House debates Questions without Notice

National Security

Monday, 26 October 2026 House of Representatives

Mr Tony Burke

Mr Tony Burke Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House

2:42 pm

I thank the member for Hasluck for the question. Our national security and domestic security concerns—our international work works through two main methods: our engagement with our Five Eyes partners and our engagement with the region. Some of the most significant meetings that occur each year on the region occur on an alternating-chair basis, jointly between ourselves and Indonesia—a ministerial council meeting directly between myself and my Indonesian counterpart, coordinating minister Dudung, and then what is now the seventh Sub-Regional Meeting on Counter Terrorism and Transnational Security. Around the table—while it's co-chaired between ourselves and Indonesia—Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore participate, working through issues in the domestic and regional security environment: irregular migration, maritime security, counterterrorism, countering violent extremism, transnational security, cybersecurity and critical infrastructure.

There are two issues in particular where, I want to advise the House, the level of unity and concern in our region, and the impact on every nation, was significant. The first is the issue of scam centres. In Australia, our interaction with scam centres is often people's being scammed, people's being blackmailed—the direct engagement that way. But, throughout South-East Asia, while they have that impact as well, they also have the people who are trafficked into these scam centres—factories of misery and modern slavery—and the cooperation between all of us in eradicating these institutions is essential.

But the second area that I want to advise the House on is the similarity between every country on what's happening with terrorism and violent extremism. While the networks, such as ISIS and its different forms throughout the region—that work always has to continue, and that work remains the significant threat that it is. Every country is reporting a new cohort, growing fast, of young people, particularly male. Where we used to worry about people becoming involved and radicalised in their teens, now every country has examples of radicalisation of young people who are not yet teenagers and of the radicalisation happening online and involving mixed ideologies, ideologies that would be completely incoherent with each other but only have violence together as their only principle. For example, one country referred to one on their caseload as someone who had been radicalised with both ISIS ideology and white supremacism and referred to the path to radicalisation as being fast. I want to assure the House of the cooperative work that Australia is doing with all of our agencies and all of our efforts.

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