1
00:00:06,840 --> 00:00:09,240
Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker

2
00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:13,520
Speaker 1: every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play

3
00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:22,319
Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's

4
00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:25,880
Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, August sixth.

5
00:00:30,520 --> 00:00:34,080
Speaker 1: Brittaney Higgins lawyer says Senator Linda Reynolds was trying to

6
00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:38,160
Speaker 1: help Bruce Lahman, the man Higgins accused of rape, by

7
00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:43,520
Speaker 1: sending his lawyer's text messages during Lahman's criminal trial. Reynolds

8
00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:47,480
Speaker 1: is suing Higgins and her husband David Schiraz for defamation,

9
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:52,400
Speaker 1: but higgins lawyer Rachel Young sc says the senator retraumatized

10
00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:57,280
Speaker 1: and harassed Brittney Higgins. Our coverage of that trial is

11
00:00:57,400 --> 00:01:06,160
Speaker 1: live at Beaustralian dot com. The last standing Rat of

12
00:01:06,240 --> 00:01:09,399
Speaker 1: to Brook, Tom Pritchard, has died at the age of

13
00:01:09,440 --> 00:01:12,759
Speaker 1: one hundred and two. In nineteen forty one, the Rats

14
00:01:12,880 --> 00:01:15,920
Speaker 1: held off Access troops for two hundred and forty two

15
00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:19,840
Speaker 1: days in North Africa. Pritchard lied about his age to

16
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:22,679
Speaker 1: join the army. As a nineteen year old. He served

17
00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:30,520
Speaker 1: as an ambulance attendant at Tabrook. Probable that's the new

18
00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:34,920
Speaker 1: terror threat level in Australia declared by the spy Agency ASIO,

19
00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:38,000
Speaker 1: which is warning about the threat posed by young people

20
00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:42,240
Speaker 1: radicalized online and armed with knives or guns.

21
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:45,560
Speaker 2: We assess there is a greater than fifty percent chance

22
00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:48,720
Speaker 2: of an onshore attack or planning in the next twelve months.

23
00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:52,440
Speaker 1: It's all about rising tensions in the Middle East?

24
00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:53,680
Speaker 3: Or is it?

25
00:01:54,280 --> 00:02:10,320
Speaker 1: Today we unpack the spymaster's careful wording. In the Middle East,

26
00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:15,240
Speaker 1: Israel's bombardment of Gaza is morphing into something much bigger,

27
00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:26,440
Speaker 1: a regional war. Rocket sirens in Israel as civilians sheltering place,

28
00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:39,359
Speaker 1: a Lebanese ambulance races through the streets of Beirut, in Iran,

29
00:02:39,639 --> 00:02:43,720
Speaker 1: prayers for a Hamas leader assassinated by Israel right in

30
00:02:43,760 --> 00:02:48,680
Speaker 1: the heart of Tehran, And in Australia, a chilling new mood.

31
00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:53,079
Speaker 1: Here's Anthony Albanesi.

32
00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:59,680
Speaker 4: Asia has decided to return Australia's national terrorism threat level

33
00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:01,880
Speaker 4: from possible too probable.

34
00:03:05,280 --> 00:03:07,800
Speaker 2: Attacks are likely to occur with little or no warning

35
00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:09,640
Speaker 2: and will be difficult to detect.

36
00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:15,360
Speaker 1: That's asy Oboss Mike Burgess. On Monday, he was part

37
00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:18,800
Speaker 1: of a joint press conference with Albanesi and the Attorney

38
00:03:18,840 --> 00:03:19,960
Speaker 1: General Mark Dreyfus.

39
00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:25,639
Speaker 2: An escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, particularly

40
00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:29,920
Speaker 2: in southern Lebanon, would inflict further strain, aggravating tensions and

41
00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:31,560
Speaker 2: potentially fueling grievances.

42
00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:38,960
Speaker 1: So the raised terror alert is about the Israel Gaza conflict, right, Well,

43
00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:40,240
Speaker 1: it's not so clear.

44
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:46,960
Speaker 2: Our decision is not a direct response to the tragic

45
00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:50,000
Speaker 2: events in the Middle East. At this stage, we do

46
00:03:50,040 --> 00:03:52,800
Speaker 2: not believe any of the terrorist plots we have investigated

47
00:03:52,800 --> 00:03:57,040
Speaker 2: in the last year have been inspired by Gaza. Terrorist

48
00:03:57,160 --> 00:04:02,240
Speaker 2: leaders offshore are not inspiring attacks on This is why

49
00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:04,760
Speaker 2: we did not raise threat level in the immediate aftermath

50
00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:08,560
Speaker 2: of the seventh of October. Indirectly though, there have been

51
00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:14,720
Speaker 2: important and relevant impacts. The conflict has fueled grievances, promoted protest,

52
00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:21,440
Speaker 2: exacerbated division, undermined social cohesion, and elevated intolerance. After the

53
00:04:21,440 --> 00:04:25,000
Speaker 2: seventh of October, I warned that inflame language could lead

54
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:29,320
Speaker 2: to inflame community tensions. Unfortunately, this is what's playing out.

55
00:04:30,720 --> 00:04:34,040
Speaker 1: So what's with all this opaque language?

56
00:04:35,040 --> 00:04:38,040
Speaker 5: I think Gaza is a very central aspect of what

57
00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:41,279
Speaker 5: as here. Did Mike Purchase probably being a bit softer

58
00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:44,920
Speaker 5: with his language than he might otherwise have been, because

59
00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:48,760
Speaker 5: he doesn't want his own comments to exacerbate and fuel

60
00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:51,279
Speaker 5: the divisions and the rhetoric and the passion that we've

61
00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:54,240
Speaker 5: seen in Australia ever since October seven.

62
00:04:55,279 --> 00:04:59,680
Speaker 1: That's Cameron Stewart, the chief international correspondent here at the Australian.

63
00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:03,760
Speaker 5: I guess what he's saying here, Claire, is that the

64
00:05:03,760 --> 00:05:09,760
Speaker 5: Gaza conflict has shown exactly the type of intolerance, political

65
00:05:10,040 --> 00:05:15,960
Speaker 5: rhetoric and hostility that we were seeing generally speaking in

66
00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:20,839
Speaker 5: Australian society. But basically Gaza is the best big example

67
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:23,520
Speaker 5: of it in Australia. So I think it's central to

68
00:05:23,600 --> 00:05:26,360
Speaker 5: it really because I think what you've seen, for example,

69
00:05:26,440 --> 00:05:30,039
Speaker 5: in Australia play out since October seven fits into the

70
00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:33,920
Speaker 5: categories that my Burgess is talking about. The whole announcement

71
00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:37,719
Speaker 5: seemed to meet a reek of a government and a

72
00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:41,880
Speaker 5: security service very anxious not to further fan flames and

73
00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:44,320
Speaker 5: passions through the actual announcement itself.

74
00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:51,400
Speaker 1: Okay, So while the politicians and Burgess are not directly

75
00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:54,640
Speaker 1: saying it, this is in large part at least about

76
00:05:54,640 --> 00:06:02,239
Speaker 1: tensions in the Middle East spilling into Australian streets tell these.

77
00:06:02,080 --> 00:06:07,200
Speaker 3: Great incidences of anti Semitism in Australia rose seven hundred

78
00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:11,440
Speaker 3: percent after Hamas's terror attack on Israel and still remain

79
00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:12,680
Speaker 3: alarmingly high.

80
00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:16,599
Speaker 1: Anthony Albanezi was quick to sheet at least some of

81
00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:20,120
Speaker 1: the blame home to his natural enemies in Australian politics,

82
00:06:20,440 --> 00:06:21,040
Speaker 1: the Greens.

83
00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:26,880
Speaker 4: It is not normal to have people in occupations for

84
00:06:27,080 --> 00:06:32,720
Speaker 4: months outside electorate offices where the work of those electorate

85
00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:36,440
Speaker 4: officers is to assist people in social security and health

86
00:06:36,480 --> 00:06:41,640
Speaker 4: in other areas, they're not participants in the Middle East conflict.

87
00:06:43,320 --> 00:06:46,640
Speaker 5: We've seen the huge increase in racism, with the terrible

88
00:06:46,760 --> 00:06:49,640
Speaker 5: rise of anti Semitism in Australia, levels that we just

89
00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:52,240
Speaker 5: haven't seen before. We've also seen, if you like, a

90
00:06:52,279 --> 00:06:57,960
Speaker 5: normalization of intolerance with the activist rump of the pro

91
00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:00,560
Speaker 5: Palestinian movement, and by that I mean not mums and

92
00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:04,760
Speaker 5: dads to God on the Sunday to event their displeasure.

93
00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:08,080
Speaker 5: What Israel's response might be, it's really the activist rump them.

94
00:07:08,279 --> 00:07:11,360
Speaker 5: You've had defacing of Australian war memorials which have absolutely

95
00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:14,640
Speaker 5: nothing to do with Gaza. You've had statues toppled You've

96
00:07:14,640 --> 00:07:18,360
Speaker 5: had politicians' offices being targeted, You've had just a lot

97
00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:22,400
Speaker 5: of personal abuse hurled at a whole range of people.

98
00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:26,760
Speaker 5: I think that, if you like, that movement has very

99
00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:32,800
Speaker 5: much crystallized exactly the sort of breakdown in civility and

100
00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:35,840
Speaker 5: political discourse that Mike Burgess is talking about. And what

101
00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:39,560
Speaker 5: he's saying is, look, while we've had no direct violence

102
00:07:39,880 --> 00:07:43,920
Speaker 5: or plots related to this, this is a trend that

103
00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:47,080
Speaker 5: could easily lead to violence down the track.

104
00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:51,680
Speaker 1: He also said when asked about anti Semitism, he said, yes,

105
00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:54,000
Speaker 1: there's plenty of anti Semitism, but there's plenty of his

106
00:07:54,120 --> 00:07:55,600
Speaker 1: Lamophobia at the same time.

107
00:07:56,360 --> 00:07:59,240
Speaker 2: It's kind of almost equal treatment. Not quite, but almost

108
00:07:59,240 --> 00:07:59,920
Speaker 2: equal treatment.

109
00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:04,520
Speaker 1: You've been covering this pretty closely, cam ever since October seven.

110
00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:05,840
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that?

111
00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:08,640
Speaker 5: No, I don't agree with that now. Min I'm not

112
00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:12,160
Speaker 5: privy to the reports that my Burgess has seen, but certainly, Claire,

113
00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:14,400
Speaker 5: as far as visibility goes in Australia, I mean, the

114
00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:18,000
Speaker 5: age of Semitism is just by far more visible than

115
00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:23,200
Speaker 5: anti Islamophobia. We're not seeing marchers that are condemning Muslims,

116
00:08:23,320 --> 00:08:26,640
Speaker 5: We're not seeing anything like that. We are seeing marches

117
00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:31,920
Speaker 5: with the Nazi sort of paraphernalia, very anti Semitic content

118
00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:34,760
Speaker 5: in science and things like that. We've seen quite clearly

119
00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:40,800
Speaker 5: actions against Jewish businesses, against individual Jews in Australia just

120
00:08:40,840 --> 00:08:44,080
Speaker 5: because they're Jewish, nothing more than that. And so we're

121
00:08:44,120 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 5: just not seeing that sort of visible anti Islamophobia. I

122
00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:52,760
Speaker 5: do wander, to be honest, whether he is said that

123
00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:55,320
Speaker 5: in the same way that Penny Wong has put the

124
00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:57,960
Speaker 5: two together very frequently because they don't want to be

125
00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:00,520
Speaker 5: seen as particularly by us one way the other. But

126
00:09:00,559 --> 00:09:05,120
Speaker 5: certainly from my observation as a reporter covering this, it's

127
00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:08,640
Speaker 5: not nearly an even problem. It's a much greater problem

128
00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:14,160
Speaker 5: of anti Semitism coming up.

129
00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:17,400
Speaker 1: So what will the attacks we're bracing for look like?

130
00:09:18,040 --> 00:09:21,240
Speaker 1: While I've got you, the Australian subscribers are always the

131
00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:24,520
Speaker 1: first to know. Join us at the Australian dot com

132
00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:46,280
Speaker 1: dot AU. We'll be back after this break. We all

133
00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:50,840
Speaker 1: have ideas about what superspies should look like, intense jewel lines,

134
00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:55,319
Speaker 1: trench coats. Like Burgess, a sixty year old cyber warfare

135
00:09:55,400 --> 00:09:59,120
Speaker 1: expert with a degree in electrical engineering, is bald with

136
00:09:59,200 --> 00:10:02,600
Speaker 1: a neatly rimmed beard. He looks like he could be

137
00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:06,720
Speaker 1: any senior public servant, and maybe that's the point. The

138
00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:11,199
Speaker 1: best spies are supposed to blend into a crowd. What

139
00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:15,360
Speaker 1: does make Burgess different is his visibility. Once or twice

140
00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:17,800
Speaker 1: a year, he fronts up to the cameras to deliver

141
00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:22,400
Speaker 1: a fourth right, sometimes scary speech about the big, bad

142
00:10:22,520 --> 00:10:23,480
Speaker 1: world out there.

143
00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:30,680
Speaker 5: I think Mike Burgess is a very good director general

144
00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:34,920
Speaker 5: compared to his predecessors. Something. He's very outspoken, He's very direct.

145
00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:37,720
Speaker 5: I think that's the way that modern chiefs of security

146
00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:40,320
Speaker 5: agencies should be. You know, the old days, the old

147
00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:43,560
Speaker 5: days the chiefs are sort of whisper and say absolutely nothing.

148
00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:47,000
Speaker 5: He is very on the front foot and saying it

149
00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:50,000
Speaker 5: as it should be said. I think you need to

150
00:10:50,040 --> 00:10:53,800
Speaker 5: have an agency chief say this stuff because if you

151
00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:56,839
Speaker 5: have a politician say it, the opposition will think it's spin,

152
00:10:57,040 --> 00:11:00,560
Speaker 5: it's just alarmist, etc. The whole idea here is that

153
00:11:00,600 --> 00:11:02,520
Speaker 5: it does actually have an impact, and hopefully it does

154
00:11:02,559 --> 00:11:04,400
Speaker 5: prevent something like this actually occurring.

155
00:11:05,559 --> 00:11:07,880
Speaker 1: Burgess said, in the past eight months, there have been

156
00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:11,120
Speaker 1: eight attacks or disruptions that either involved acts of terror

157
00:11:11,559 --> 00:11:16,040
Speaker 1: or were investigated as potential acts of terrorism. He didn't

158
00:11:16,160 --> 00:11:19,480
Speaker 1: name the cases, but he said they had four things

159
00:11:19,559 --> 00:11:20,120
Speaker 1: in common.

160
00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:25,079
Speaker 2: Loane actors, an individual or a small group using rudimentary

161
00:11:25,080 --> 00:11:28,400
Speaker 2: weapons such as knives, improvised explosives or a gun.

162
00:11:28,920 --> 00:11:31,439
Speaker 1: A fast pace of radicalization.

163
00:11:31,360 --> 00:11:35,160
Speaker 2: Violence with little or no warning, and little or no planning.

164
00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:37,200
Speaker 1: They're involving kids.

165
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:42,280
Speaker 2: In recent cases, the oldest perpetrator was twenty one and

166
00:11:42,320 --> 00:11:43,600
Speaker 2: the youngest was fourteen.

167
00:11:44,760 --> 00:11:47,840
Speaker 1: And they are not being driven by the same thing.

168
00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:53,400
Speaker 2: Individuals are being motivated by diversity of prievances and personal narratives.

169
00:11:54,160 --> 00:11:57,440
Speaker 2: In some cases I refer to, the alleged perpetrators appeared

170
00:11:57,440 --> 00:12:01,280
Speaker 2: to be motivated by extreme religious beliefs. In others, nationalists

171
00:12:01,320 --> 00:12:02,720
Speaker 2: and racist beliefs.

172
00:12:04,040 --> 00:12:08,120
Speaker 1: It all sounds pretty worrying, and it's asio wearing this.

173
00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:12,360
Speaker 1: The politicians are standing back, saying they're listening to the

174
00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:14,280
Speaker 1: advice from the spymasters.

175
00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:19,920
Speaker 2: The threats I'm describing are significant, but not insurmountable. Probable

176
00:12:20,040 --> 00:12:24,640
Speaker 2: does not mean inevitable. Australian should be aware, but not afraid.

177
00:12:26,760 --> 00:12:31,000
Speaker 1: One threat that Mike Burgess almost downplayed was the sort

178
00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:32,600
Speaker 1: of thing that we would have been talking about if

179
00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:34,959
Speaker 1: we'd done this interview three or four years ago Cam,

180
00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:40,920
Speaker 1: which is young Muslim Australians being radicalized by ISIS or

181
00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:44,160
Speaker 1: by radical preachers here in Australia. That was the big

182
00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:47,280
Speaker 1: concern a few years back. He is now saying that

183
00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:50,040
Speaker 1: that is not really what they're seeing now, that that's

184
00:12:50,080 --> 00:12:51,320
Speaker 1: not really the big concern.

185
00:12:52,040 --> 00:12:54,960
Speaker 5: I think you're saying that is still a concern, but

186
00:12:55,080 --> 00:12:58,160
Speaker 5: we've now got other things to match that concern, and

187
00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:01,800
Speaker 5: that is politically motivated rhetoric, conviolence, which they hadn't seen.

188
00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:04,880
Speaker 5: In other words, it's not just a religiously motivated problem.

189
00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:08,840
Speaker 5: Now there's a whole layer of post COVID freedom movement

190
00:13:08,840 --> 00:13:12,000
Speaker 5: that hates government authority. You know, there's the rise and

191
00:13:12,160 --> 00:13:16,080
Speaker 5: rise and rise of conspiracy theories, especially fueled by the Internet.

192
00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:19,760
Speaker 5: You know, it's amazing what people are believing these days,

193
00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:23,600
Speaker 5: and perhaps more unhinched people actually taking action on the

194
00:13:23,640 --> 00:13:25,600
Speaker 5: basis of that. I think what he's saying is we

195
00:13:25,679 --> 00:13:29,880
Speaker 5: now have a whole list of issues that are rising

196
00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:33,920
Speaker 5: at the same time, and so it doesn't dilute Islamic extremism,

197
00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:36,280
Speaker 5: for example, as a terror danger, because I think that's

198
00:13:36,280 --> 00:13:39,360
Speaker 5: still very much a terrorist danger in Australia. I think

199
00:13:39,360 --> 00:13:41,480
Speaker 5: what he's saying is we now have Unfortunately, we have

200
00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:42,760
Speaker 5: other things to rival it.

201
00:13:43,920 --> 00:13:46,000
Speaker 2: If you believe a person you know is going down

202
00:13:46,040 --> 00:13:49,439
Speaker 2: a dark extremist path, please talk to someone or call

203
00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:52,679
Speaker 2: the National Security Hotline on one eight hundred one two

204
00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:53,920
Speaker 2: three four hundred.

205
00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:05,880
Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is The Australian's chief international correspondent. It's back

206
00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:08,880
Speaker 1: to the office today. The new South Wales government issued

207
00:14:08,920 --> 00:14:11,760
Speaker 1: a blund order to its hundreds of thousands of employees.

208
00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:15,120
Speaker 1: Working from home is over. The move is designed to

209
00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:20,880
Speaker 1: improve productivity and rescue the CBD hospitality sector. That story

210
00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:24,200
Speaker 1: and how it'll affect the rest of our workplaces is

211
00:14:24,360 --> 00:14:27,600
Speaker 1: live now at the Australian dot com dot au