TRANSCRIPT - ABC NEWS BREAKFAST INTERVIEW - FRIDAY 27 JUNE 2025
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS BREAKFAST - JAMES GLENDAY
FRIDAY, 27 JUNE 2025
SUBJECTS: TERRORGRAM FORMALLY LISTED AS A TERRORIST ORGANISATION, AUSTRALIA'S DEFENCE SPENDING, KASPERSKY LAB, INC. BAN, ANNA WINTOUR STEPPING DOWN
JAMES GLENDAY: Well, we want to go to Federal Politics now and the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, joins us from Sydney. Minister, welcome back to News Breakfast.
TONY BURKE: Hi, James.
GLENDAY: First of all, you've got an announcement today. You're listing Terrorgram as a terrorist organisation. First of all, can you explain to us what is Terrorgram?
BURKE: Yeah, this is very different to a lot of the listings that people would have heard about in the past. When people think about a terrorist group organising, normally, you imagine people in small groups meeting in private homes or something and gradually recruiting people to their cause before they organise something. This one is more like a giant chat group dedicated to evil, to hatred and to violence. So, it functions within Telegram. There's like a channel and there'll be a whole lot of different subgroups. And so interestingly, this is a group where a whole lot of the members would not know each other, would never meet each other. And the attacks, when they occur, are very much lone wolf attacks. So, it's quite different to others, but it's a form of far-right extremism. We're talking about white supremacism, we're talking about homophobic violence, and we're talking about the sort of organisation that, you know, describes the Christchurch Killer as a saint. Like these are.. this is a really bad organisation, but a different sort of organisation to what we've listed before. So, the penalties now, if anyone's involved in it or fundraising or helping it in any way, or recruiting to it, there's now jail terms up to 25 years.
GLENDAY: Yeah. Penny Wong announced restrictions on this group in February. Do you know how many people in Australia might have used this platform or been involved with it?
BURKE: Yeah, look, that's not the sort of information I'd provide. What I would say, though, is they have been a direct threat to Australians. There has been one attack in particular that was directly part of this network that took place. And my priority with all of this is to be able to make sure that we can keep Australians safe. So, making sure that we can target this, not just in the sanctions regime, but using our national security apparatus, is something that I'm really committed to. There can be times in my portfolio where, you know, some predecessors over different decades would use the portfolio to whip up fear. We're just wanting to make sure that we keep Australians safe. And this organisation, their whole concept is to try to make a whole lot of people in Australia and other countries feel not welcome. We're giving a really clear statement today, it's the hatred and the bigotry and the violence that isn't welcome. And we want people in Australia to be able to feel safe.
GLENDAY: Yes, I suppose the clues in the name isn't it with Terrorgram. I just want to take you to Defence spending –
BURKE: It’s not subtle.
GLENDAY: Yeah. No, it's not subtle at all, Tony. Several European leaders, of course, have committed to 5 per cent spending on Defence of their rough GDP, that's broken up into about 3.5 per cent on actual military spending, 1.5 on infrastructure and other things. Is your – your government's been pretty clear that it's not going to be dictated to by anyone about what to spend on Defence. But is your government currently looking at boosting defence spending above what you've previously promised?
BURKE: Yeah, I mean, as you know, we, at the moment, we, we have engaged in a really sizeable increase in Defence spending. There's more than $10 billion in the, in the budget numbers already over a decade. It goes to more than $50 billion. That's all additional. The world at the moment, you've only got to watch any of the news breaks that you've been running on News Breakfast every morning. People know that the world is a more unstable place than it's been. But our conversations, including with partners, always start from Australia's perspective with capability. We don't start with the percentage or the numbers and then say, okay, what would you then do to fill in the gaps? We start with what's the capability that we need to be able to keep Australians safe and what is required to be able to make sure we keep Australians safe where we're willing to deal with. But it's a, it's a different conversation that we have with our partners to how some of the commentary's been on this.
GLENDAY: It's been reported just in your portfolio that government agencies use products from Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky until mid last year, about a year ago. I know it's now banned on government systems, but were there any security breaches that you know of?
BURKE: Look, well prior to the ban, it wasn't necessarily a security breach is the problem. And so all that had happened back in 2017, the previous government had like sent a letter around saying, oh, please don't, but they hadn't used any of the legislative frameworks to be able to ban it. So, I've been a bit amused watching the Liberal Party run around saying, “Oh no, this is a disaster.” Well, they could have banned it. They didn't. We now have. And this particular app, which you know is technically would market itself as antivirus software, is something that is now formally banned from government devices and banned for good reason.
GLENDAY: Before I let you go, Tony, I'm going to get you to put your Arts Minister hat on. Do you spend –
BURKE: Oh, good.
GLENDAY: Do you spend - now, I know many people know that you're often found in a Canberra pub, playing music, watching music. I'm not sure, how much time do you spend looking at the world of fashion? And do you have a particularly big view on Anna Wintour standing down?
BURKE: I don't. I'm sorry…
GLENDAY: And look, I sympathise with you, Tony. I'll be honest.
BURKE: With the greatest respect, people would only have to see any of the photos of me that are on stock to know that it's probably not my strength in the arts.
GLENDAY: Look, you know what? I'm with you, Tony. Thank you very much.
BURKE: I'm a big believer in the flannelette shirt, if that helps.
GLENDAY: Good, good. You have your own style. Don't be embarrassed about that. Minister, thank you so much for joining News Breakfast.
BURKE: Great to talk.
ENDS