ukraine's future at the moment and two major powers effectively discussing what's going to happen to a smaller country that we have supported. Do you support those talks that are going on? Should Ukraine have a much bigger say in what's happening to the future of its own country?
PATERSON: You're right, it's not my place to comment on US foreign policy. But I'm very happy to comment on what Australia's foreign policy should be in relation to this, and that is, we have a very strong interest in Ukraine's successful defence. The principles that Ukraine and its allies are fighting for are ones that we share. It is not a good thing for a regional power like Australia in a dangerous world for it to be established that larger powers can simply erase the borders of others at will.
GLENDAY: It is a bad precedent, right?
PATERSON: It Is a shocking precedent, and I'm very proud that we've stood with Ukraine. I think we should continue to stand with Ukraine. We should support President Zelensky and if they want to continue to resist Russia's unlawful, unjust, unprovoked invasion, then we have a role in supporting them to do that.
GLENDAY: Tony Abbott has always had some unique ideas in this area. I think he was suggesting that maybe we could join with the UK and other like-minded nations and really develop some sort of coalition. Is that something you think your Coalition would support?
PATERSON: I'm not aware of any formal request from any government for a proposal like that. And although Australia has a very strong interest in supporting Ukraine, I think the most direct means of us doing so is through military aid and assistance. We are a long way away from Ukraine, and we do have our own neighbourhood, which is troubled. So, I don't think the deployment of Australian troops is on the cards.
BRENNAN: Okay.
GLENDAY: Thank you very much.
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