Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the insidious nature of foreign interference and the threat it poses to our democracy, businesses and to individuals;

(2) notes:

(a) ongoing reports of attempts by Cambodia's Hun Sen regime to infiltrate and monitor activity within the Australian community, particularly in the diaspora communities; and

(b) reports of potential money laundering in Australia by key figures of the regime; and

(3) expresses concern about these activities and calls on the Government to ensure that appropriate and thorough investigations occur into these concerning reports.

It's important that we remain vigilant to all threats to our national security and our sovereignty. The director of ASIO has described foreign espionage and interference as the major security concern to our nation, ranking even higher than terrorism in terms of the threat it poses. Australia has been a world leader in combatting foreign interference, but the fact is that authoritarian states continue to pose a serious risk and are actively working to divide our society through targeted disinformation campaigns, harassment, coercion and, in some cases, threats of violence. Russia and China have attempted to meddle in US and Canadian elections, with US and Canadian intelligence agencies assessing that these governments were behind online influence activities designed to undermine electoral processes and exacerbate social divisions.

But these two nations are not the only potential threats, and I'm sure that all members of this place were deeply concerned when it was revealed in August last year that Cambodia's Hun Sen regime had divided Australia into seven zones, each controlled from Phnom Penh by a high-ranking military officer or official in the regime, in which Cambodian Australians are rewarded for allegiance to the dictator or singled out for punishment as traitors. The network reportedly conducted surveillance and provided reports to the regime on local opponents of Hun Sen, including directly threatening violence against Cambodian Australians. This includes former Labor state MP for Clarinda, Hong Lim, and other elected representatives. Reportedly, the death threat list included the president of the Cambodian Association of Victoria and any Australian member of parliament or member of the Khmer community who opposed Hun Sen or his decision to hand over power to his son, Hun Manet.

When Australians are fearful of voicing criticisms about a foreign regime, we have a serious problem—one that cannot be allowed to stand. Mr Lim has called on the government to use its visa powers to restrict entry and use Magnitsky laws to target human rights abusers and super-rich cronies of the regime who use Australia as a haven. I have written to the Attorney-General and the Minister for Home Affairs, asking them to ensure that every step is taken to investigate the ongoing claims of money laundering as well as the foreign interference threats.

I have brought this motion forward because I know that the diaspora community here in Australia has very genuine fears and concerns. As a nation, Cambodia has a tragic past, and the hope of democracy ran high at the Paris Peace Agreements in 1991. However, what has resulted is a form of play-acting democracy, with Hun Sen consolidating power in Cambodia over the past 38 years. Just eight days ago, the Cambodian People's Party claimed a landslide victory in national elections which have been described by critics as the country's least free and fair vote in decades. There were reportedly quite high levels of spoiled ballot papers at the recent election, despite the threat of legal action against anyone found to be spoiling their ballot in protest. The only party that was capable of challenging Hun Sen's rule, the Candlelight Party, was banned from the election on a technicality in May. A similar situation occurred with the then opposition party just before the last election. In February, Cambodia's Voice of Democracy, a local news outlet run by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, was shut down by the Prime Minister. This sort of violent crushing of opposition, deliberate silencing of dissent and planned transfer of power is anything but democratic.

It would take more time than I have today to outline the long list of concerns that have been raised with me about the conduct of the regime and the impact on the community here in Australia. Through this motion, I implore the government to ensure that claims of foreign interference, criminal activity and money laundering are all thoroughly investigated. Australia must stand firm in its commitment to fair elections in the region and our insistence on the upholding of basic human rights and freedoms.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion moved by the member for McPherson. It is an important motion indeed, in the sense of the subject matter involved. Foreign interference can come in many forms, with many different shapes and sizes. It can be overt. It can be covert. Foreign interference and activities associated with it can complement other forms of espionage and attempts to sow disinformation. Foreign interference can be violent, whether the violence is real or implied. Foreign interference can appear innocuous or benign. It can be done with a smile. But there is nothing benign about it. It can find its way into many facets of Australian society, such as our universities and, in turn, our R&D, and into important, nationally significant industries. It can infiltrate social media. It can even try to pervert our democratic processes in Australia. This is, sadly, not something that is entirely unheard of in other parts of the world. I know we can all point to some very noteworthy examples of this.

As the emphasis of the member for McPherson's motion suggests, foreign interference can find its way into one of our many vibrant and active multicultural diasporas. The member for McPherson is no stranger to the subject of foreign interference, having been Minister for Home Affairs in the previous Liberal-National government, the Morrison government. As we know, the leader of that government opted to share the role of Minister for Home Affairs, alongside the member for McPherson, for the preponderance of the time she held that office. But the point I'm ultimately making is that the member for McPherson can appreciate the dangers posed by foreign interference in Australia and the ever-present need to have constant vigilance as a nation—a vigilance that begets our nation's ability to identify and then disrupt the activities of a foreign government, or those acting at the behest of one, that threaten our sovereignty and not only threaten the safety of people in the multitude of Australia's multicultural communities but also attempt to impede them from conducting themselves in the manner that anyone in Australia would expect to have every right to do, such as participating in free political discourse.

I note that the member for McPherson's motion refers particularly to Australia's proud Cambodian diaspora. Australia is home to thousands of people whose country of birth was Cambodia, with many more descendants of people born in Cambodia in the generations after their arrival. Their community exists across the country but with many concentrated pockets. I take it as a mark of pride that a vast number reside in my electorate of Spence and elsewhere in South Australia. I know that I am richer for the many engagements I have had with this community in the relatively short space of time I have been a representative in the Parliament of Australia.

The community has definitely come a long way since the first six Cambodian refugees arrived in my home state, way back in 1976. Those unfamiliar with Cambodian contemporary history might instead be familiar with the recent events within the country, namely the elections that were held on the 23rd of this month. Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party have gone so far as to ban opposition parties from even participating in what they would call a 'democratic election' and to claim the legitimacy of election results that had them win 125 of 125 seats in their national assembly in 2018, and 120 of them at the recent election.

Without an opposition at home, some governments may begin to turn to eliminating any opposition to their regimes that may exist in other countries. This is not something that we as a nation should tolerate happening within our own backyard. Those in our Cambodian community within Australia—or any multicultural community in Australia, for that matter—should expect that they can participate within their communities in this country, and in the community at large, without fear of a foreign government monitoring and surveilling their movements; who they associate with; and their written, verbal and digital communications. Acts like this have a chilling effect. It's bad enough when they happen abroad, but we must not tolerate them happening within our borders.

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of attending a speech on foreign interference at ANU, delivered by the Minister for Home Affairs. It is something we should all have on our radars, but it gives me comfort knowing that it is something acutely on the radar of our government. Through the agencies that comprise our national intelligence community, with state and territory law enforcement agencies and bodies such as the Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce, we can combat corrosive foreign interference activities. But that isn't the whole of it. Fostering an environment where members of our multicultural diaspora can safely and comfortably communicate with agencies to report their suspicions of foreign interference activities goes a long way to these activities not occurring in the shadows. Our multicultural communities make Australia the amazing place that it is today, and any attempt from abroad to pervert that should not be without consequence.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the member for McPherson for moving this motion and thank her for her outstanding leadership when she was home affairs minister. She was keenly aware of the issues outlined in this motion. We all, I think, vehemently agree that foreign interference poses a unique risk to this country. Increasingly, we're seeing when we read international media that it's perhaps not as unique as we would think. A number of Western liberal democracies are grappling with many of the issues that we're discussing today, and democracies are ripe for the kinds of conduct that have been outlined here, in respect of the Hun Sen regime in Cambodia. There are a number of them.

There is one thing that on this side of the parliament we're very proud of: the world-leading way in which we have addressed foreign interference. It's an issue where—a bit like tax evasion—you can never roll out the 'mission accomplished' sign. You can never say: 'Job done. We've got all the laws and all the enforcement in place to ensure that we aren't vulnerable to foreign interference.' The reality is it's an emerging risk. Threats emerge, and with them the government has to remain, firstly, steadfast in its determination to protect our sovereignty and, secondly, nimble enough to put in place the laws and the enforcement arrangements required to make sure that we can stamp out any attempts at foreign interference before they even get to being practical interference.

In touching on the recent revelations with respect to foreign interference allegedly emanating from Cambodia, I think that all of us from a migrant background, including me, are affronted. Indeed, all Australians are affronted, but those of us from a migrant background are particularly affronted, because those migrants who come to Australia come here to become Australian and to leave behind the animosities, the difficulties, the challenges and the rivalries—and the blood feuds, in many cases. That's the point and the reason they come here. That's the condition upon which we accept them as Australian citizens or permanent residents—that they leave those behind and that, in the end, as with all of us who attend citizenship ceremonies, their allegiance ultimately is to this country. So the allegations in particular that the Hun Sen regime has sought either to incentivise some individuals to do their bidding or—just as bad, and more dangerous for individuals—to punish people who are prominent in the Australian Cambodian community for not toeing the line, so to speak, I think should offend every single one of us.

My purpose in speaking today is obviously to support this very worthy motion to request—and I'm confident, but request—that the government is doing absolutely everything necessary to make sure that not just Cambodian Australians but Australians from all walks of life and all ethnicities and backgrounds do not have any nervousness or any threat hanging over them as to the way they express themselves politically in this country on matters that often relate to their country of birth or origin. We are an open liberal democracy, and people are entitled to form whatever views they want on global politics and to express them in a free way in this country. We cannot, under any circumstances, tolerate an environment where Australian Cambodians, in this instance, are fearful for their free political expression. I'm confident and hopeful that the government will do absolutely everything necessary to make sure that, as these threats emerge, we keep stamping these threats out and stay one step ahead.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

This debate on Cambodian government foreign interference in Australia comes a week or so after, sadly, another sham election—another fake election—in Cambodia by the Hun Sen regime. Last time, they won 125 seats out of 125 seats. I thought: 'What could they aim for? A hundred and twenty-six?' Well, they've manipulated the results a little and they've now given themselves 120 seats, so there'll be five—probably fake—opposition members. But let's be very clear at the outset: that election has no credibility—none at all. The former opposition leader, Kem Sokha, is still jailed. He was convicted, just before the campaign, on trumped-up charges. The previous opposition party, from the election before, the CNRP, have been run out of town and are still banned; they're international exiles and fugitives—many of them, in my electorate and my community. And the Candlelight Party, the only hope for any kind of civil space or democracy to be created, was banned on a technicality just before the election. At least it's a consistent playbook, isn't it! Then, only a few days ago, good old Hun Sen and his gangster regime—I think the world's longest-serving head of government; the Robert Mugabe of South-East Asia—announced that daddy's boy, Hun Manet, is going to be the new Prime Minister. What a democracy!

But, as far as this motion goes, it's anodyne—you couldn't disagree with the words; it's apple pie on foreign interference. It is an insidious threat. I know the member for McPherson is incredibly, profoundly genuine and serious about that aspect of it, and that the Cambodian Hun Sen's CPP goon show's infiltration of Australia—its interfering in and messing with the democratic rights of our citizens; its interfering in temples and community groups; its setting up of fake organisations—is unacceptable. I've said before—I did admit it in the House—I'm very fond of the member for McPherson. But, really, for a Liberal MP, a former Liberal minister, to bring this motion—when I first read it, I thought: 'Is this a joke? Is it April Fool's Day?' What word could we use to describe it? It's gaslighting the chamber. It's trolling the Notice Paper.

That the Liberal Party now, finally in opposition, pretend to care at all about foreign interference from the Cambodian CPP is the height of hypocrisy, and it's frankly galling for those of us in my community who've been speaking up, fighting and asking for attention for years—literally years. It wasn't the Labor Party; it was the former Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison who was famously photographed drinking champagne with dictator Hun Sen. It was the Liberal government that signed that disgraceful refugee deal paying that government tens of millions of dollars to house about three refugees. They did nothing for a decade. I wrote them letter after letter. Marise Payne occasionally wrote back.

Hong Lim, who you rightly mentioned, is an old friend of mine, and he and Hemara In were charged by the Hun Sen regime in the last term, when those opposite were in government, with trumped-up criminal charges for speaking out in Australia against the regime. It's an old tactic from the authoritarian playbook. They must go to conferences and give each other PowerPoints! I think DFAT said the last time they saw it was when Rwanda tried it. But there was nothing. I couldn't even get a letter back. The government did nothing. For them now to come in and pretend to care is galling.

The community angst, the death threats—I hate to say it, but they're not new. We've had them for years. It is the same nonsense. 'If you speak up in Australia against Hun Sen, we'll come and kill you or get your family.' The community angst, the fake groups—we called for visa bans, and the same goons, month after month, kept coming around in party uniforms, running fake community events, intimidating our diaspora. What I would say—and I'll choose my words carefully—is that I'm very pleased to see that there's a lot less of that now. It wasn't Labor members of parliament; I think it was Gladys Liu, when she roped Julie Bishop in, who was photographed with CPP stooges at Liberal Party fundraisers. There were countless letters to ministers and endless requests for briefings that went unanswered.

I get that this is hard. I get that Australia's power is limited. I sit on the intelligence and security committee. There are limits to what you can do. I get that you can't achieve everything in government that you'd like. I do get the fact that the extraterritoriality and jurisdictional questions are complex, particularly to combat the offensive tactic of 'We'll get your family in the home country if you speak up here.' But the previous government didn't even try on Cambodia. I just want to make that point. That's why I sound upset: because I am. I've been fighting this battle for years.

So I agree with the words, but I really wish that in the decade you were in government you'd done something there.

Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

It's most interesting to listen to the debate that we've had on the floor of the Federation Chamber today. It's been spoken with passion on a motion brought forward by the member for McPherson which is quite apt for the time to give opportunity for such addresses, be they passionate or be they more concerned with the local community.

I support the member for McPherson for a very good reason. I would go back a number of years to waves of migrants that came to this country and made a huge contribution. They were the Serbians and the Croatians. But what they brought with them was the blood rivalry, the revenge, the great sadness for the war-torn countries of Europe that they had left to come to this new place of freedom, opportunity, freedom of association and freedom of speech, not having any understanding of where we were at. I note that the member for Calwell, Maria Vamvakinou, brought to my attention a number of times that, when waves of new immigrants come into her community, which is one of the first places they stay in Melbourne, they would then have to explain to the immigrants that you don't have to kill the brother-in-law or the father down the street in this country. For that even to have to be said for us would be something that we wouldn't really consider. It could be the case that someone has such a passion about what's happened to their family in the past, and that family that caused the problem is now living down the street in Australia, and they have revenge in mind. It wouldn't come into our mind.

But what is insidious in this—and I thank the member for McPherson for bringing it to the attention of the parliament—is that they come to Australia for freedom and opportunity, sometimes not for themselves but definitely for their children. These groups that come just work hard, 24 hours a day if they have to. They'll do anything, any job, anywhere, any opportunity—they will take it up. But their children get the opportunity to go to our schools and our universities and, in that generation, make an enormous contribution to what happens in Australia. It's the parents that suffer the indignity in this country of an outrageous regime thinking that it can influence what happens in this nation, in their diaspora community, with threats such as, 'We will kill your children if you don't obey what we want you to say.' Ninety-five per cent of Australians around this country, from Perth to Parramatta, from Darwin to Tasmania, wouldn't even understand what these people have to put up with. The opportunity is given by our freedom of movement in this country—for people to come in here from a country such as that on a holiday visa, visiting visa or whatever visa they got themselves in on and say: 'Goodness, gracious me! I can do what I like here in Australia. I can go into that country and set up a quasi organisation, pretending I'm visiting for good reasons, to influence good relationships between Cambodia and Australia, and, instead, threaten their safety and blackmail people into our way of thinking so they must support our regime.'

I pray that the government is working towards the best outcome. I thank the member for McPherson again for bringing this to the notice of not only this parliament but the Australian people. I pray that the Cambodian community, or any other community in our district and our responsibility, is given the safety, protection and care that comes with what it means to be a Cambodian-Australian. They call themselves Cambodian-Australians. Their children will call themselves Australians of Cambodian descent.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | 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.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I've never met a colleague who doesn't share my view that one of the most enjoyable parts of our role as members of parliament is to attend citizenship ceremonies. Obviously it's a very proud day for those taking the pledge, but, for us as local community leaders, it also fills us with a great pride in our country that so many people make the decision to choose their future in Australia. In my view, we are the greatest multicultural success story on the planet. Long may that continue into the future.

One of the experiences you have at those ceremonies, when you're speaking to the successfully pledged citizens, is to talk with them about their background: how they've come to be a part of our community and why they made the decision to come to Australia. Regrettably, some of those stories are not very pleasant. They're certainly happy and grateful and excited about their future in our country, but, in some cases, they had to flee the country that they left. So it's an additional source of pride that we provide, in this country, a safe haven for people in that circumstance and have for many, many, many decades.

This motion really goes towards us defending that vital principle around accepting people who have fled their nation and providing them a future and protecting them here in this country. That is why I'm sure we welcome with unanimity an opportunity to condemn the fact that there are reports that people living in Australia within the Cambodian community are being intimidated and threatened by members of the regime that they have fled. We equally understand, and this point has been made, that one of the worst elements of that intimidation is that people who come to this country after leaving in those circumstances probably almost never bring the entirety of their families and their loved ones with them. They have this terrible, awful exposure that people they care about have been left behind and are still under the influence of a regime that may mete out some kind of retribution against the family members of people who have come to this country and are making their future in this country and who are exercising their free, democratic rights in this country. I certainly commend the member for bringing this issue to the chamber and thank the unanimity of members in pointing out the solidarity that we have in backing the government to do everything they possibly can to investigate and prevent this kind of behaviour from occurring.

The motion also touches on criminal activity, including money laundering. Again we wish the government and the agencies at the front line of this all success in undertaking investigations and finding people who are engaging in this conduct. We know money laundering is a problem. We know human trafficking in the sex trade and underage human trafficking are enormous challenges in some of these regime countries and for their diaspora here as well. We need to protect them. I wish the government well in that.

I serve on the electoral matters committee. We of course have been looking very seriously at some of the future risks around foreign interference in our democracy in the cyberage. We know now that with AI and other technology all kinds of nefarious tactics can be used to disrupt and influence our democratic elections and that foreign actors, particularly those that are state sponsored, are probably in a much stronger position than ever before to undertake interference in our elections, from the comfort of their host nation perhaps, and use emerging technologies to potentially disrupt and in fact change the outcomes of our elections. We have to be very vigilant about that.

The broad topic of foreign interference needs to have bipartisanship. I commend the member for McPherson for bringing this motion to us so that we can talk about and ventilate these issues. I conclude by saying how proud we are to have such a multicultural society. The loss to a regime of their youngest, brightest and most capable people is the gain of our society here in Australia. We welcome those people. We want to make sure that we're using every resource of government to protect them here so that they can have the best future that they dream of here as Australians.

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on a matter of upmost importance that threatens the very core of our democracy and the safety of our citizens. We must recognise the insidious nature of foreign interference and acknowledge the severe threat it poses to our democracy. As a nation Australia has always been a defender of freedom, diversity and democratic values. Our commitment to these principles has made us a target for those who seek to undermine our sovereignty and manipulate our way of life. It is critical that we remain vigilant and united against any attempts to infiltrate or disrupt our democratic process.

Recent reports have shed light on the disturbing activities of Cambodia's Hun Sen regime attempting to infiltrate and monitor the activities within our Australian community. They have particularly targeted diaspora communities. This sinister interference must not be taken lightly. Our diaspora communities are a central part of the nation's fabric, contributing to our society's enrichment and prosperity. They should feel safe and secure, free from fear of surveillance or coercion from foreign entities.

Furthermore, we cannot ignore the alarming reports of potential money laundering in Australia by key figures of the Hun Sen regime. Money laundering poses significant risks to our financial systems, integrity and national security. It is our responsibility to ensure that our financial institutions are not unwittingly used as tools for illicit activities that may fund corrupt regimes overseas. We are rightly concerned about foreign principals who are threatening our democratic institutions that form the foundations of our free and open democracy. They are threatening or coercing members of the community, friends and neighbours in our community and are sowing divisions into our community through disinformation and manipulation of our media. There are concerns about the stealing of research, improperly influencing teaching and debate in our world-leading universities and research organisations, undermining the operations of Australian businesses and improperly using investment in Australia to undermine our sovereignty and prosperity.

Foreign principals continue to try to compromise the critical infrastructure that underpins our way of life and our economy. These concerning reports call for immediate action and thorough investigations. It is unacceptable for any foreign government to target members of our community in a way that prevents individuals exercising their fundamental rights and freedoms in Australia. Our government is taking the lead in addressing these issues head on. Australia's law enforcement and intelligence agencies work diligently to uncover the truth, identify any wrongdoings and hold those responsible accountable for their actions. The Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce, which includes the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the AFP, is a task force dedicated specifically to discovering, disrupting and investigating foreign interference activities.

We should never compromise the integrity of our democracy and the safety of our citizens. To preserve the values that define us as a nation we must remain steadfast in safeguarding against foreign interference. This includes bolstering our security measures, fostering a culture of awareness among our communities and engaging in robust diplomatic discussions to address these matters with foreign governments. The Albanese Labor government has put in place a number of policies and programs to strengthen Australia's social fabric and build community resilience, including from foreign interference. The government and intelligence agencies, along with law enforcement, work closely together to engage with and support communities concerned or affected by foreign interference. The Department of Home Affairs regularly engages with our culturally and linguistically diverse communities—as do territory governments, police and national security agencies—to build community awareness of and resilience to the threat of foreign interference. In February the AFP launched new resources to help counter interference with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. As part of these resources a public fact sheet was published and translated into more than 30 languages.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired.