TRANSCRIPT - SKY NEWS EARLY EDITION WITH ALEX THOMAS - WEDNESDAY 27 AUGUST 2025

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW – SKY NEWS EARLY EDITION WITH ALEX THOMAS

WEDNESDAY, 27 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: IRAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS IN AUSTRALIA

 ALEX THOMAS: Our top story is this morning, Australia's declaration that Iran is essentially persona non grata, expelling the Ambassador to the country after it emerged that Iran's Republican Guard Corps organised antisemitic attacks on Australian soil. We can speak live now to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke. Minister, thanks for joining us on First Edition this morning. Were you surprised when ASIO briefed you earlier this week that those antisemitic attacks have been orchestrated here in Australia?

 TONY BURKE: Look, surprise isn't the word… disgust, and I think it's fair to say that every Australian would have felt anger about it as well. This is an attack on our soil, and it's something which warranted the strongest diplomatic action, which is exactly what we've taken. 

 THOMAS: You're planning to tweak the criminal code to list Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC as a terrorist organisation. How long is that going to take?

 BURKE: Look, the process for the legislation to be drafted has now commenced. We need to make sure that the drafting…you want this to be absolutely correct drafting, you need to make sure you get all of that right. But obviously we've started the process. We want to get this, want to get this legislation change as soon as we can. It's a process which is not possible with the current legislation. And so therefore, the drafting process has started immediately.

 THOMAS: What do you say to Opposition complaints this should have happened earlier? 

BURKE: I think they underestimate the extent to which a new line was crossed the moment you deal with the fact that you have an attack on Australian soil. You know, it is a big thing for any government to shut off dialogue in the way that you do when you withdraw your staff from your own embassy and expel an ambassador. There is always advantage in dialogue that needs to be weighed up. A line had clearly, so clearly been crossed when we were dealing with an attack on our own soil, and I think anyone who pretends that we're in the same situation with what we now know as we were, as the Australian people were a week ago, is missing the fundamental difference that you face when you have an attack on your own soil. And nobody should view this as an attack on a venue or an attack on the Jewish community. This is an attack on Australia, and it needs to be treated that way.

THOMAS: The IRGC is effectively Iran's regime itself. Why make that distinction?

BURKE: Sorry, I missed that. Could you ask that again, please? I apologise.

 THOMAS: Yeah, the IRGC, you know, you're making them a terrorist organisation, but essentially, they represent the Iranian regime in its totality. Why make that distinction? 

 URKE: We have the information as to precisely which section this came from. It came from the IRGC. So therefore, we are making sure that legislation will allow us to list the IRGC. We're not going beyond the assessment that ASIO have made, we're going precisely on the information that we have, and people should know, because obviously I'm closer to this, so I see it up front, but an extraordinary level of care and rigour goes into these ASIO assessments, they are not made lightly, and when something like this is made public to the Australian people, it's because there is a very, very high level of confidence of its contents.

THOMAS: Of course, part of the story is the middle men, if you like. How concerned are you that Australians could be susceptible to working for a foreign regime against the national interest here? 

 BURKE: So, the assessment… if you look at the words of Mike Burgess, the Director General of ASIO yesterday, we are not making a specific claim about the intention of the people who had been charged or who have been have been arrested or were involved in Australia. We are not saying that they necessarily knew who they were working for, or who they were dealing with. The term that ASIO and the Intelligence Agencies use is cut-outs, were effectively… you have a series of intermediaries so that people performing different actions don't in fact know who is directing them or don't necessarily know who is directing them. 

And that concept of cut-outs was used a number of times yesterday by Mike Burgess. And so it refers more to the challenge that we always have in making sure that we can reduce crime rates all across Australia in terms of the role of those people who may have ultimately carried out the crime. None of this changes the fact as to where this started, as to where this was directed, as to why this was initiated, and that goes back to the IRGC.

 THOMAS: Iran is accusing the Albanese government, essentially, of trying to get back in Israel's good books. Was there any feeling you had to act strongly over this, after the pushback about the decision to support Palestinian statehood?

 BURKE: This decision that we have taken is about one thing and about one thing only, and that is a safety and sovereignty of Australia. It's about the safety of Australians, it's about the sovereignty of Australians. And anyone who wants to try to find some other reason here or there, it's just wrong. You don't need that. What you start with is the absolute principle that the first role of any government is keeping its people safe. And when you have an attack that has been initiated by Iran in this way, you know, you can deal with the cutouts, you can deal with the proxies, you can deal with the intermediaries, where you have a nation state behaving in that way, you have to act immediately to protect the safety of Australians and protect the sovereignty of Australians. That's what we've done.

 ENDS