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Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday, the twenty first of February. I'm Emma, I'm Billy. This week the head of Australia's spy agency, Mike Burgers, gave his annual Threat Assessment address.
ASIO investigations have identified at least three different countries plotting to physically harm people in Australia. More recently, asio's intelligence indicated a different hostile foreign intelligence service wanted to harm and possibly kill one or more individuals. We determine this blot was part of a broader effort by the regime to eliminate critics of the foreign government around the world.
So, Emma, it is the sixth year that the ASIO boss has delivered a wide ranging speech like this, but for many reasons, specific details about these threats and where they come from a kept confidential. You and I were talking about this this morning, about the reasons why they have to keep the details very confidential, and so I think an interesting question to explore today is is Australia more or less safe than it was a year ago?
Yeah, so to unpack what Mike Burgess said and the role of AZO in our everyday lives, I've decided to bring in an expert for this one to help us read between the lines. Sometimes the language of these addresses can be quite complex and feel quite far away. Jennifer Parker is a defense analyst and security expert with anu's National Security College. She also has extensive operational experience, with over twenty years of service with the Royal Australian Navy
under her belt, and she joins US now. Jennifer, welcome to the podcast.
Hey Ema, thanks for having me on.
We are really excited to be chatting to you today. We're talking, of course, about this wide ranging speech from ASIO Director General Mark Burgers this week. What is the significance of the Annual Threat Assessment? What is the purpose of it?
Okay, I think the purpose of it is to make sure the Australian public is aware of what has been happening. So often, there's a lot of criticism of defense and national security organizations in Australia because we say they lack transparency.
Well, actually, when.
You look at ASIO, which is really one of our most secret organizations in Australia. I think this annual Threat Assessment is an approach to make sure that the Australian public understands what is happening and can respond to that.
And I think that's.
Become even more important given what has been the significant deterioration of our strategic circumstances, with conflict in Europe, conflict in the Middle East, and seeing some of that play out actually in Australia with impacts on our social cohesion.
What are some of the major themes that came out out of the address this time around? Was there much that had changed or shifted from this here last year?
Look, I think the first thing that's actually shifted is how ASIO have approached this Annual Threat Assessment.
So in previous.
Years it's kind of been a backca so it's been a look at what has happened, at what have been some of those trends. Intentionally, this year ASIO I have sent to kind of declassify elements, or they've said declassify elements of their forward looking assessment till twenty thirty, so not only say what's happened, but what do we expect to see in the next five years, What are going to be the trends, So I think that's the first change.
I think the second change is that Mike Burgess ahead of Asio, was clearly at Pains to highlight the fact that we are in a really difficult time.
For a whole bunch of reasons. And I'm sure we'll.
Get into that, but he called it the most significant and sobering assessment, and that is something that is really something that the public should take on board in terms of the pact of how much things are changing now,
what are those things that are changing. There is a discussion in it around foreign influence operations within Australia, and that's a discussion we've actually been having probably for about ten years in Australia, and Australia has taken a lot of proactive measures to put laws in place to try and reduce that. There's been discussion, of course, about the
threat of terrorism. What's changed on that point is the fact that Mike Burgis highlights that the way we've traditionally thought about terrorism, the threat of terrorism in the last twenty years has started to morph and we're seeing potential terrorists people being influenced by mixed ideologies, not the traditional things, you know, We've talked a lot in the last twenty years about the influence of our CATA, certainly in the
last ten years about the influence of ISIS. But actually some of the examples given in this threat assessment talk about people with you know, extreme leftist views who also support neo Nazis, which to the average person seems completely at odds. But this is this mixed ideology which is difficult to track. So the threat system of talks about
that as a change. It also talks about something we talk about a lot these days, which is the influence of social media in allowing that to be propelled and how that's impacting both political violence anti Semitism within Australia.
So that's a key trend change. The other trend change is I think there's a clear warning in the Threat Assessment brief about our upcoming election and the potential influence of foreign actors on trying to influence the outcome of that election through ideas of misinformation or disinformation, and that's been a common trend throughout democratic elections now over the last couple of years, something in Australia has been fairly resilient to but clearly a concern for AZEO this year.
I think the other trends is there's a really over conversation about issues of espionage. Now when we think espionage, we think James Bond, we think Cold War. But there's a clear trend in the thread assessment saying that espionage, especially as Australia continues to develop some of its high tech capabilities, so orcus Australia's nuclear powered submarine pathways meant
and esminagen's becoming an increasing threat. And we did see last year in fact, the Coralov case where we had a member of the Australian Defense Force who's actually found to have been spying for Russia. And then the other trend is this idea of sabotage, which is the idea that foreign actors, so foreign governments, might seek to actually impact infrastructure in Australia, and that is a trend we're
seeing across Europe. So in the last twelve months there's been about one hundred sabotage attacks from subse cables to fires in warehouses to cyber attacks that have actually been attributed to Russia. So some clear changes in this threat assessment, not only in the way it's approach, but the issues that we are having to deal with, and these are trends not just impacting Australia but impacting globally.
So many of the kind of threats and trends that you've articulated there really speak to emerging challenges and technology innovations and unprecedented conversations around the new face of extreme is a mixed idealogies. As you mentioned, how does AZIO kind of work to respond to and manage those threats in that evolving space? And I guess more broadly, you know, for some of our listeners, what does ASIO actually do?
Yeah, look, I think.
I have never worked in in ASIO, but certainly their approach seems to be first to be able to understand what is happening that involves human intelligence, which actually was mentioned a lot in the Threat Assessment report. That is, people of the general public who may work with ASIO, who might inform ASIO, and in fact, as a slight segue, the report actually talked about the sacrifices that these people make for their country and establishing a plaque to actually
honor them in the AZO building. Of course, there is a huge cyber presence from Asia and now we don't know exactly what that entails. But in the threat assessment, we saw that the AZO cyber team had actually discovered a plot in the US of a young kid who was planning sadly, a school shooting in the US, and they had managed to detect that online and stop that.
So AZEO managers internal security in Australia. Now they have seven key areas of security that they're meant to focus on, and that's issues from terrorism to foreign interference to protection of defense capability.
But that is their broad role. Now.
Of course, being a security intelligence organization, they don't tell us exactly what they do or exactly their structure, but you kind of get.
The sense, I think that some of the kind of terms that we hear in these conversations, you know, foreign spies, intelligence operations, hostile nation states, it does all sound a little bit like a spy movie to a lot of US. Burgers. Didn't give too much away. He spoke about at least three different countries plotting to physically harm Australia. He mentioned another country or regime that had sought to harm individuals who were critical of its government. Why wouldn't Azio name
those countries? What are the pros and cons of disclosing those kinds of details.
I think that, of course, for any intelligence agency, keeping details up their sleeve is beneficial for their ability to be able to undertake their operations. Of course, there's also that diplomatic element. It's not necessarily always a good thing
to publicly embarrass other countries. And we saw an example of this last year actually with the significant fallout between India and Canada, when the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, talked about Canada's assessment that India had been sponsoring assassinations within the c community in.
Canada of Canadian citizens.
Now, I don't want to unpack that detail, but that's an example of when these things are exposed publicly, they can result in a significant diplomatic fallout. The other thing too, we need to be careful of when we talk about issues of security is making sure that we don't impact social cohesion. In Australia, sometimes calling out certain countries or certain groups can unfortunately result in the persecution of people or groups associated with that. You know, we can think
of plenty of examples that in our history. So there's a bunch of things to balance there, and I think that you know, azo is absolutely right not to be declaring these countries, although I do know there was a little bit of a warning in the threat assessment, Mike, I just actually did say that if some of this behavior continues, they may well release it publicly. Now I'm paraphrasing dramatically, but it is a tool that they can use.
But I think for the moment, I think this is the appropriate approach.
Will there be kind of behind closed doors conversations or consequences for some of those unnamed countries. I mean, I know at these times people always speculate about you know, Russia, China, Iran, etc. Stuff going on behind closed doors that were not seeing.
Yeah, because certainly sounds like it.
So it was also clear from the speech that the countries that have been found out that it has been made clear to them, and in ways that's actually a consequence enough for a country, because that's quite embarrassing to know that your spies for want of a better term, have been located or your you know, espionage activities, your interference activities have been disclosed, because that shows that you have vulnerabilities in your system.
So without that.
Being declared across you know, twenty four to seven media, you've actually kind of embarrassed them internally anyway, which may actually deter them from undertaking those actions because they realize how strong our security apparatus can be.
It strikes me that there's so much in the unset in terms of these kinds of conversations and reading between the lines. What would be your advice, you know, as a security expert for people that don't have that level of expertise hearing terms like you know, foreign actors, abotage foreign interference, what's your advice about how we should be interpreting this language.
Look, I think the.
First thing is not to be alarmed. I think that sometimes especially with you know, the significant changes even in twenty twenty five on the international stage, whether we're talking about Middle East, the war in Ukraine, or we're talking about social cohesion in Australia, there can be a tendency to catastrophize everything. That's the first thing not to do, right. I think that a lot of attention needs to be paid to what Mike Burgers is saying in terms of
the most significant and sober assessment. I think that Australians need to be real with the fact that the world is dramatically changing and that may impact our way of life if we don't build the architecture all the capability to buffer against that, but don't be alarmed. I think
the second bit is to be aware. You know, if you are in some of the communities that are experiencing some of this coercion from foreign actors, which has talked about in the threat assessment, then that's something that you should report, and there is a National security hotline. But I think more broadly, just being more aware of how our Australia is being impacted by some of these global changes and what that might mean for our own security.
Think Australia is more or less safe than it was a year ago.
Look, that's a really difficult question to answer, right because in some ways it's difficult to kind of measure relative safety. What I would say is when you think about what are Australia's core interests, what are important to Australia, you know, what are Australian values? What are the things we depend on for the way of life that you know we should be pretty proud to have. I mean, we are a very lucky country. I think we often forget that.
That said, we are not immune to what is happening globally, and we've seen that play out in terms of the conflict in Galza and how that's played out in Australian communities, whether that be Jewish communities or Palestinian communities. We're not immune to these global trends. And as the world becomes more unstable, which unfortunately is what is happening, there's a lot of evidence to point to that.
Then we need to.
Be really kind of sure of ourselves as a community, sure of believing a little bit I guess in our government, in our security agencies who are trying to protect that way of life that we get to have. Now, all that sounds a little bit corny, but as a crux, it is true. I mean, we are very lucky to live in Australia and that's something that we need to work hard to protect.
Speaking of, you know, protecting what we have here in Australia, voters are of course heading to the polls this year. We know ASIO has raised some flags about election interference. What are the main concerns there and how can we get around them?
Yeah, Look, this was a key theme in the the assessment report because a lot of democracies as have gone through elections and obviously twenty twenty four was a huge election year with you know, elections in India, elections, in US, elections in the UK. We have seen this trend of other countries and there are examples for example of Russia
doing this of trying to interfere with the outcome. How do they do that through misinformation and through disinformation by you know, I mean to be quite frank about it, by spreading lies or by twisting truths. And Azio have really highlighted that something that they are going to watching for this election in terms of what can the average Australian do well. Part of it is just verifying. I mean, when you receive information, think about what is the source
you're receiving that from. If it's someone who you've never heard of on Twitter, who seems to have no details and about two followers, then it's probably not necessarily reliable, right, So just think about the source that you're getting it from and try and verify that, especially for something who's going to influence your thinking in the lead up to the election.
Jennifer, Before we wrap up, I just want to zoom out a little bit. This is the sixth annual address that we've gotten from ASIO director Mark Burgers, and you know, every year there are obviously certain priorities, but also you know a lot of information that is kept away from the public and for the reasons that you've explained. But do you think that this information that we do get is effective? Is this important kind of moment annually for national security?
Look? I do think it's an important moment.
I mean, there has been some criticism that if you're not going to tell us all the details, don't tell us anything. But I think if we step back and say, what is the point of this, right, the point of this is to have a degree of transparency in our security agencies, to make sure we have an informed public that understands what is going on. And the trends are not good. And again I said, don't be alarmist and don't catastrophized, but they're not good.
I mean, you know, I go back to those terms I've used before.
The most significant and sober assessment that has been delivered, certainly in Mike Burgess's tenure so the last six years, that's something that we should stand up and pay attention to.
So I think it is a really important.
Part of our society and again going back to that lucky country, but not a lot of countries actually get that degree of transparency and I think that's a really important part of Australia, an important part of our democracy.
Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
Thanks so much, Emma, that's all we have time for on today's episode. Such a fascinating chat. Thank you for listening, and thanks to security expert Jennifer Parker for joining us. Well, be back later today with your afternoon headlines, but until then, have a great day.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda bunjelung Caalcutin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.