TRANSCRIPT - ABC NEWS BREAKFAST INTERVIEW - FRIDAY 1 AUGUST 2025

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW

ABC NEWS BREAKFAST

FRIDAY, 1 AUGUST 2025

SUBJECTS: FOREIGN INTEFERENCE, SPYHOOD SECURITY CLEARANCES AT ASIO, AUSTRALIA’S STANCE ON PALESTINE, WHAT’S IN YOUR FREEZER

JAMES GLENDAY: It's been a big week in federal politics. Australia's domestic spy chief has warned that foreign espionage is costing the nation at least $12.5 billion a year. Tony Burke, the Minister responsible for ASIO, joins us now from Canberra. Tony, welcome back to News Breakfast.

MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS, TONY BURKE: Hi, James.

GLENDAY: $12.5 billion. Now, espionage by its nature is secretive, I wonder just how accurate that $12.5 billion figure is going to be.

BURKE: ASIO has done the work together with the Institute of Criminology. They go pretty deep into this. Obviously with any of these figures there'll be some numbers that you miss. The context of that is where there's tens of billions which have been saved because of our actions. Mike Burgess doesn't talk often, but when he does, people pay attention and the point is to make clear that people are clear-eyed about what's happening here. Clear-eyed that there is in fact a risk, but also to have an understanding of what they can do to help minimise it.

GLENDAY: It was an interesting speech. I mean, Mike Burgess again sounded the alarm about people with security clearances posting or bragging about them online. Is there any danger of an outbreak of common sense in this space?

BURKE: Can I say, it's better than it was. Since Mike first raised this a couple of years ago, there's been an 85 per cent reduction in the numbers of people who are doing this, so, there's an improvement. If you've got access to secrets, it's because there's a view that you're going to be discreet. I get that people on social media will always be wanting to make clear that they're very employable for the future. The best way to show that you're employable is to show you're worthy of the secrets and the security clearance that you have.

GLENDAY: Do there need to be bigger punishments or something to stop people putting this on LinkedIn and saying, "Hey, I've got this top secret clearance?"

BURKE: What we'll be doing is- we had the go first of all of just advising people and that got the 85 per cent reduction, but it hasn't fixed it. So, security clearances are now all migrating across to ASIO. What ASIO is going to start doing with those top secret clearances is make it a condition. If you start putting it up on social media, then what you put up on social media will no longer be true because you won't hold the clearance anymore. If you're going to have a top secret clearance, you need to show that you're worthy of it.

GLENDAY: The spy chief named a couple of countries last night. He said Iran, Russia, China these are the sort of nations that target people. Are there any others though, that you feel comfortable talking about and naming publicly?

BURKE: None that I'll name. But as Mike said in interviews today as well, all nations spy, including Australia - all nations try to get information. What he's wanting to make clear is people shouldn't - because there's three countries that he's previously named - people shouldn't think that the threat or the need for discretion is limited to people from those nations, this is all around the world. Effectively, if you have secret information and a lot of it can be commercial, it doesn't all have to be defence and military. He gave even a horticultural example of that in his speech. Then, you have to guard the information - it doesn't mean you treat everybody with paranoia or anything like that, but you be discreet and you work on the basis that if information's confidential, it's confidential for a reason.

GLENDAY: Just on another issue, is Australia going to recognise Palestine by September and follow what a lot of our like minded nations have done, places like France, Canada and the UK?

BURKE: A few people have made the comment now that it's not about if, it's about when. What the Prime Minister made clear on 7:30 last night, is the determination of the government to try to make sure that a decision like that has the strongest possible outcome in terms of peace, in terms of outcome for the people in that region. I think everybody, every Australian, when they look at the region, there's two things they want. They want the killing to stop and they also want to make sure that the hatred isn't imported here to Australia. They're the two things that the government's focused on.

GLENDAY: Would you expect an announcement pretty soon on this?

BURKE: When I just said the comment, ‘not if, but when’ and what the Prime Minister is wanting to be able to thread together to make sure that an announcement like that carried the strongest possible positive outcomes, then that's what it's conditional on, rather than an arbitrary timeline.

GLENDAY: Just well outside your portfolio. Australia is waiting to hear from the White House this morning. There's this threat of more tariffs. We haven't done a deal with the Trump administration in addition to the Free Trade Agreement that we've actually got. Is this threat of extra tariffs damaging, do you think, public support for the US-Australia relationship?

BURKE: If I start with, if they were reciprocal tariffs, they'd be at zero and Australia is a trading nation and that's our view. We're a few hours from the announcements being made, so I'm not going to feed into the speculation, but, Australia's view is just that, with respect to trade.

GLENDAY: It's been pretty clear. Just before I let you go, we've had a lot of people writing in this morning telling us what's in the back of their freezers and the back of their cupboards. It would be remiss of me not to ask you, as a very influential Australian, what's in your freezer, Tony Burke? Wat's in the back of your cupboard?

BURKE: The ones that I'm always fighting with are the gluten-free doughnuts. Once I found out I was coeliac, the one thing that you really miss is that you can't get access to a doughnut, but then once you've bought them and they're in the freezer, you're forever fighting the temptation to actually heat them up.

GLENDAY: Wow. There we go. That's a unique insight. Tony Burke, Home Affairs Minister, thank you very much for joining us this morning.

BURKE: Great to talk. See you.

ENDS