TRANSCRIPT - ABC NEWS BREAKFAST WITH JAMES GLENDAY - WEDNESDAY 27 AUGUST 2025

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TV INTERVIEW – ABC NEWS BREAKFAST

WEDNESDAY, 27 AUGUST 2025

 SUBJECTS: POLICE OFFICERS KILLED IN VICTORIA, IRAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS IN AUSTRALIA

 JAMES GLENDAY: We’re joined by the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke. Tony, welcome back to News Breakfast.

 TONY BURKE: Good morning, James.

 GLENDAY: I just want to take you to Victoria first. I'm not sure how much you can reveal at the moment, but was this man Dezi Freeman on the radar of either ASIO or the AFP?

 BURKE:  Look, at the moment, the investigation's being led by Victoria, so I'll leave it to the Victorian government to be able to provide that sort of information. What I can say is both the Australian Federal Police and ASIO have been assigned to this and assisting the Victorian police with their investigations. I should also say, just as the minister for the Australian Federal Police, the extent to which our hearts go out and are our condolences are over the loss of life. These police officers put themselves in harm's way to keep us safe, and it's just horrific when you see the people who dedicate their lives to safety, finding themselves in that sort of danger.

 GLENDAY: Yeah, I mean, there seems to be some echoes of what we saw in Wieambilla in Queensland just a couple of years ago with how this has played out. How much of a threat do these so called sovereign citizens pose? How much are they on the radar of our intelligence agencies?

 BURKE:  Yeah, look, I won’t answer in the context of the current investigation. What I will say is that any ideology that says the law doesn't apply to you is inherently dangerous. You know, the whole principle by which we keep each other safe and work together as a cohesive community, is the concept that the same laws apply to all of us. And any ideology, and this is one of them, but any ideology, that somehow comes up with a bizarre conclusion that allows people to say that the law doesn't apply to them, that creates this problem. And the other thing I'd say, when we raised the terror alert level from possible to probable last year, Mike Burgess was quite specific about the fact we were now dealing with mixed ideologies where you used to have formal terrorist cells and people would go down a pathway of a specific ideology. Those things still exist, but there is a new threat of people latching on to a piece of this ideology, a piece of another mixed ideologies that of themselves are logically incoherent, and that has changed the nature of the threat.

 GLENDAY: Does that make it…sorry to jump in, does that make it more difficult to track these people? Because they have this paranoia of authority and government anyway?

 BURKE: The thing that has made it harder is the old system of recruitment into different organisations, and that sort of planning pathway, which is how we always used to think of terrorism, is something which doesn't match-- it still exists, that hasn't gone away, but there is an additional form of fast online radicalisation with mixed ideologies. It's particularly targeting teenage males. It's that aspect, which is new, the other hasn't gone away, but that new aspect can lead to very fast radicalisation.

 GLENDAY: OK, we will be speaking with the Victorian Premier in about half an hour or so about this. I just want to take you to Iran and these antisemitic attacks. How is.. can you just explain how was this working? Was Iran directing these attacks from abroad and engaging local criminals? Or was it actually operatives of Iran in Australia working with locals?

 BURKE: The information that we provided yesterday was very deliberately provided, and to that level of detail. So I won't go beyond what was said yesterday. But for anyone who watched it, Mike Burgess, the Director General of ASIO, used a number of times the term cut-outs. Cut-outs is a term used in the intelligence community that refers to intermediaries. Who were there to effectively make sure that as you go down the chain, people don't realise who was higher up the chain. That's the nature of what cut-outs are.

 GLENDAY: Okay, so just to interrupt... So these criminals who are doing these things might not have known that they were being ultimately paid by Iran. There's just a bit of concern within the Jewish community that some of these people might still be out there on the streets.

 BURKE: No, the language from the Director General yesterday was very deliberate. We have no reason to believe that the people who are actually conducting the actions had any idea who had started it. That doesn't change the seriousness from the Australian government's point of view, that Iran was still involved in directing attacks on Australian soil, which is why we've taken actions, which have been unprecedented in the post war era.

 GLENDAY: Yes, just to one of those actions, that's the designating of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. A lot of the Iranian expats in Australia are pretty pleased about this. Can you tell us what effect that'll have on the ground?

 BURKE: Two sort of impacts. The direct legal impact of a terrorist listing is that it becomes a criminal offence to be a member, to support, to fund. The second impact, though, which is perhaps more powerful, is the message that it sends. And it has the government of Australia drawing an absolute sharp line as to just how unacceptable this is. And that's one of the things that was really important yesterday to send that very clear message that these attacks on the Jewish community in Australia, we view them as an attack on Australia. We don't view them as an attack on part of us, or some of us. We stand together and we stand in solidarity as Australians. And the strength of that message is something that is also provided in response that we've had.

 GLENDAY:  Tony Burke, we are nearly out of time. I might get you, if you can, to take off your Home Affairs Minister hat and just be the boy from Beverly Hills in Southwest Sydney. A lot of people are writing in to us this morning about celebrity couples. I must admit, I don't really care at all. Of course, this is after Taylor Swift got engaged. Maybe it's escapism in the world from all the serious and horrible things. Do you have a view? Do you have a favourite celebrity couple?

 BURKE: Oh, this is not my world at all. You’ve done this to me before… I feel like a bad art's minister. Look, not strictly celebrities, but I'll stick with Albo and Jodie. That's probably the safest answer.

 GLENDAY:  That is the safe answer. Tony Burke, really appreciate you joining us this morning on a very, very busy day for you.

 ENDS