The government will “bring into the light” foreign intervention activities in Australia by publicly identifying the nations involved, according to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil.
Ms. O’Neil also disclosed that late last year, ASIO thwarted an Iranian government operation in Australia that was targeting an Iranian-Australian involved in demonstrations over the death of a woman in Tehran who was charged with violating the regime’s hijab laws. The Iranian-Australian was targeted for arrest.
According to Ms. O’Neil, “ASIO disrupted the activities of individuals who had performed considerable study on this individual and their family as well as monitoring of this individual’s home of an Iranian-Australian.”
“I’m happy to announce that our agencies caught on quickly. She spoke to the National Security College at the Australian National University (ANU) on Tuesday morning. “ASIO tracked the operation and shut it down immediately,” she said.
In response to “one of the biggest domestic security challenges that we face,” Ms. O’Neil said that foreign interference posed a serious and growing threat to Australia. She wished to “open up a national conversation” on this subject.
She stated, “I have a clear message for those states who operate in the shadows: we are watching you.
“Where calling out your operations serves our national interest, we will.”
She specifically targeted hostile and authoritarian nations that targeted diaspora communities in Australia.
The intimidation and monitoring of political opponents in Australia by a variety of foreign regimes, including China, Iran, Rwanda, and Cambodia, has alarmed Australian authorities more and more.
We won’t sit back while foreign governments monitor and track Australians or visitors to our nation on our soil, Ms. O’Neil added.
Ms. O’Neil claimed that foreign governments had organized “counter-protests to incite arguments with activists with the intent of provoking violence – all at the request of a foreign intelligence service” in addition to “tasked human sources to collect sensitive personal information of individuals seen as dissidents.”
She stated that there are instances of academics and personnel who work for different media organizations and think tanks being harassed.
As global geopolitical competition intensifies, she claimed that foreign meddling in Australia is “a big problem that is going to grow worse.”
In addition to encouraging a larger and more honest public discussion about how to best address the problem, Ms. O’Neil said she hoped to increase public awareness of it.
In her speech, she said that she was “shocked by the mismatch” between the public discourse about these issues and what she was reading in intelligence.
“And it concerns me because I think that divide is a threat to national security.
