TRANSCRIPT - SUNRISE - TUESDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2025

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW - SUNRISE

TUESDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2025

SUBJECTS: Bondi Attack, ASIO, Security Assessments

NATALIE BARR: The Prime Minister has confirmed that the 24-year-old Bondi terrorist Naveed Akram was known to authorities after being linked to an ISIS terror cell here in Sydney back in 2019.

For more, we are joined by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke. How did this fall through the gaps?

TONY BURKE: If I can just take you through the actual ASIO information, if that's all right. This is more than half a decade ago, and there were people who were within ASIO sights, and you always go through everybody who they might be associating with. This was one of those people. In working through and doing their assessment of him at that time, he did not have an ideology or a motivation that matched those other people. You have a very large number of people where you're looking at anyone who might be associating with people who are already of interest. More than half a decade ago, it was not the case that he had the motivation or the ideology where horrifically we saw him end up half a decade later.

BARR: So, it's not the case where anyone puts two and two together and says, look, he had the ideology five, six years ago. His dad has six firearms. That's not a good look.

BURKE: Well, no. Can I just correct again. It was never the case that there was an assessment done by ASIO about him having a violent ideology back then. What happened back then was there were people who did, who were well and truly within the sights and being watched by our security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies. For any of those, you do a constant scope of anyone they associate with and if anyone they associate with matches that same ideology and effectively, they stay in scope as well. Back then he didn't. In the years that followed, that changed.

BARR: Okay, so he was associated with someone who had the ideology. When you look back, do you think there were warning signs that were missed? Do you think anyone messed up here? And I know it's awful to put blame because hindsight is a wonderful thing, Tony, but also you can learn from it.

BURKE: That's right and Nat ASIO constantly do a reassessment to make sure that their systems and everything is constantly improving. But I have to say, as you'd expect, I've done a lot since Sunday to interrogate exactly this line of inquiry. I have to say, our agencies could not have done more in terms of making an assessment. Anyone of interest will have a very large number of people who they might interact with or associate with at any point in time. What our agencies constantly do is to make sure - and I see this work every day - that they're keeping Australians safe. But they will never be able to be all seeing and all-knowing. In terms of the work of the Australian Federal Police themselves, everything right now, as you'd expect, is dealing with a continued criminal investigation that they're involved with in the Joint Counterterrorism Team.

BARR: Do you need a full and comprehensive review? I know you've looked at it, but do you think we need a bigger review of the system?

BURKE: ASIO constantly does those sorts of reviews, and I have to say I have full confidence, absolute full confidence in the work that they do. For our police agencies at the moment, right now, I want the Australian Federal Police to be able to be fully focused on the investigation and to work back through every single piece of information they have. One of the two people is still alive. We need to work on the basis that this is a criminal investigation. Certainly, I don't want right now for there to be anything other than the Australian Federal Police having support and focus to be able to concentrate on that.

BARR: Ok, Tony Burke, thank you for your time.

ENDS