Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Motions

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

Adem SOMYUREK (Northern Metropolitan) (14:06): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes the comments made by Mr Mike Burgess, director-general of ASIO, that a foreign spy unit had successfully cultivated and recruited a former Australian politician;

(2) expresses its unequivocal support and gratitude to the brave officers of ASIO working to ensure Australians are kept safe from threats to Australia’s national security;

(3) invites ASIO to provide a briefing to members of the Victorian Parliament on the advanced tactics, referenced by Mr Burgess, which are used by foreign agents to enlist and undermine members of Parliament;

(4) recognises the importance of protecting the confidentiality and integrity of ongoing investigations while also understanding the potential implications of not publicly identifying a former member of Parliament threatening Australia’s national security; and

(5) notes that the stability and integrity of parliamentary democracy are fundamental to national security, as they underpin the legitimacy of the government and the trust of the public in Parliament, and our other democratic institutions.

I am going to refer to copious notes today because I have got a lot to say and limited time to say it, so excuse me for that. I would like to start by expressing my appreciation to ASIO’s personnel for their hard work and dedication in keeping Australia safe. There are a lot of good people in there who are brave people, and they keep us safe on a daily basis. My motion today affirms my belief that our intelligence services should be provided all the necessary resources and powers to keep Australia safe. I believe in a zero-tolerance stance toward terrorism. I strongly believe that no cause or grievance, historical or current, justifies the loss of innocent lives. This belief is foundational to my approach to national security. I have not been operating in the national security space; I am a state MP, but occasionally I have been brought into the national security space, because of my background, over the years as an MP.

However, despite being hawkish on national security, I find myself respectfully at odds with Mr Mike Burgess, director-general of ASIO, particularly regarding the concealment of a compromised – let us call it for what it is, a rat – former MP’s identity. While I recognise the importance of protecting ongoing investigations, I contend that not naming the implicated former MP risks eroding trust in Parliament. Trust in our state’s institutions, courts, government, Parliament, security forces and indeed in our intelligence services is very, very important – it is crucial. What differentiates us, a functional, advanced democracy, from a fledgling democracy in the Third World is the trust in our institutions. That is why we do not have uprisings, that is why people are not storming Parliament, that is why we do not have coups d’état – because people trust us and trust the institutions. They trust the institution of Parliament and the courts, the electoral system and everything else. It is very important to maintain that trust.

The recent doubts cast on critical US institutions and the resultant social disorder there underscore the potential repercussions of undermining trust in important state institutions. Allegations of electoral fraud and critiques of the intelligence services as part of the so-called deep state resulted in the loss of public confidence by some sections of the public of the United States. This result was destructive for the States and indeed it looked for a while like the US was about to descend into civil war. It is paramount that trust in the institution of Parliament is maintained. Any erosion of this trust could precipitate a breakdown of social order.

While government and MPs must be scrutinised and absolutely power must be held to account, agencies who speak with an authoritative voice must be judicious in their public commentary about Parliament. By not naming the compromised MP and by discussing the issue publicly without naming the wrongdoers, I believe there is a risk of suggesting a broader issue of disloyalty to the country, which could undermine public confidence in this place. Public sentiment is not easily swayed. You cannot just turn public sentiment on and off like a tap on a whim. Once the genie leaves the bottle, it is difficult to put it back. There are a lot of metaphors in there, I understand, but I think they are all apt. If the public loses trust in parliament, reversing that sentiment will be very challenging, so I call on Mr Burgess to reconsider his position on not naming the MP. I call on Mr Burgess to name the former MP rather.

Another reason I believe Mr Burgess should name the former member of Parliament is that MPs do not simply disappear from this place – go outside, get into their car and drive off into the sunset. They are part of political parties, and the political party is part of their identity. It is part of who they are. A lot of them have been in here a long time. MPs become part of their social network. Even after they leave, they remain mentors to parliamentarians and ministers. Some of them are even influential after they leave Parliament as well in this place. So I think it is important that incumbent MPs, particularly those in political parties, understand who the treacherous former MP is so they do not exchange any intelligence with them.

Another significant issue with not naming the former MP is that it invites speculation. In the name of the national interest today I will accept that invitation in the public interest and national interest. I suspect ASIO wanted people like me who have been around in the political system for decades to speculate in order to weed out other bad apples that they might come across. It is a very clever strategy – they are not called the intelligence services for nothing, because it is a clever strategy.

Before I talk about the individual who I think it is, it is important to narrow down the number of MPs that Mr Burgess spoke about. He spoke about MPs generically; he did not narrow it down. I guess he did that for a particular purpose. Let us rule out initially all state MPs, because there are divisions of powers in the constitution which separate the powers of state and Commonwealth and we know that state MPs do not receive any confidential briefings on national security. We just do not get classified information. I have been here for 20-something years. I have been a minister and I have never met an ASIO official in my life. I am ruling out all the state MPs. I think it is safe to rule out all former federal MPs as well, except for those on the intelligence committee and those in the ministry – but only certain sections of the ministry probably have administrative purview over intelligence and national security related matters. We are starting to close it in a fair bit, aren’t we? So the MP in question would have to be a former member of Parliament from the intelligence committee or a former federal minister with purview of the national security space.

We are also told by Mr Burgess that the MP in question was close to a former Prime Minister and tried to compromise the former PM’s family. Our next task is to investigate characteristics such as history of disloyalty, character, financial and psychological situations. Anthony Byrne certainly ticks all the right boxes here. He has been on the intelligence committee for many years as chair and deputy chair depending on whether there was a Labor government or a coalition government. It is a criminal offence to leak from the intelligence committee and there are strict protocols in place to prevent members leaking, yet Byrne leaked like a sieve. He leaked to journalists to garner favourable treatment. How do I know this? Because he would call or text me. I come with receipts. I have got the text messages that he would text me on how he leaked from the intelligence committee to journalists.

Every time Byrne leaked classified national security intelligence to journalists, I would get a call asking me to read the front page of whatever publication it was or watch whatever TV program was on that night. Strangely, he always inquired whether I liked his handiwork. His favourite saying was ‘How do you like my handiwork, mate, today on the front page of the blah, blah, blah publication?’ Byrne did not only divulge classified information to journalists, he would also randomly blurt out classified information in front of whoever he wanted to impress.

The most blatant instance of him leaking classified information or security information to random people was when we sat down to have lunch with a couple of businesspeople from a particular ethnic minority so that Byrne could hit them up for campaign donations to his preselection campaign. He always needed money. Perhaps sensing that he needed to prove how important he was, he blurted out detailed classified information from the intelligence committee. The information, as I recall, related to Islamic terrorism, and I think he may have thought the people that we were dining with were more interested than they were, because they seemed not to care. I do not think they understood the significance of what he was doing. I say this is one of the more extreme things that he did with that. Usually it was more casual than that.

Another box that Byrne ticks is that he was cash-strapped after two divorces. As I recall, for a period of time he even slept in his electorate office. I am not having a go at poor people. I do not want to raise this issue. I only mention this because research shows that financial vulnerability is an important motivator for people or spies who become double agents. Another box that Byrne ticks is that he had a close friendship with a former PM and his family. Byrne at one stage shared an apartment with a former PM. I am not having a go at the former PM – it is nothing to do with him. I am just merely ticking off boxes that Mr Burgess put out there. Let us take stock: Byrne was in a select group – a very, very small group – of people who had access to classified information, he was a serial leaker, he was broke, and he had a close relationship with a former PM and his family.

Next we turn to the issue of loyalty. Since the matter under investigation relates to an extraordinarily disloyal act, the best way of conveying Byrne’s disloyalty is to put my relationship with Byrne under the microscope – how we met and how it all ended. It is true I do have an axe to grind with Byrne. My grievance with Byrne is very relevant here because it relates to the theme of betrayal. I believe anyone that will betray a close mate of 25 years will betray their country. I ask for the house’s indulgence as I spend a couple of minutes recounting our friendship relationship from the time we met until the time it ended in betrayal.

Soon after joining the ALP in the mid-1990s I met Byrne, who had recently relocated here – to Victoria – from South Australia to work for a then Victorian senator. It is not important who it is. I later discovered Byrne had been ostracised from South Australia’s political circles for betrayal of a powerful right figure in South Australia. Byrne had seen an opportunity to get a seat through branch stacking and began recruiting hundreds from various ethnic groups, an endeavour he was openly proud of until the fateful night of the 60 Minutes program, in which he then claimed that he did it to blow the lid on branch stacking. Byrne admitted to his branch-stacking activities during the IBAC hearings.

Many members of my community were already members of the Labor Party independent of me at the time I joined up. This attracted Byrne’s interest in me. He insisted that I stack for him, but I could not because I did not have the capacity because I was not that well connected to my community. He did not stop. Byrne pursued me because he then found another use for me as an interpreter for the various Turkish community leaders who had actually recruited people into the Labor Party. Here I was, a random innocently joining the Labor Party, and an overstimulated staffer had me on speed dial to co-opt me into his sordid world. I must say I was reluctant because he was so aggressive in his engagement, but I was also curious to see how the sausage was made. Our relationship began from there.

Byrne’s branch stacking paid dividends. Within a couple of years of moving to Victoria, he won preselection for the federal seat of Holt, and Luke Donnellan and I began to work for Byrne until we went into Parliament together in 2002. Due to fears that the left would take the preselection back off him – take their seat back off him – because it was very much a smash-and-grab effort by Byrne, he stacked his office with branch stackers, and he built a formidable factional machine in his office. Until the day the 60 Minutes program went to air it existed. Byrne and I remained very close friends until the fateful night the 60 Minutes program aired. Byrne was my best friend in politics, and I was his. Nothing could drive a wedge between us, as our relationship was forged in the bitter preselection battle for Holt. Over the years we went through many struggles together. We were brothers, and I thought we would remain that way forever.

There was a brief, two-month factional dust-up in January 2020, as is the way in the Labor Party. These things happen – factions regulate the party – and then there is a peace deal, and that is what happened in our instance. Within a month or so there was a peace deal reached and wiser heads prevailed. During the two-month period of heated tensions with the left, Byrne set up surveillance devices and encouraged me to attend the branch meetings, which he hosted in his office. He then leaked them to the 60 Minutes program. The supposed crime I had committed was branch stacking. My former boss and my branch stacker mentor had recorded me and wanted to humiliate me for branch stacking.

Again, I stress, we had no quarrel with Anthony Byrne. I had no quarrel. I thought we were still mates until the 60 Minutes program went to air on 14 June 2020. The scale of Byrne’s betrayal of me could only be matched by someone betraying their country. Byrne’s actions reflect the complex profile often seen in individuals who engage in espionage or betrayal. This is based on research. Byrne’s personal discontent, failed relationships and unmet desires for recognition and power suggest deep-seated psychological turmoil. These factors, combined with his engagement in covert actions against those closest to him, paint a picture of a man driven by ego and a desperate need for validation.

Given all of that, I call on ASIO, if Byrne is not the former MP in question, to investigate all of Anthony Byrne’s activities when he was a member of that committee. Like I said, I come with receipts in terms of his leaks. I am happy to pass them on to ASIO in terms of text messages indicating that he was leaking stories the next day. I ask that ASIO, for the good of national security, investigate Anthony Byrne’s activities whilst he was a member of that committee.

The only school of thought that appears to debunk Byrne as the former MP likely to have committed this treason is that Byrne is publicly seen to be a hawk on national security. Byrne is not a hawk. Byrne is very fluid. Byrne can be anti-China one day and he can be joining up to the Chinese Communist Party the next. He was from the SDA, from the Catholic right, and had railed against communism, but in his office was a picture of Che Guevara. That is just a small anecdote, but there are many such instances. You cannot judge Byrne – who is not well mentally, who suffers from borderline personality – for what he says. You just cannot, because he is so fluid. I would not pay any heed to what he has said publicly on any policy matter, because he can change at any moment. He believes in nothing.

With that, I wish the intelligence services all the best, and I am sure that ASIO will continue to keep Australians safe.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (14:24): I am going to make a contribution on the motion moved by Mr Somyurek in relation to a few matters relating to the operation of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation in its broadest sense and also in relation to some recent matters. I will not go through the motion in detail; that has been done. It is probably worth starting the debate today by just grounding a little bit the context as to why these issues and the operation of our security and intelligence services are really matters that are best dealt with at the Commonwealth level.

Under a pretty clear set of arrangements in our constitution, matters relating to national security and defence, and in particular matters relating to intelligence services, for the last 123 years have been the domain of the Commonwealth Parliament. Upon Federation those intelligence functions that were once done by the former colonies were subsumed into the new nascent Commonwealth bureaucracy and infrastructure, and since that time, whilst we at a state level may have some quarrels with other elements of the expansion of Commonwealth jurisdiction, I think it is fair to say that in matters of national security, intelligence, defence and external affairs there is no quarrel that they are matters best dealt with at the Commonwealth level. Section 51(vi) and section 51(xxix) of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act make it pretty clear that the Commonwealth Parliament has powers with respect to defence and external affairs.

Certainly the development of the national security and intelligence infrastructure in this nation has adhered to that trajectory. ASIO was established as an organisation in 1949 by the Chifley government. It found statutory form in 1956, with the current act established in 1979 following some quite considerable and lengthy inquiries into how it should function. Notably, two significant royal commissions, initiated in 1974 and in 1983, shaped the way that Australia’s national security and intelligence organisations, principally ASIO but also others, developed. This gets to the point that the proper place for scrutiny of the actions of our intelligence community, calls on them to do or not do certain things and policy remits is the Commonwealth Parliament. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is the appropriate oversight body established under Commonwealth law for these matters to be dealt with. That Parliament and that committee are the places where we should be directing questions and queries about actions and oversight of national security issues and the operation of national security and intelligence agencies.

When this Parliament convenes, as it does, to consider motions put before it which reference these issues, it is I think incumbent upon us to acknowledge and reflect that these are matters where the Commonwealth quite clearly, without dispute and for the duration of our Federation, has constitutional competence, and that is where the substance of these oversight questions is best placed. I think that what we should be thinking about in considering this motion is whether it is something that really is a matter for this Parliament or whether these issues that the motion seeks to address, which have been brought up in contemporary political debate and not just in the last couple of weeks, are matters that would best be considered and resolved by those agencies. As I said, there have been matters of controversy related to the operation of our national security agencies for most of the 123 years that they have been in existence. You only need to go back and look at some of those inquiries, royal commissions and other investigations that have been held over the course of that time to see that. I think these are matters best placed at a Commonwealth level.

There are a couple of other points I just want to quickly make in relation to this matter. I think it is important to say, as the motion does, that we do understand, acknowledge and appreciate the role that our national intelligence agencies play in helping to keep our nation safe. They do have and have had for a long time an important role in intelligence gathering and in providing that intelligence to relevant government decision-makers for them to act appropriately. As I said, those are things that best happen at the Commonwealth level, where the expertise lies, but as citizens of this nation we can acknowledge the work that is done, support that action and support the oversight of that action, because just as fundamental to the exercise of intelligence and intelligence operations is good oversight of those as a core feature of our democratic institutions and an important accountability mechanism for those oversight organisations.

I think the last point to make is just a more general reflection on some of the matters that the motion touches on, the issues that are in the public debate about the way that information is an important currency in geopolitics. As elected representatives, some of whom participate in the functions of executive government at a state level, all of us are engaged in public debates in exercising our legislative and oversight functions as members of Parliament. We do have to acknowledge that today, as it has been for centuries, information, the sharing of information and the trading of information are important parts of how geopolitics and politics in general operate. This is not a new phenomenon, but it is something that has been a feature of various types of political fora, whether they be medieval courts or contemporary chambers, that we need to be cognisant of.

Those of us in positions of elected office do need to be aware, not just those who are connected to matters to do with national security. There are a range of other functions where information is an important commodity, whether that be in defence industries, whether that be in science, whether that be in technology, whether that be in innovation sectors or whether that be in biotechnology. We all come into contact with information which others may see as valuable. Therefore there is an obligation on us to be cognisant of the risk that can come when others seek to obtain that information. The risk vectors that we have are not just those which have emerged recently with the advent of new technologies. It is not just the cyber risk vector that we need to be aware of, although that is incredibly important. But those risk vectors occur in any number of fora where information can be exchanged. Therefore we need to be vigilant in the conduct of all of our lives, in the conduct of all of our professional dealings, whether that be not clicking the wrong link in a phishing email that exposes our internal IT systems to hostile actors or whether it is the way in which we engage with others who are friendly to us in the community seeking to use that to garner information which they may be able to use for their own purposes. Federal minister Clare O’Neil, the Minister for Home Affairs, pointed out this need for vigilance in some remarks she made last week. I will go to those.

These are issues which we all need to be aware of, but motions like this that seek to get into questions of how our intelligence agencies are operating are really ones that are best left to the Commonwealth Parliament to consider.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:34): I want to thank Mr Somyurek for putting forward this motion so that we can have this discussion and note the significance of this issue. I think it rocked everyone hearing this news. I was actually at the La Trobe University alumni dinner when this news kind of broke out. I remember sitting across from some Labor MPs who were equally shocked. It is one of those things that we, as elected representatives, have to always be really conscious of, and we must not take our sovereignty for granted. I think those people of integrity ought to speak up when these kinds of things occur and ought to be patriotic, because at the end of the day it is those patriots that are flying the flag that have the national interest at heart. The integrity of our parliamentary democracy is of the utmost importance. As Mr Somyurek pointed out, integrity is what underpins the legitimacy of the government and our democracy.

We strongly support the actions of Mike Burgess, and it is important that the public understand the shocking foreign interference that exists. It is just reprehensible that a politician has betrayed our country and betrayed our trust and the trust of the Australian people, who elected and put them there. We think it is very important that these disclosures made by ASIO have been made, but we must let ASIO complete their investigations unimpeded. It is not up to us as members in this place to determine the strategies and techniques that ASIO deploys or employs.

I would also like to note the former federal coalition government for legislating espionage and foreign interference reforms that provided record support for ASIO and other intelligence agencies to do the work that they do. I am someone who remembers when that tranche went through under the Turnbull government. There was a certain New South Wales Labor candidate, who then became a New South Wales Labor senator and then lost a safe seat, who said that the federal coalition government was ‘China-phobic’. She tried to use Australia and Australians standing up for the national interest and properly funding our intelligence agencies and giving them the laws that they deserved as ‘China politics’ and ‘China-phobic’ and to bring politics into it. I will say good riddance. She lost that and then also lost a subsequent election as well, because that is not the kind of politics that should play out in situations like this when we need to put the national interest first.

It is clear that we need a strong security framework to protect us from threats, whether they come externally or internally, to our parliamentary democracy. We are seeing foreign operatives in Australia who are targeting individuals with influence to extract information to use against Australia. It is a dangerous activity that we face in Australia, and it is reprehensible for anybody to knowingly engage with foreign operatives in any way that endangers Australia’s interests. We ought to have as much transparency around that as can possibly be given.

The opposition will not oppose this motion. I tend to think it is fairly legitimate for us to have a conversation about this. I know Mr Batchelor has a different view, but I think we can have that conversation around this and that states can contribute through parliamentary democracy to being a part of that conversation. The point that we should not have anything to do with it and should not have anything to say on it contravenes several other points where we actually do. For example, states engage with foreign countries all the time. States have a formal role in the immigration act, and we have seen many members, I think all members around this place, recently speak on foreign issues. So I think it is perfectly legitimate for us to speak about a national or local government issue or an international issue or a national security issue, and I want to thank Mr Somyurek for bringing this motion to the house.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:40): Firstly, I also would like to thank Mr Somyurek for bringing this motion before the house. This is a very serious matter, and I concur with Mr Mulholland that it is something that members of Parliament should engage with, and I would also like to add to his point that many of our constituents, especially in the South-East Metro region, have fled authoritarian regimes. For example, in South-East Metro there are many people that have fled the communist regime in China, that have fled Vietnam and many other places, and many of these people are targeted by intelligence agencies. I would like to focus on one of the points that Mr Somyurek has raised, point (3), where he states that he:

invites ASIO to provide a briefing to members of the Victorian Parliament on the advanced tactics, referenced by Mr Burgess, which are used by foreign agents to enlist and undermine members of Parliament …

I would like to tell a story of something that happened in 2020, which I think was a dreadful saga that affected my constituents in South-East Metro. In early 2020 I received a letter from the Falun Gong group. You might know them – they are a minority group who are heavily persecuted in China, and many of them have fled China and made Australia their home. They are people that believe in tolerance and compassion. This letter was a copy of a letter that was sent to the ABC, and it was effectively begging the ABC to not broadcast a documentary that the ABC had put together that they thought was smearing their organisation. That was not their main concern, though; their main concern was that this documentary would be used in China to further religious persecution of their friends and family back in China. I was outraged when I received this letter. The idea that Australian taxpayers money would be used to produce material that would be used for religious persecution was one of the most outrageous things that I could imagine. The ABC ignored their pleas and broadcast it anyway.

As it turned out, Falun Gong were in fact entirely correct. In fact the very next day, on the website which is used by the Chinese Communist Party to outline their activities to suppress religious minority groups that they deem unacceptable, they had a translation of this and were stating how the Australian people were waking up and finally turning on these evil dissidents that were a menace. I was outraged by it. I was outraged that our national broadcaster had done this, despite being told what would happen, and exactly what Falun Gong said would happen did happen. I went to the media and I put in a formal complaint to the ABC. I put in a formal complaint to the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The ABC investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong, and ACMA said they also did nothing wrong. I disagree with those points. I think that they put a very vulnerable community in dire danger through their actions. But to my absolute shock, very soon after media was broadcast with me complaining about the ABC, I found myself on the Communist Party’s website calling me a traitor to my country, which hurt more than anything that has happened to me in Parliament I think.

The reason that they called me a traitor is because I was defending the rights of a persecuted religious group and disagreeing with our state media. These are the type of people that we are dealing with who try to infiltrate and influence our country. I just think that it is a glaring omission that members of Parliament are not at least briefed on this sort of stuff by ASIO – on the types of techniques that Mr Somyurek has talked about here in point (3) and also the types of things that we should watch out for in our community.

Many people who have escaped these authoritarian regimes are terrified to speak. The reason they are scared to speak is not because they are scared of the Australian government. They have got friends and families that live back in these countries, and if they speak up, they are worried that their friends and families will get a knock on the door in the middle of the night. It happens – I have spoken to people that it has happened to – and it is just wrong. We need to be very mindful of this and watch out for these people. I totally support any assistance that members of Parliament can be given to help fight back against this foreign interference. It would be very welcome.

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:46): I move:

That debate on this motion be adjourned until later this day.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until later this day.