From Swarts Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. When Anthony Albanese he first became Prime Minister, he began dismantling the Superministry of Home Affairs, which had been overseen by Peter Dunn. Labour had long opposed a model which saw significant power contained within one portfolio and removed ASIO and the AFP from Home Affairs. Now, in a spectacular reversal and without explanation, Albaneze is making Home Affairs more powerful than ever and that's all under the control of
Tony Burke. Today's special correspondent for the Saturday paper, Jason kotsukis on what the move says about Tony Burke's rising power and what it means for our national security this Tuesday, June tenth, Jason, thanks for speaking with us. This decision by alban Easy to rebuild Home Affairs into a superministry has a clear winner, Tony Burke. Can you tell me about.
Him, Daniel. Tony Burke is one of the most influential and powerful politicians in Anthony Albanese's cabinet. He's Leader of the House, so that means he manages all of the government's legislation and other business in the House of Representatives, very influential and powerful role. He's also Minister for the Arts, which is something that is very dear to Tony Burke's heart. If you're ever in a pub late at night in Canberra, there's a sort of a chance that you might see
Tony Burke appear with his band. So he likes to play guitar and get all of the caucus, the labor caucus, singing along with him. He's also a very prominent factional player, long standing member of the New South Wales right. Tony Burk's power base is the SDA, the powerful shop distributors union.
And then lastly he's of course the Minister for Home Affairs, and in this second term of the Albanese government, this is a very much more powerful Home Affairs than we saw in the first term, and Tony Burke is in charge of this superministry which is going to give him even more power in this cabinet, in this government.
So the decision itself by Albanezi dis strength and Home Affairs is a significant reversal what's actually changing at the ministry.
When Anthony Albanezi became Prime Minister in May twenty twenty two. One of the first things he did when he settled his new cabinet was that he changed the administrative arrangements surrounding Home Affairs and took away some of the key agency that Malcolm Turnbull had kind of had given to or assigned to Home Affairs.
Prime Ministery's downsize the Home Affairs Department under a sweeping overhaul of the public service. The changes will give Attorney General Mark Dreyfus responsibility for criminal law enforcement and policy, including the Australian Federal Police.
So Anthony Albanez he took away the Australian Federal Police, he took away Ostrak, which is the financial crimes regulator. He also took away things like cyber crime and he returned that to the Department of the Attorney General. And then when he had a reshuffle in July last year, Anthony Albaneze went a step further and he took away the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, this is our domestic intelligence agency, and he returned that to the Department of the Attorney General.
So after that reshuffle last year we had a very much diminished Department of Home Affairs. Now, following Anthon Albanese's thumping election win, Anthony Albanzi has reversed all of those changes and brought back into Home Affairs azo the afp Ostrak and some of those other functions. He's actually made it a more powerful ministry than it was under Scott
Morrison's prime ministership and under Malcolm Turnbull's prime ministership. It also deals with immigration, and you would have to say that Tony Burke is going to be a very busy minister in this second term of the Albanzi government.
So, as you told us earlier, Labor opposed the creation of this suit administry, then in its first term began downsizing it. So what's changed since then, Well, at.
The time they justified making these changes on the basis that Mark Dreyfuss, very senior legal mind in the Labor caucus, the Attorney General, he was of the view that law enforcement, both related to the AFB and AZIO, belonged with the Chief Law Officer. That he felt that it was very important that he, as Attorney General, in his department, oversee
the activities of these two very key agencies. But I think that all changed toward the end of January this year, when news of this caravan laden with explosives was discovered in durall in arda suburban.
Sydney synagogue in the heart of the city and a museum that teaches the horrors of the Holocaust had been revealed as the two potential targets of that terror plot involving a caravan at Jural and.
When news of that caravan first broke in late January, the Premier of New South Wales, Chris Mins, said that this was potentially a very serious terrorist incident that was thwarted.
POLISA were made aware of a van with explosive material located in it in Dura. They've been conducting investigations into the site, into the van, into the owners of the van and any associates of the owners of that van since that time.
Now I was briefed about the van.
So Chris Mins had received a briefing from the New South Wales Police and when he was up before the media in Sydney he was across all the details. But when the Prime Minister was asked about it the next day, he hadn't received the same briefings that Chris Mins had. That was because the Australian Federal Police didn't really believe that this was a terrorist incident that had been thwarted. They thought it was more likely to be a hoax, and they hadn't felt that it was necessary to brief
either the Attorney General or the Prime Minister. But what happened was just a few weeks out from an election. The Prime Minister looked like he'd been caught unawares. He was unprepared, but he was kind of blindsided. And I think behind the scenes, Anthony Albinezi and Tony Burke decided that if they won the election that they were going to get all of these national security agencies back under
the Home Affairs roof. They thought that this would prevent that kind of situation happening again, where you know neither the Prime Minister or the Home Affairs Minister or the Journey General you are being briefed by the AFP on incidents like this Dural caravan incident.
Coming up after the break the security and political ramifications of concentrated power. Jason Anthony Albanezi has pointed to information sharing failures in the wake of the Dural caravan hoax as the reason for wanting to return over sight of the AFP and ASIA the Home Affairs. What do experts you've been speaking to you make of that reasoning.
Daniel I spoke to one camera insider with very deep experience inside the national security space here in Canberra, and this person found the Prime Minister's justification for these changes that there was a communication breakdown around the Dural caravan
incident to be simply bizarre. This person noted that AZ and the AFP report to ministers, they do not report to secretaries of departments, and he argued that the kind of communication breakdown that we saw around the Dural caravan incident would have occurred whether AZ and the AFP reported to the same minister or not, so it didn't really matter in this person's view if AFP and the ASIA were part of the Department of the Attorney General or
Home Affairs. The bottom line is they didn't actually believe that this was a real terrorist incident. That's why they didn't brief the relevant minister. And I think in this insider's view, the more likely explanation for the changes lies in politics, specifically the the elevation of Tony Burke and the removal of Mark Drefers.
So what's beyond that? Political calculation.
Well, Tony Burke has been a close ally of the Prime ministers for quite a long time. In the wake of the twenty nineteen federal election loss. This is the election that Bill short And of course was so heavily favored to win but just didn't make it. In the wake of that election defeat, Tony Burke was an important source of support for Anthony Albanesi. He even backed Albanesi against his own factional colleague Chris Bowen, and I think that's created a rift within the New South Wales Right
that hasn't healed. Tony Burke is a bit on his own within that faction. So I think Anthony Albanese is very grateful to Tony Burke for that support that he provided, helping him secure the leadership and then ultimately the prime ministership. So I think that's probably part of this political calculation here, that giving Tony Burke more power is a way of the Prime Minister kind of helping Tony Burke's career at a time that he is probably looking to expand his role in influence in Cambra.
You've mentioned the amount of power that this reversal has given Tony Burke beyond the Prime Minister. Does this now making the most powerful politician in Canberra?
Well, I think he is one of them. There's other ministers, of course, who have a considerable amount of power and influence. Penny Wong the Foreign Minister, Mark Butler, the Minister for Health who is also very close to the Prime Minister, Katie Gallagher the Minister for Finance, and of course Jim Chalmers the Treasurer, and Richard Miles, the Defense Minister and
Deputy Prime Minister. But Tony Burke is certainly in that elite leadership group, and just given the amount of agencies and government muscle that he's now a master of, you'd have to say that he is definitely one of the most powerful and influential ministers in the government, and yeah, one of the most powerful politicians in Canberra.
So are we seeing him being anointed as a potential future leader?
I don't think this is an anointing of Tony Burke, but it certainly does put him in a position where he can show off his political skills. He's already done a very good job in shutting down a lot of the controversies around time, affairs that were sort of bubbling up in the national media from time to time, so I think he's already shown what a good politician he is. He's also someone who signaled his leadership ambitions quite openly over the years, and I think it does help Tony
Burke build up his power base. And you'd have to think that Tony Burke is a dark horse in the future labor leadership race. Yet the moment, the media's attention is probably more focused on Jim Chalmers. He's the government's best communicator, but that doesn't mean that he's got the numbers to win the labor leadership. And I think Tony Burke is someone who's probably very focused on shoring up
his support within the Labor caucus. And I think he's got a very close relationship with the Prime Minister, and I think that's going to be helpful to him whenever that day arrives that he decides to put his hand up for the leadership.
Jason, thank you so much for your time.
Daniel, great to be with you. Thanks very much.
Also in the news today, protests in Los Angeles over federal immigration rates have entered a third day, with violent clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement. President Trump has deployed the National Guard, a move Californian Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass have condemned as unlawful and provocative. The deployment bypassed the state government, invoking rarely used federal powers
not exercised in California since nineteen sixty five. And Scott Morrison has received Australia's highest honor, the Companion of the Order of Australia, for his role during the COVID nineteen crisis. The former Prime Minister said the award recognizes the resilience of Australians, not just his leadership. But the announcement has drawn criticism, with some questioning the decision to honor a leader still under scrutiny for secretly apporting himself to multiple
ministries during the pandemic. Thanks for listening to seven AM. We'll be back tomorrow, yeah,