Australia to Name and Shame Foreign Interference Actors as Iranian Interference Plot Foiled

Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Cyber Security Clare O'Neil speaks to media in Melbourne, Australia, on Oct. 20, 2022. AAP Image/James Ross

Australia will now name and shame countries that perpetrate acts of foreign interference, the Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O'Neil, has said after Australian spy agencies foiled an Iranian foreign interference plot.

Australia’s domestic intelligence agency ASIO identified foreign interference as one of the biggest threats the country currently faces.

“It’s time to bring foreign interference out of the shadows and into the light,” O'Neil said in a speech at the Australian National University on Feb. 14.

“Foreign interference is not hypothetical. It is not merely something that lies in our future. It is happening today, and we need to do more to tackle it.”

The minister said that the Australian government was seeing foreign actors attempt to covertly influence a range of sectors in Australia, including education, online information, and politics.

“We see in politics, where foreign governments try to win over elected leaders or party activists, to push for changes in everything from planning laws to foreign and national security policy, or even just to simply build a picture of how decisions are made,” she said.

“They are trying to deliberately deteriorate our social fabric and cause conflict and painful rifts between neighbours who have lived peacefully together for many years.”

Foreign Interference an Ever-Present Threat

Bearing the brunt of these actions are the diaspora communities for which this has become an ever-present threat that is “relentless and insidious,” O'Neil said.

She noted that Home Affairs and other intelligence agencies had found that many foreign governments attempt to exert control over diaspora communities via harassment (both online and in-person), intimidation, stalking, and threats against families living overseas.

“To be absolutely clear, this type of foreign interference is commonplace; it is happening around our country every day,” she said.

“We see it when diaspora communities peacefully protest about the actions of their governments back in their home country. In some instances, in many instances, they will be photographed, harassed or followed as a result.

“We see it when people in those communities or their families back home are threatened, harassed or intimidated because of actions that they have undertaken here in our free, fair democracy.”

To tackle the growing threat, O'Neil said she had tasked Australia’s spy agency ASIO and Home Affairs with developing a community outreach program that will identify Australians who might be targets of foreign interference and educate them on what foreign interference looks like and what they can do to respond.

Iran Named As Foreign Interference Actor

Naming Iran as one of the countries guilty of such actions in Australia, the minister said that during the last months of 2022, when the protests against the Iranian regime were growing worldwide, ASIO disrupted a surveillance and intelligence operation on an Iranian Australian.

“We have someone living here, in our country, who has been followed, watched, and photographed,” she explained.

“Their home was invaded by people at the direction of a foreign power. This is happening in Australia, and it’s something that ASIO was onto like a shot. So I want people to understand, to those states that operate in the shadows, we have a very simple message—we are watching you.”

The ongoing nationwide protests against the Iranian regime started in September 2022, after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in alleged suspicious circumstances in police custody. Tehran has responded to the demonstrations by instigating a brutal crackdown that the Voice of America alleges has seen more than 500 people killed, including 70 children.

A woman holds a placard with a picture of Iranian Mahsa Amini as she attends a protest against her death in Berlin on Sept. 28, 2022. Markus Schreiber/AP Photo

O'Neil said that Australia would no longer tolerate, under any circumstances, attempts by foreign regimes to disrupt peaceful protests, try to push violence or suppress specific views being expressed, or take hostile acts in the form of surveillance, harassment or intimidation against individuals or family members here in Australia.

Opposition Calls For More Transparency

However, the opposition has called for more openness around government actions to tackle the problem.

Liberal Senator Claire Chandler said the Australian community was entitled to more transparency on foreign interference.

“How can the minister (O‘Neil) declare to the Iranian-Australian community that this activity was ’shut down immediately’ when in fact Iranian-Australians continue to report harassment and targeting of their families in Iran,” she said.

Meanwhile, the opposition’s spokesperson for countering foreign interference, James Paterson, urged the government to impose the “strongest possible” response.

“Every Australian is entitled to peacefully protest,” he said.

“It is the responsibility of the Albanese government to protect these democratic rights with the strongest possible response to deter this activity and send a clear message to those responsible that it will not be tolerated.”