Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I thank the member for McPherson for her motion. Espionage and foreign interference represent serious threats to our sovereignty and security and the integrity of our national institutions. In fact, they threaten Australia's way of life. That is why Australia has criminal offences under the Criminal Code Act 1995 and a robust framework in place to protect our democracy from acts of foreign interference and other activities to strengthen our resilience. It would be naive to think that nation-states and other actors don't unfortunately participate in such activities. Sitting around, hoping and praying, is not enough. Hoping for better times won't make us safe in this difficult modern world.

The threat of foreign interference is pervasive and multifaceted and, if left unchecked, could do serious damage to our security, sovereignty and values. Moreover, it could actually threaten the safety of the Australian community. The Director-General of Security said in his 2023 threat assessment:

Multiple nations are using espionage and foreign interference to advance their interests and undermine Australia's.

…   …   …

They are using foreign interference … To monitor, threaten—

as we've heard from speakers from both sides of the chamber—

and even harm members of diaspora communities.

I have seen this in my own community. They are using foreign interference 'to manipulate messages among communities, through foreign language media, and by establishing community organisations', which are often fake. This means 'more ASIO investigations, more ASIO disruptions' and that 'ASIO is busier than ever before'. The Department of Home Affairs regularly engages with our culturally and linguistically diverse communities' and state and territory governments' pleas for national security agencies to build community awareness of and resilience to the threat of foreign interference.

Between 1 July last year and 30 June this year, the department's community liaison officer network undertook more than 90 engagements with Cambodian Australian communities. Between February and July this year, the department had seven engagements specifically with the Cambodian community relating to countering foreign interference. This does not include other cross-community meetings that would have also included Cambodian community members. Three of these were community liaison led, and four were Counter Foreign Interference Coordination Centre engagements. The community liaison officer engagements were all in South Australia, and the Counter Foreign Interference Coordination Centre engagements were held in Victoria and in Sydney. The engagement in Sydney and two of the engagements in Victoria were in collaboration with the AFP. The third engagement in Victoria was in collaboration with DFAT.

My colleague the member for Bruce, Julian Hill, spoke very passionately about this topic just before, and rightly so. From what he said, he's got concerns about the conduct of the Cambodian government, especially its prime minister, Hun Sen, in Australia and these terrible practices that are about silencing dissenters, even those living in Australia, through various means, including threatening the safety of family members that are still back in Cambodia. I fear that these practices won't be stopping any time soon. The Albanese government needs to ensure that we're supporting these communities and calling out these bad faith actors on every occasion.

In the recent elections, the Cambodian People's Party won 120 out of the 125 seats, and many of the opposition politicians were silenced or jailed or both. Therefore, these dubious anti-democratic activities are likely to persist for a while to come. Even though Prime Minister Hun Sen has announced he's stepping down, I don't hold any hope of change, as his son Hun Manet will be taking his place. Australia's law enforcement and intelligence agencies need to continue to assess, investigate, disrupt and, where possible, prosecute acts of foreign interference on our shores. We need to keep a serious eye on the conduct of the Cambodian regime.

The Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce, which includes the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police, is a task force dedicated specifically to discovering, disrupting and investigating foreign interference activity, something that both sides of the chamber support. I know it's not often possible to comment on operational matters; however, the government will publicly attribute acts of foreign interference when it is in our national interest to do so. Sunlight is a great disinfectant when it comes to this behaviour. I look forward to much of it being called out in the future.

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