Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Chandler. The short answer, as you've been informed previously when you've asked similar questions, is that the Australian government relies on the advice of Australian security agencies when making decisions about terrorist listings.

As Senator Chandler and many of her colleagues have been advised in many previous question times, from the government's point of view, the IRGC is a malignant actor that has long been a threat to international security. The Gillard government understood this and put broad based sanctions on the IRGC as a whole in 2010. The Albanese government has also recognised the threat that they present. That's why we are using the tools available to us to take meaningful action, including sanctioning 63 IRGC linked individuals and 56 IRGC linked entities.

Again, as Senator Chandler, Senator Paterson and various others on that side of the chamber know, listings under the Criminal Code apply to non-state actors and not to state actors. That was exactly the same regime that applied when they were in government. But now they don't want to follow the same process as they followed when they were in government; they want to apply a different standard and different tests to what they were prepared to do when they were the government. These are exactly the same listing provisions that applied when those opposite were in government, and they have not changed.

The reality is that the IRGC is a part of the Iranian state, and state actors under Australian law cannot be listed as terrorist organisations.