Is the government doing enough on sovereign citizens?

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The government has today doubled down on its decision to significantly downgrade ties with Iran after Australia's National Security Service ASIO said yesterday it has credible evidence Iran orchestrated at least two anti-Semitic attacks in Australia, likely more, all while Israel claims credit politically for the move.

And as we record the very live situation of a police double fatality and ongoing manhunt in Victoria has drawn federal attention to the dangerous ideology of sovereign citizens in Australia and if our security services are watching it closely enough.

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis.

And I'm David Spears.

And David Azio said yesterday it has credible evidence that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC is the acronym, directed two anti-Semitic attacks on Australian soil.

They're the ones that they are very sure about, but they think that they have been more.

Many more, says Tony.

Many today.

The possibility of being responsible for more, more to come there.

The government will now move to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.

It's expelled the Iranian ambassador.

I think the ambassador has like 72 hours to get out of the country.

Well actually as we record this about an hour ago he was filmed leaving the embassy and jumping in a car.

He only had I think a small bag with him so it's a little unclear PK whether I did suggest in the Bureau I'm in Canberra for the week that he could be going to Kohl's but we don't know exactly whether only half of the people laughed.

Yeah look it's a serious matter.

We don't know whether he's just popped out to something or is heading to the airport.

Look, we may know by the time you listen to this

I doubt he'd be doing too much popping down the road to pick up a loaf of bread right now with a bank of

half a dozen cameras trained on the front door of the embassy.

So, anyway, look, either way, he's got, if it was 72 hours, what's my quick math?

From lunchtime Tuesday, he'd have until lunchtime Friday.

Is that about right to get out?

The other three diplomats have seven days to go, and I think it's going to leave three

in the embassy.

So, it's just important as a note of accuracy that we're not severing ties.

There will be maintained that small diplomatic presence for Iran in Canberra.

And that's primarily so that Australian Iranians don't have to travel over there if they need to renew visas or anything like that.

They can do that through the embassy here is the idea.

So not completely cut off.

But of course, in Iran, the remaining Australian diplomats have got out of Dodge.

They were moved to a third country before all of this was announced here in Canberra on Tuesday, and for very good reason too.

This is about their safety.

Iran has formed when it comes to retaliation and hostage taking and so on.

So it's good to hear that they've been moved out.

And then there's the a couple of thousand Australians.

Well,

two to four thousand, says Penny Wong.

A little unclear how many Australians are there.

There is a concern for them.

The Foreign Minister was also asked, are there any Australians in prison, in detention in Iran at the moment?

She wouldn't

disclose that, but you'd think that would be a big concern as well.

So basically, limits our ability to really advocate for anyone.

Obviously this makes the situation even more difficult

in part because there are no Australian personnel left to assist Australians in Iran.

My message has been clear and consistent.

Do not travel to Iran.

And if you are in Iran.

So if you're in an emergency situation, right, like and something's happened in Australia to some relative and you really want to get out of Iran and you would usually go to the embassy for some help or whatever if there's any sort of issue issue with that.

Basically, there is no embassy to help you now, so that's why they've said get out.

Yeah, and to be fair, that message has been there for some time.

It's been a do not travel.

We saw a lot of Australians help to get out of there during the conflict between Israel and Iran earlier this year.

Those that have remained there clearly are aware of the risks, but have done so.

And now, you know, I think it's fair to say that risk is even higher for them.

So whether more will start to flee, can flee, some presumably stay for various reasons, family reasons and whatnot, but yeah, it's a more difficult situation for them.

So the Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Penny Wong have been out this morning.

We're recording on a Wednesday talking about this, not providing a whole lot more detail than the ASIO boss, but a bit more detail perhaps, just nuance at least.

Interesting, this term cutouts, which I think unless you're into the spooks and spies, you may not understand, but this term of cutouts, it's a term used in the intelligence community that refers to intermediatories who are there to effectively make sure that as you go down the chain, people don't realise

who's linked, but it's all around money.

And I think that the language they've used today suggests that they do take this very seriously.

They see it as an attack on Australia, on our own soil, and a very, very, well, you know, I haven't seen sort of a foreign interference issue like this in our country.

No, so just to explain what we know so far,

those who carried out these anti-Semitic attacks, Tony Burke said this morning they weren't aware of the link to Iran.

But the phrase cut out, you're right, is a particular term used in intelligence circles, described to me as look, they're not completely random.

They are connected in a sense that they might use criminal gangs and organizations up and down the chain here.

But Iran clearly wanting to put some distance between its role and those carrying out the attack to hide its role.

So, this would have been a very difficult process for ASIO, involving looking at encrypted communications, however, they do that, tracking cryptocurrency exchanges, the financial transactions here, follow the money,

and some help from international partners, although that's a little vague as to exactly what that

has involved.

It's interesting because the Prime Minister made the point that

he attributes the success of this in terms of getting to the bottom of it, being able to trace it right back to Iran.

He says they are able to do that, which is an incredible story,

to ASIO.

Yep, overwhelmingly working.

Overwhelmingly.

And we just have to take that at face value.

But presumably there are some points along the investigation.

So we're part of the five eyes.

We're

we share intelligence.

Yeah, I think we've all been a bit interested in was Israel cooperative here along.

We don't know that, but overwhelmingly, this was ASIO's work, and it did take a long time.

But boy, it does look like a very difficult investigation to carry out.

And at the end of the day, there have been two young men in Victoria charged over the Adas-Israel synagogue attack.

And some of the reporting suggests that

these are allegations only, but they were allegedly hired just for that particular job and then moved on to another job completely unrelated to anything to do with that.

Guns for hire.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

So, look, it's fascinating.

It's a fascinating case when you look at the complexity of the...

Someone described them to me as the sort of Uber Eats of criminals.

Yeah.

Which, you know,

someone very senior.

They're like the Uber Eats of criminals.

So, you know, Iran might be directing it, but they're sort of paying money down the chain.

And we don't know even if these...

particular people even knew where the directions are coming from, right?

But to get to the politics of all of this, PK,

and yes, you know, this is a politics podcast.

It hasn't taken long at all for this to turn into a real flashpoint over whether the government should have acted a whole lot earlier in both kicking out the Iranian ambassador and listing the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard, as a terrorist organisation.

Mikhaili Kash, the shadow foreign minister this morning, was brandishing a letter, a two-and-a-half-year-old letter from the then government ministers, Penny Wong, Mark Dreyfus, and Claire O'Neill, the Foreign Minister, Attorney General, and Home Affairs Minister at the time, dismissing calls from some in the community to list the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation.

And Makalia Cash's point this morning was the government has a lot of questions to answer here.

It should have done this a whole lot earlier.

We have a clear message to you.

Bring on the legislation to list them urgently, and just like we told you two and a half years ago, we will work with you to do this.

It seemed to me the implication was if they'd done it, maybe some of this wouldn't have happened.

How?

How would it have been avoided?

Look, we don't know.

Exactly.

I mean, what does listing an organization as a terrorist group do?

Well, look, we know this group, Revolutionary Guard, was very much in the scope of ASIO for a long time, even if it wasn't listed as a terror group.

Yeah, they knew they weren't friendly folks.

Yeah, exactly.

They're obviously keeping a very close eye on them.

We've heard Mike Burgess talk about them and others.

But listing it as a terrorist organisation would allow anyone who deals with them to then come into the scope of a criminal charge, you know, dealing with a listed terrorist organisation.

So I guess it would have have been a higher

penalty threat for these local, any local criminals that might have been involved.

And

I guess would have given the agency some greater scope to pursue those who were connected with them in any way.

But it's not very clear to me that this would have necessarily stopped what happened.

If Iran was going to such lengths to hide its involvement here and use, as you say, Uber Eats, you know, guys on the ground, would have listing the organisation have made a difference and stopped those two attacks and others that may have been directed by Iran.

We don't know that.

And I did think it was interesting, just to come back to the politics of this, that while Mikhailia Cash was all guns blazing on this this morning with the letter and very angry language about the government having to explain itself today, her colleague, her West Australian Liberal colleague, Andrew Hastie, who's the shadow of the affairs minister, very different tone.

That's for whoever was in government then to explain.

I had discussions with members of the committee, including Labor members who wanted to list it at the time and others.

He looked agrees this

he did mention that they'd wanted it to be

a long time but he also made the point when the coalition was in government he wanted it listed.

He was the chair of the intelligence committee in Parliament at the time, powerful position.

And he told Sally Sarah this morning on RN that yeah, back then when the Morrison government was in power, he wanted it listed.

And she pressed him on, well, did you tell Scott Morrison?

Did you you tell the defence minister who was peter dutton did you tell others um and he got a little coy on that but you know he was clearly acknowledging the coalition should have done it as much as he wouldn't get into details dates he he made it quite clear that yeah he'd made it he was very active and then what i noticed since we're the chief notices together um noticer in chief that's my title i do like that title thank you um my noticer in chief noticed that again

his instinct is to draw the difference on this but then to move to the bipartisan.

Did you notice that he also mentioned that Labor's Mike Kelly wanted it listed as well to show that both sides, so that essentially they were both players on either side of politics, pushing their respective parties to this position?

And I also noticed that he wasn't criticising the government anywhere like Michaelia Cash was for not listing this group earlier.

And he, in fact, said, here we are now, right?

It's in the national interest.

We welcome it.

We support it.

He said, governments, oppositions, we've all got to come together.

It was just an interesting tone, wasn't it?

And in fact, echoed Penny Wong this morning, the foreign minister, who was saying, you know, something similar about all of this when Michaelia Cash's criticism was put to her.

You know, she was again also saying that, you know, we need to come together.

We need to, instead of pointing the finger at each other, we need to be mindful of working together at times like this to keep social cohesion.

So, yeah, it was just an interesting dynamic this morning.

Yeah, and look, it goes to style and tone, right?

Some of it, and then it goes to nuance and politics as well.

So it's both columns, I think, and the style and substance.

I mean, Kayla Cash is always, that's just, you know, she always goes to 11.

Yeah, and it's also the difference between going the political attack or when the national interest overrides that.

Now, they're politicians, they all have politics in them.

But it just struck me, and as it has in a couple of things, Andrew Hasty.

Well, the other thing is

Israel as well.

Now, that's not so much the national interest, but he is reading the room more, and he's also, you know, ex-army, right?

Like ex-SAS.

So when Israel was looking at expanding its operation and going into Gaza City, which is clearly it's still poised to do and that's an ongoing thing, he was also critical of that, right?

And not, you know, didn't hold back from being critical about that.

Again,

Michaelia Kashmir.

I like Michaelia Cash.

It's just an interesting tonal difference

between the two of them on some of these issues.

Speaking of Israel, look, their reaction to all of this, there did seem to be from the government side.

They tried to hold responsibility.

Just explain what they said.

Well, their argument is that Benjamin Netanyahu, whose pressure on Anthony Albanese,

calling him weak, particularly on his position on Israel, but also being too weak when it comes to Australian Jews and defending them and what he's allowed to happen in this country, which has shown weak leadership, that his application of pressure on Anthony Albanese had led to this.

The government says, get real.

Yeah, and I can sort of, yeah,

I can sort of agree with the get real sentiment here because what's the suggestion there that ASIO only concluded its investigation, this painstaking investigation, and presented that evidence to the government this week.

only because Benjamin Netanyahu, who had tweeted that Anthony Albanese was weak.

I think it takes, it's a bit of a stretch to stack that one up.

Also, just a cast cast back to the time of the Addis Israel synagogue attack, the day after that firebombing, Benjamin Netanyahu took to X,

and here's what he said.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to separate this reprehensible act from the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia.

So he was saying they're connected.

That attack and the Albanese government's extreme anti-Israel position in his view.

Well, we now know it was Iran, right?

Not the Albanese government's weak position.

This was Iran orchestrating it.

Iran trying to interfere,

you know, the Prime Minister saying, because they're anti-Semites, that is one of the motivation, but they're also wanting to sow discord into this country and they see the opening there.

And also, they have form on this, right?

This isn't...

This may be a big thing in our country, but there is precedent for them doing this.

We know that they do this sort of thing.

i think it's look there's fair criticism and questioning around the government about why not listing the revolutionary guard earlier i think that that's a fair debate to have um you know we know the united states did others have uh and you know as you say the the revolutionary guard's been involved in some awful stuff around the world um now we see it in australia but i think it's a legitimate um you know question why wasn't this listed earlier i think kicking out the ambassador is a little different you can see why the government wanted to keep that line of communication open even though he was

saying anti-Semitic stuff, awful stuff, and they'd bring him in, have a dressing game.

And again, the coalition was calling for them to kick that ambassador out

more recently when he was saying the anti-Semitic stuff.

Yes, but Penny Wong says, look, a line was clearly crossed when it comes to

violence on our own soil.

Australia's attacks on our soil.

That's a completely different scale.

And that's what prompted the decision to expel him.

Now, as we're recording, there's a manhunt for a man called Desi Freeman, who is accused of fatally shooting two police officers in Porpunka.

Who were there to execute a search warrant?

I think those details are in the public domain.

They certainly weren't aware of the risk that this person posed.

They were fully equipped.

They've done a risk assessment before doing the search warrant, but they certainly weren't...

which is quite obvious, expecting this.

That's in Victoria's north east, so near Bright.

That's continuing.

It's a massive, massive thing, David.

I can tell you that like every Victorian is watching every moment of this.

It's quite frightening.

What's unfolded since yesterday's shooting is also really disturbing.

He is a self-identified sovereign citizen.

It might be easy to dismiss them at face value, but it is a serious form of a sort of political ideology and extremism that doesn't recognise basically laws and powers around

us.

A lot of people have been really politicised by COVID, by lockdowns, by a movement that grew out of that.

People went down very dark holes on the internet and kind of have found solidarity in each other.

He's obviously an extreme case and, you know, this is all alleged.

Of course, he's still at large.

But it has...

Obviously, it's still unfolding when we record.

I mean, I hope he is found, arrested, and that no one else is injured or hurt, but we don't know that because it's still happening, first thing.

Secondly, now

federal ministers, the Prime Minister himself have been commenting about it because of the ideological dimensions of the world.

We have seen

that

spread.

and it is difficult to defend against individuals.

We know that that is the case.

And

this person, Jesse Freeman, who remains on the run, is the latest.

Yeah, and this is, I guess, the interesting thing politically is the scale of threat posed by this sovereign citizens movement or freedom movement, as it is often called in Australia.

It's very difficult, the Prime Minister said this morning, to defend against individuals

who may or may not be linked up.

And it is difficult to get a read on how many are in a dangerous category in Australia.

And there is a view that the level of danger presented and

the extent of violence

that some of these sovereign citizens are being attracted to is growing.

And that's becoming a bigger concern.

You're right to point to pandemic and people going down rabbit holes.

Andrew Hastie was talking about this this morning as well and saying, yes, this is a very real concern.

I think social media has also been a factor here as well.

What are we talking about?

Look, people who do not accept the legitimacy of the government,

even police,

laws.

This particular man is reported to have had a pretty visceral hatred of police.

And I think this just brings really into sharp focus so disturbingly the threat that can be posed by these sorts of sovereign citizens.

We've known about this problem for a while, but it will be interesting, I think, PK, to see what flows from this in terms of resourcing,

trying to counter the misinformation and disinformation that often feeds this movement,

whether we will see a concerted effort to do more about what has been a rising threat.

Yeah,

I think it's one to watch because clearly it's kind of really radicalised some people.

There's a spectrum, like this particular allegation about this man and the level of violence involved here does not mean everyone.

No, and that's true.

I mean, here in Canberra, there's a group of, you know, what you would call sovereign citizens who hung around for a long time after the pandemic, and everyone knew exactly where they'd hang out in Canberra.

And

a lovely spot down by the lake, as it turns out.

But, you know, you wouldn't categorise them necessarily as in that sort of dangerous category.

So you're right, there's a scale here.

But it comes back to, I guess, at some higher level.

trust in institutions and trust in government and the need for, and you know, we hear the Prime Minister and others on the opposition talk about this, the need to restore and rebuild that trust as a starting point is important.

Just a thing that's broken while we've been recording, which I think is one to watch.

We can't get into it in lots of detail, but inflation has risen to 2.8% in the 12 months to July because electricity costs have risen following the end of the energy rebates.

So that's fresh data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Of course, inflation has been...

Is that the monthly?

track.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that's always a little bit more rubbery.

That's right.

But, yeah, obviously any uptick is going to be of concern.

The quarterly numbers are the ones that everyone including the Reserve Bank are more focused on.

Well, that's exactly what the Reserve Bank keeps telling us, which is why they have held before when there's been pressure on them and they were like, we'll wait a little longer.

But

just

that simmering economic debate, we started the week talking about...

housing,

getting the EPBC Act, and all of a sudden these foreign issues have taken over again.

So every time the government tries to get on some of those domestic issues, I think it's really interesting, David, they kind of get derailed by what feels like the world looms large.

Yeah, and look,

it's the economy, stupid.

It's that thing that is front and centre on everyone's minds at the end of the day, as much as these rather dramatic issues like this week's booting of the Iranian ambassador dominate the news cycle.

At the end of the day, governments will live and die on the success or otherwise of the economy.

David, got your dress for the parliamentary ball?

Yeah, I've got the sit in the cupboard.

Looking forward to it.

In the cupboard?

See you there.

Yeah.

Do you bring it so you don't even have to go home?

Oh, David.

Exactly.

Do a quick change.

You get dressed in the bathroom.

Yeah, I'll find somewhere.

I'll find somewhere.

Okay.

All right.

How about you?

I'll sit down.

I'm going to go back to my hotel room to get dressed.

Yeah, I'll just.

I thought I don't need to get dressed in a public toilet.

It's not that.

I have human rights.

So that's what I'm going to do later, and we'll let you know about all of that.

Mel and I will be on the party room tomorrow.

We're very excited about that.

I'll try not to do anything mildly embarrassing at the ball tonight so that you're not talking about it on the podcast.

And if you do, that's entirely

up to you because I can't guarantee anything in terms of what I see.

I'm here to serve the listeners, David, not you.

No, it's look, it's going to be fun.

It is.

That's it for politics now.

I'll see you tomorrow.

See you, David.

Bye-bye.