Iran 'orchestrated' attacks on Australian soil

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Iran has sought to disguise its involvement, but ASIO assesses it was behind the attacks on the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney on October 20 last year and the Addis Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 6 last year.

ASIO assesses it is likely Iran directed further attacks as well.

These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil.

They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community.

Iran has crossed a line and put Australian lives in danger.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has fronted media alongside Foreign Minister Penny Wong, ASIO Director General Mike Burgess, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and the AFP Commissioner, revealing Iran has directed at least two and maybe more attacks on Jewish interests in Australia.

That's right.

On Jews in Australia, to sow social cohesion problems.

The ambassador to Iran has been withdrawn from the country.

The ambassador and three others from the embassy.

They have seven days to get out and Australia will list Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation.

All of this as Susan Lee faces what is essentially a de facto leadership question around tensions over net zero, questions around her supremacy over her party as she's challenged on the position on net zero.

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis.

And I'm Raph Epstein from ABC Radio in Melbourne.

RAF, this is

a massive breaking story.

I have just walked away from the Prime Minister's press conference where it was cut short just as I was hoping to ask a question.

It unfolded right as we record, so we delayed this a little so we could bring this to you.

What have we found out, Raph?

This is quite...

I'm going to use the word that I like to ban, but unprecedented in post-war Australia that we have taken action like this, kick out the ambassador to close down essentially our embassy in Tehran and bring our people to a third country to advise our citizens.

to get out of Iran, because clearly we are now dismantling our diplomatic infrastructure, all because ASIO alleges that Iran is behind these anti-Semitic attacks.

Not all, but some key ones, Raf.

You know, I have a very distinct memory, PK, of a morning in early December last year.

And I was woken up by sirens and the sirens did not stop.

They went and went and went and I could hear fire engines screaming down Hotham Street near where I live and they all they ended up at the Adas Israel Synagogue.

I remember that night really clearly because there were a hell of a lot of fire trucks.

There is no way I expected to be talking about this as something directed from Iran, from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Just to give people some idea,

that's kind of like a state within a state inside Iran.

It's one of the most powerful institutions.

People have been calling for them to be prescribed as a terrorist organisation for some time.

When you say unprecedented, it was, I mean, it was the Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, who said that.

She said in the post-war period, we've not kicked an ambassador out.

But I think the other thing that really,

I don't get surprised by too much.

It surprised me to hear the the Director General of ASIO, Mike Burgess, saying they've been onto this since October.

The other arson attack was at the Lewis Continental Kitchen, which is just off Old South Head Road in Bondi.

The fact that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps used proxies, cutouts, Mike Burgess from ASIO said that they were doing all they could to disguise their connections, but they directed those arson attacks.

I mean,

it's such an extraordinary act of aggression.

I think a lot of people will take a lot of comfort in the PM's words.

He said, because he was basically asked, is this an anti-Semitic attack or is it an attack on Australia?

And he said, any attack on our social cohesion is an attack on Australia.

But it's a real escalation and it really makes you,

it's a bit sort of even a bit woozy with, oh, wow, actually, this is even more serious.

than it seemed when those attacks emerged in October and December last year.

It's huge.

We are talking about Iran interfering on the streets of Australia in acts of violence.

And not just this one.

Not just these two.

That's right.

Directed at Jewish Australians.

I mean, if I was a Jewish Australian this afternoon, I'd be pretty alarmed.

I think it's fair to, and I imagine this will hit the Jewish community pretty hard.

Any anti-Semitism, to be clear, is unacceptable.

Now, this is foreign interference anti-Semitism, yeah?

This is, this is kind of chilling, isn't it, RAF, that we've had, as ASIO alleges, a state sponsor these attacks to try and sow division because they know there are increasing divisions.

Now, the government and ASIO made clear that that doesn't mean every anti-Semitic attack has been directed by Iran, but these are pretty two key incidents, particularly the Adas-Israel

incident.

I mean,

that synagogue was burnt to the ground, right?

That community is still quite broken by that experience, Raph.

You are actually, you know, also, coincidentally and helpfully, I think the lived experience can be helpful in that community.

I'm not, but you know.

So I should point out a few things.

Not quite that community, so slightly different part of the Jewish community, but of course,

part of that area.

Yeah.

Maybe a bit of background is important as well.

So Iran has long been accused of a significant bombing in Argentina in the early 90s in Buenos Aires, where dozens of people were killed.

And really since then, there's been really high security.

People may have noticed when they've been driving past Jewish day schools in either Melbourne or Sydney.

For a long time in Sydney there's always been someone with a handgun.

outside the schools in Sydney.

That changed a few years ago before October 7, before all of that happened.

And Melbourne Jewish day schools started to have guns on at least one security outside the school.

So I think the Jewish community has always been very aware of this.

There's always been a bit of background Iranian intelligence activity in Australia.

It's not really official.

They use people who are proxies or who are sources or who aren't sort of formal parts of Iran's security apparatus.

But that's something, I guess, that the Jewish community has come to live with and get used to.

I think sometimes people in the Jewish community feel that those concerns fall on deaf ears.

None of this is to downplay anything that happens at other places, at mosques and at Islamic schools as well.

But I think the

real impact of this for the Jewish community in Australia will be a little bit, we told you so, we told you we had something to fear that's just a bit above and beyond some prejudice and some arson attacks.

It will send shockwaves to the Jewish community and it adds a different...

It adds a different complexion to that conversation about anti-Semitism.

It all takes place, of course, in a broader conversation about the horror that is happening in Gaza, but it just deepens the

level of seriousness, I guess, when it comes to how do we balance everybody's competing concerns and how do we actually try to make sure that they are not competing concerns, that different parts of the community can somehow have some mutual concerns that can all be addressed.

And I think it makes that aim that much harder to achieve.

Tony Burke said something that I thought was quite powerful in relation to this.

He said, it's true that no one was injured in these attacks,

but it's not true that no one was harmed.

And attacks like this, of course, you know, I use the term chilling effect,

they have a psychological impact too.

And the psychological impact on Jews in Australia has been, I think, pretty evident.

I mean, I know many Jews who genuinely feel fearful.

And that's, you know,

unconscionable, right?

That we don't want to live in a country where our citizens feel like that.

I want to add something too, though, about the way the government's responding.

You'll remember that the Jural caravan issue, which ended up being, remember, a criminal hoax, but it still, of course, was alarming when I think Jews heard.

During that time, there was a big bit of a concern and the opposition really got onto this, Raf, about the way that the communications happened.

And my understanding is that the government internally were really concerned that maybe their systems weren't working very well.

So regardless of the fact that it was a hoax, I'm talking about the systemic nature of it, yeah?

Like when the prime minister's told, how.

Don't you think, Raf, that we're already seeing the changes that the government made after the election with the home affairs and ASIO?

Yesterday, you know, they say they're informed, the cabinet gets together, they make some big, you know, internationally significant decisions about expelling the Iranians, about getting rid of our own embassy, essentially.

These are pretty consequential decisions, but the timeliness, the way that it was announced, I think that it is a pretty different different way that they've handled it.

And I think to their credit, it seems like a stronger way to handle it and the message that that sends to the Jewish community.

I mean, is that fair?

I think that is fair.

And I think you're going to something really important.

It sounds dull, but the way government's organised, but Tony Burke, the Home Affairs Minister, was there.

They've kept a whole lot of things inside Home Affairs that in earlier times, the Labor government were going to parcel out to other parts of the government.

It centralises control.

The Dural Caravan was essentially a claim that people related to organized crime were sort of going to spruke anti-Semitism as a way to get the cops interested to reduce someone's sentence.

This shows that the government's got real control of the information flow.

And I think something else that goes to, you know, what you said about how concerned people might be when they hear things.

Mike Burgess, the ASIO boss, was asked directly, hang on, the New South Wales police said the Lewis Continental Kitchen, the thing that happened in October last year, they said at the time, no cause for wider community concern.

And the ASIO boss was asked, or did you get that wrong?

And Mike Burgess is like, no, they didn't get it wrong.

They were working with what they had before them.

So I think, you know, and that situation has changed drastically because of the work that Mike Burgess and his officers have done.

So just having the people there available for questioning, he heads our domestic security intelligence organization.

He directly responds to concerns and questions that are put to him by journalists like you and others.

I think that's actually incredibly helpful to have as many facts out there as possible.

And something else to remember too, he was really careful to point out the ASIO boss, there's no involvement of the embassy in this.

So you've got the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as I mentioned, this kind of state within a state, directing people, in Mike Burgess's words, through a series of cutouts for people in Australia to undertake these actions.

So it's directed by the IRGC through a series of overseas cutouts and then coordinators here in Australia.

So that's as much as he can say, but it just gives people, I mean, you're getting pretty much a raw intelligence feed from ASIO.

People can respond to that how they like, but at least we've got facts to think about and analyse as opposed to suppositions and miscommunications.

And I think that's what you're getting at with the dual caravan thing.

Yeah.

And also, I mean, Burgess also said that ASIO is now open to the possibility of more incidents.

That's, I think that will be, you know, very concerning, of course, to the Jewish community and others.

That's because you can get rid of the members of the Iranian embassy, but if they're not directly involved, that doesn't mean that the interference can't continue to happen.

So that's alarming.

But obviously, I mean,

the good part, if there is any, I don't think there's much good here, but is that ASIO is on to this.

The Australian Federal Police have been working with them.

and

it seems to me all hands are on deck, right?

Like

they're alive to this, they're aware of this, so this is a different situation where we can feel at least like they are onto it.

But it is like, it's just a really significant moment, I think, that we are in this situation.

I was pretty shocked.

I've been hearing in the morning that something very big was happening.

Just to tell you how the sausage is made, I have harassed a lot of people this morning about just how big it was.

I found out, and I was filing on this RAF that it was sort of almost adjacent to Israel and Jews because we thought if it's big foreign affairs, is it sanctions on Israel?

Obviously the government has been very concerned about what's happening in Gaza.

But yeah, then it emerged.

It was this and it's huge.

Look, I want to quite dramatically pivot to another issue if I can, which is there was a press conference I was in.

and I literally had to run to the Prime Minister's press conference.

Just give you the backstory, there's a joint party room meeting.

So that means the Liberals and the Nationals get together.

In that joint party room meeting, net zero explodes.

We're talking at least five MPs and senators, maybe more, Matt Canavan, Tony Passon, Lou O'Brien, Alex Antic, sort of you know right-wingers all say net zero debate has to happen.

It has to be settled.

Michaelia Cash, who can I say is the shadow foreign spokesperson in the cabinet, senior liberal right-winger,

said that they they need a 2-2035 position now on

where they're going to get in terms of emissions reductions and net zero.

So really big pressure on Susan Lee.

A few things that you might not know, Raf, that I might be sharing with you.

Who knows?

You do know everything.

Tell you though.

Okay.

One thing, we didn't get a briefing about the joint party room.

That's the standard thing.

As someone said to me, I've been here since the 80s and we always get a briefing.

So they've stopped.

They went briefing.

Instead, they called a press conference.

Now I thought initially, well, maybe that's more transparent.

Okay, let's be fair.

She wants to take questions.

But then when we started with the question, she wasn't really a big fan of the nature of the questions.

And those questions were, what is this, you know, mutiny basically into your policy.

What this is, is a challenge really in many ways to her authority.

I think that's fair to say.

Is that how you see it?

Oh, it's definitely a challenge.

I mean, on the one hand, it's an old story, right?

So this goes back to Malcolm Turnbull's time as Prime Minister.

There is is a divide in this country around two things, acceptance of the science of climate change and acceptance that we need to take action on climate change.

That divide continues to run directly down the middle of the joint party room.

Now Susan Lee's in opposition.

She's sort of set up this, I guess you'd call slow, deliberative process to work out how the coalition deals with policies around climate change.

These people, I guess, in that joint party room, they are effectively, they are blowing up that process, aren't they?

They're saying, nah, we don't want you to have this process under the Victorian Liberal Dan Tiernan.

We want to debate this, have it out right now in the joint party room.

What you said about transparency, PK, some of the questions that...

Susan Lee didn't answer, one of them was, you're three months into your leadership.

There's divisions over energy policy.

Will you be leader of the opposition in three years' time?

You asked how many MPs stood up and raised those objections and what would you say to them.

You also asked, did you stare them down?

Someone else asked if this was something that was going to terminate her leadership.

Her responses to that, I wanted to single out one response to that.

There has been no conversation that has not been constructive, collegiate, and respects the future development of the energy policy.

Now that's actually an amazing thing to say.

They are trying to railroad her.

They are trying to force her into a position that doesn't accept the need for net zero, something they they sort of tortured themselves over in government.

That's not polite conversation.

That is not respectful conversation.

That is directly undermining a process that she has set up.

So I think they're mortally, well, not mortally, they're hitting her below the waterline, though, in terms of her leadership.

And it's a difficult thing to come back from if they are the people dictating both the pace of the conversation, the timing of the conversation, and by proxy trying to determine the actual outcome of that conversation.

I think it proves she's in a world of pain.

Does it stop her being an effective leader, do you think?

I think it's very hard for her to be a leader full stop because they don't seem to have much respect for the processes and her authority.

And yet she keeps saying, I welcome a diversity of views, but you know, they don't seem to be very respectful of her.

So actually, I have enormous sympathy for her.

I think this whole kind of, oh, they listened to Peter Dutton.

Well, okay.

Well, maybe they should stare in the mirror and wonder why they did that.

Hey, I got another question for you, PK.

So the net zero, dumping the aim of net zero, so that's to have net zero emissions by 2050 through a series of policies, dumping that's been voted on by, I think, with the Queensland LNP, other different party divisions that, you know, they are the people that send these politicians to Canberra to sit in that joint party room.

Does...

Where does that leave them electorally?

Like, if there's that sort of pressure from the members, where does that leave them when it comes to the next election and trying to win seats?

I just think they are on a road to trouble, right?

They have a very narrow membership that is obsessed by things that the broader electorate isn't.

So there's a massive mismatch there.

So she has to deliver something that is

appealing and mainstream.

At the same time, there is a conundrum, Raph, because you do have to actually match the needs of your current membership.

Now, I think their current membership is way too narrow, and

that is the circular problem, right?

Like, you can't possibly deliver what they want and then also go on to win elections.

You know this best because you cover Victorian politics as well, and we all know how well that's going.

I mean, it's laughable to me that the Victorian government could win next year

after, you know, lots of different problems, but that's only because the Liberal Party has become so narrow and often so out of touch.

So do the feds want to replicate that?

If they do, there is an active working example.

It's called the current Allen government.

They keep getting elected, right?

And they will continue to, I reckon, unless they fix their kind of internals in the Liberal Party.

Am I missing something?

It seems to me.

I don't know.

It's like Electoral Politics 101, isn't it?

As a Victorian, I feel like I've seen this movie again and again and again.

It's a bit, I don't want to be too reductionist and say the Federal Coalition is the same as the Liberal Party here in in Victoria and the Coalition here in Victoria, but it feels exactly the same.

The sort of the

drive to ideological purity around issues that do not seem to be mainstream concerns.

They just appear federally to be mimicking precisely the difficulties that the Liberal Party's had in Victoria.

And what you said about you've got to listen to the members.

That's precisely the problem.

The people who throw up candidates, who hand out pamphlets, who go

on voting day, who go door knocking for you, They are the people who want to get rid of net zero.

So if you don't give those people net zero, you're sort of abandoning your core membership who are watching Sky After Dark and seeing that as their sort of their north star.

But then that is not a path to winning back seats like Koo Yong, winning back seats like Chisholm, winning, I mean, they've been hollowed out.

I don't need to tell this probably to everyone listening now.

There are no liberal seats in the big cities.

How do you win those seats back if you don't believe in net zero?

And increasingly, it's getting harder and harder and harder and harder for Susan Lee to pull this one off.

She can say, I'll be here in three years or she likes.

By the way, fine question.

I wouldn't criticise my colleagues for asking, but you know, like,

I think a better question, will you make it even by Christmas?

Right?

Three years?

That's a while, that's a mountain of time away, right?

But Christmas, and I know that sounds wild, but what we're seeing here is an increasing split in the coalition and people flexing their muscle and sort of going, what are you going to do, Susan Lee?

You know, and she's trying to do a methodical middle pathway.

Well, they don't, that's not good enough for these guys.

They don't want that.

So

where does that leave her?

Oh, it leaves her in a world of pain.

And final thought experiment, PK, because you mentioned the Victorian example.

Is it because the opposition are hopeless?

and are sort of divided on significant, you know, cultural issues that don't dominate mainstream?

Or is it also because the Labor Party in Victoria, and it now looks like someone like Anthony Albanese, they're really good at occupying the centre ground.

So both of those things happen together.

You're right, the Victorian Labor government's been here for a long time.

It's something like 20, it'll be 22 out of the 26 years by the time we get to an election.

But they're very good at occupying the middle ground.

And it's a real political operation of fighting to dominate the middle ground and to beat others off.

And often,

well, especially with the last federal election, the Greens and the Liberals are great at striving for ideological purity and abandoning the middle ground.

But that's also because you've got a Labor government so determined to protect its turf on the middle ground.

So I often think it takes two to tango.

Yes, the Liberals have been really hopeless in the past and are sort of digging their own grave right now.

It seems, it seems, because things can change.

But that's also because Labor works out how to dominate that sort of middle ground territory.

I think maybe that's a thought experiment for another day, but I do think that is a part of the opposition's trouble.

Yeah, I think that is too.

Oh, Raph, thank you, thank you, thank you.

You've done a long day.

You get up early to come and do this with me.

It's an amazing and remarkable turn of events, PK.

Absolute pleasure to talk about it with you and to have everyone listening on Politics Now.

I'll join you soon.

You will.

And that's it for Politics Now.

I'll be back in your podcast feed tomorrow.

Catch you then.

Have a good Arbu, PK.