TRANSCRIPT - ABC 730 - WEDNESDAY 17, NOVEMBER 2025

SARAH FERGUSON: 24 year old Naveed Akram was charged this afternoon with 59 offences related to the attack in Bondi. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke joins me now. Tony Burke, welcome.

MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS, TONY BURKE: Good evening.

FERGUSON: Josh Frydenberg argument is at its core that the Prime Minister has allowed Australia to be radicalised by hatred, by anti-Semitism. Could I get first of all, your response to that?

BURKE: Well, first of all, 59 charges were laid today against the person responsible, that's why the police have taken that action. There should be nothing where we shed the responsibility from the people who will now go before the legal system for a crime that has horrified all decent Australians, everyone. That's where the responsibility lies.

It is also the case that anti-Semitism has been rising in Australia. It was always unacceptable, but bigots have become emboldened. That is why the government has continued to act and act and act. There will never be a point where you stop acting on a hatred with the deep history of this one. All Australians need to be united in that.

FERGUSON: If what you have done is adequate in the face of that rising bigotry. Why were laws not used, for example, to stop the hate speech of preachers like Wissam Haddad, who we now know to be an associate of one of the killers?

BURKE: I've never said that you get to the point where this is adequate, you don't. What I've been saying is that there's been a series of responses that we've made, all of which matter, but none of which are the end of the story.

It matters that we have changed the law with respect to hate speech. It matters that we've changed the law on hate symbols. It matters that we've changed the law on hate crimes. It matters that I've been cancelling visas in ways that previous Ministers had not, because I've just not been particularly fussed about the freedom of speech argument, when someone is vilifying sections of the Australian community. Those things matter. They are not the end of the story, but they do matter and they are all actions - including the appointment of an anti Semitism envoy in Australia - are all important actions that have been taken, and they are not the end of it.

FERGUSON: Now, the Prime Minister said on Monday, obviously our information is moving fast. We're not party to the same amount of information as you are. He said on Monday that he was sure that the terrorists acted alone. Now, with this additional information that we have learned about them travelling to the Philippines, are we still certain that is the case, that this is just two people acting?

BURKE: Look, all of our advice at the moment is that we're dealing with a circle of two. But it's also the case, as you would expect, that our intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies never stop collecting information. They have always said at every point that could change and as you'd expect, they are now furiously making sure that they follow every possible lead to make sure there are not further threats in terms of any network to Australians, in particular Jewish Australians.

FERGUSON: Now, I just said this information is moving fast. I want to be clear about. About this. Did ASIO continue to keep tabs on the younger of the two, the son, Naveed Akram, after he initially came to their attention as an associate of supporters of Islamic State?

BURKE: There are parts of that that I can't answer, but what I can say is that assessments were made. It's been publicly reported what those assessments were at the time. ASIO is also an organisation that never says, we have all the information we need on someone. As an organisation they will always prioritise where they believe the biggest threat is. That changes over time.

It is also the case that we've had a lot of comments, particularly from Director-General Mike Burgess, where he's been saying for a long time now, that we have seen a change in the pace of radicalisation. You now have a situation where people who may previously have not been radicalised, that the pace of radicalisation is happening fast. That is a change that we are seeing often online, often younger people than it used to be. The traditional networks and associates, that still is something that is watched, but there's this other strain that also happens now as well.

FERGUSON: Was Naveed Akram or Sajid Akram ever on a movement alert list?

BURKE: At that point given the..

FERGUSON: At any point…

BURKE: No. No. What I'm saying is, at this point of the questioning, we're now at the limits of where I can go with the suppression order that was issued today.

FERGUSON: You mean because he's, because Naveed has been charged?

BURKE: Because of the charges and because I'm the Minister responsible for the Federal Police – and believe me, there's a lot on this that I would really like to say – but I've been given very strict instructions about some boundaries on what I can say. As you'd appreciate, the last thing any of us want to do is to jeopardise the importance of this trial.

FERGUSON: Let me then flip back then to the question I asked before, just to be absolutely clear about this. Did ASIO continue to pay attention to, to keep tabs on Naveed Akram after he initially came to their attention?

BURKE: Maybe I can just answer it in the general. That is, the movement alert list is very vast and when people come to our attention, they generally stay there for a very, very long time.

FERGUSON: But if he was on a movement alert list, wouldn't that have triggered some kind of notice?

BURKE: That’s as much as I can go, you are back to the specifics and I'm going to risk it.

FERGUSON: Let me ask a general question, then. You must have reviewed all the available intelligence since Sunday. In your position, was there an intelligence failure?

BURKE: I have full confidence in our intelligence agencies. I've gone through...

FERGUSON: That’s not the question, if I may.

BURKE: No, no, no, but the next sentence will. I've gone through the different decisions that have been taken in this respect, and I have confidence of the decisions that are made. I'll make clear, obviously they are not all decisions that were made during the life of this particular government. But I'm not playing political gains with any of this. No matter who was in office at different times, I have confidence in the way decisions were taken.

FERGUSON: Should there be a Royal Commission or a Commission of Inquiry to understand this whole picture, the event itself and the lead up?

BURKE: The last thing that I want is the delays that happen on a Royal Commission. My priority right now – similar to one of the comments actually that was made in the previous interview from Josh Frydenberg – we need to put everything right now into making sure that we are keeping people safe and doing everything to make sure that this does not happen again. Not only that this does not happen again, you know, before Sunday…

FERGUSON: We can't possibly do that unless we understand what happened.

BURKE: But we also need our agencies to be providing us with advice on whether there are additional powers, whether there is additional information sharing that might need to happen. That's the conversation that I'm having. I'd remind you that after Lindt, after Port Arthur, that was the same approach that was taken there, that you don't want the delays that are involved in a Royal Commission. The priority has to be what actions do we take to keep people safe.

FERGUSON. So, when Mike Burgess at ASIO raised the threat level to probable mid last year, what actions did the government take to increase the protection, particularly of Australia's Jewish community?

BURKE: The Countering Violent Extremism strategy goes through a series of different programs that we run that we do jointly with the States, which involves keeping people safe, very specifically every day…

FERGUSON: But that as a significant moment, wasn't it? The lifting of the terror, the terror assessment back up to probable. That's more than likely it will occur.

BURKE: That's right. At that point you have; that behaviour from ASIO, you have sharing that happens with our intelligence partners, particularly the Five Eyes – but not only the Five Eyes’ partners – and then you've got the work that happens through my Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Federal Police in particular. But all of that changes depending on where the threat environment is and that happens seamlessly.

FERGUSON: Of course, what had happened during that time is that ASIO and AFP were taken out of Home Affairs and went to the Attorney General's Department. Did that diminish the capacity of the government to keep tabs on all of the people that they needed to keep tabs on?

BURKE: We were still getting the access and the briefings. My view was the best way that we could make sure that all of that information was seamless was to have all the agencies back together. When I put that proposal to the Prime Minister after the last election, the agencies were brought back together.

FERGUSON: We probably don't have time to go into that in enough detail, but here's a different question. Was it - with what we know now, do you see a failure of resourcing? Did the intelligence services in Australia downgrade their capabilities in the area of Islamic extremism after the collapse of the caliphate in 2019 when it appeared that ISIS posed a slightly lesser threat?

BURKE: Downgrade would be the wrong term. The…

FERGUSON: They have limited resources. Do they put more resources into other aspects of their work?

BURKE: They are constantly working out where the threat is. The advice that I've always had from the agencies is that threat hasn't gone away, which they've always said, that threat hasn't gone away. There are other threats, in particular the rise in confidence of neo-Nazis and other forms of violent extremism that work from a different violent ideology that we also need to be paying increased attention to.

FERGUSON: They don't have endless resources, though, do they? They must make choices. So, did they downgrade their capabilities in looking at Islamic extremism?

BURKE: I've confirmed with the Australian Federal Police and with ASIO again in the last 24 hours that they both have more resources than they have ever had and believe they get a fair hearing whenever they put a resources case to government.

FERGUSON: Were you influenced in any of these decisions in combating anti-Semitism and taking on hate speech and taking on hate preachers? Were you influenced at any time by the views of Muslim populations in your Western Sydney seat?

BURKE: I'll tell you one of the, one of the local references that has been an influence on me and it was referred to by Josh Frydenberg. I have had a local fight effectively and have wanted to be able to take action against Hizb ut-Tahrir my entire political career. I have seen the Coalition, every time they're in opposition, suddenly discover this issue when we’re in government, not act…

FERGUSON: I should say this is an extremist organisation with roots in the Palestinian cause.

BURKE: Mike Burgess describes them basically as Hizb ut- Tahrir and the Neo Nazis, as both being organisations that have managed to keep themselves just below the legal threshold.

But I've been fighting this organisation since my first term, when I was wanting to stop the Howard government from issuing a visa for their guest speaker, who was Ismail Yusanto, the international head of the organisation to come. They still issued the visas on the name of freedom of speech, and I watched a hate preacher come trying to radicalise my community. My view for a very long time has been – and as soon as I came into Home Affairs, I asked again – I’ve continued to ask, do they meet the legal threshold? Because the moment they meet a legal threshold, I see them causing nothing but harm in the community.

FERGUSON: Tony Burke, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

BURKE: Thanks for the conversation.

ENDS