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The Albanesei government has tried to block the Royal Commission from accessing cabinet documents relating to discussions about counterterrorism funding and resourcing. They claimed public immunity. The Prime Minister's Department wanted to keep the documents secret and they didn't even want Commissioner Virginia Bell to access them herself. Shadow Home Affairs Minister John Oanium called this out. This argument that cabinet deliberations therefore must be excluded under uh their long-standing convention doesn't stand to reason. And in of course there is precedence for this sort of information having been released to a royal commission under negotiated
circumstances. So I hope uh that the government does the right thing and doesn't hide this information from the public or the commission. Well, thankfully, Commissioner Virginia Bell was also having none of it. And she published a decision, which I've got here, writing that the cabinet files were the only source of information that cabinet was informed about and considered the priority of counterterrorism. The Royal Commission is seriously and properly examining the actions of AIO, the AFP, New South Wales Police, and other agencies. As we've seen and been reporting, its interrogation is rigorous. But it's also essential that
the Royal Commission examines the actions, the policy direction, the funding decisions, and the tone of the Albanesei government. It can't have a thorough royal commission on anti-semitism without this. Even AIO Director General Mike Burgess in his witness statement spoke of the role of political leaders in tackling terrorism and anti-semitism. Now to discuss this further, joining me is former Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pazulo. Mike, good to see you. Thank you for being here. Why do you think the Albany government tried to prevent the Royal Commission from examining the documents? And what does this say about the government's commitment to the Royal Commission?
Uh good evening uh Shi. Good to be with you. Look uh on the surface of it, you would have to think that given the reticence and the reluctance that the government showed um earlier this year to even mount a royal commission. You might remember they initially commissioned Dennis Richardson to conduct an administrative inquiry and then after a public outcry frankly um that Richardson inquiry was folded into what's become the Royal Commission headed by Commissioner Bell. You would have to think that they are very reluctant to have these matters examined at the level if you like of government decision-making. I suspect the prime minister and other ministers are comfortable enough for any failings perceived or otherwise or any stumbles
perceived or otherwise by the agencies or the police to be exposed and that's fair enough. That's going to have to be dealt with. If there was a mistake made at the operational level, if a piece of vital intelligence was missed, of course that's got to be examined. What I think the government's trying to do and all I can do is just infer Sherry, I don't know what their mind is, is that they don't want any of this scrutiny to attach them to themselves. What I find astonishing about this public interest immunity claim that you've just described, it was actually settled and decided almost two months ago, the commissioner made her ruling on the 8th of April. Uh but it was only law uh put on onto the website
of the Royal Commission late on Friday. I read it over the weekend. You've just referred to it. What's critical uh is that the commissioner, her honor, makes the point that in order to establish the priority and focus that was afforded to counterterrorism, she has to be able to examine the funding and resource and priority decisions that were made both before the terrorism threat level was raised in August of 24 and then what the situation was thereafter. And she made the point in her ruling that you've just uh read out parts of that the only source of information to get that whole of government prioritization information are these cabinet documents. So you've got to wonder having set up the Royal Commission why you would try to hide them.
Well, exactly. Now Mike, we know that under the entire intelligence community funding for counterterrorism fell. I've reported classified documents that show it fell from and this is my memory. I don't have it in front of me but fell this is accurate from 23% in 2019 to 2020 down to 19% by 2025 at the time of the terror attack. So we know funding for counterterrorism across the whole counterterrorism intell the whole intelligence community fell. So and then you've got the Albany government trying to hide its cabinet deliberation. So does this signal to you that counterterrorism was not a top priority under the Albany government?
Not necessarily. Let's just break those into two parts. Um the raw commissioner herself uh in her interim report that was released on the 30th of April made the very same observation, very similar uh data, but she didn't release the actual quantum of the funding. She said that there had been a decline between 2020 and 25. She wanted to further explore that, but at that stage the number she was not prepared to divulge. What could be happening here Shahi is that just from a maths point of view the overall intelligence budgets increasing but because some of that money is being diverted or focused on espionage foreign interference sabotage hostile state activity cyber warfare etc. It might be that the relative proportions that are allocated to
counterterrorism uh come off even though the absolute level of terroris counterterrorism funding increases. So there's probably a maths issue there. We just need to know what the denominator is and what the numerator is. But the point is that if all the threats are converging and multiplying, director general Burgess tells us all the time in his annual statements and he said it again last week in his evidence to the Royal Commission that I'm dealing with a multiplicity of threats. I think he used a phrase, every rock I turn up, I find spies, saboturs, uh, foreign interference, people trying to interfere with our democracy, extremists, uh, terrorists. That suggests to me that the overall
funding, the aggregate level of funding to keep us safe needs to be increasing at a greater rate of effort than what is evidenced. In other words, CT funding has to come up, but also these other areas have to come up as well. I just want to interrupt there. The fact that the Albani government was claiming public immunity on how they were prioritizing counterterrorism, doesn't that indicate to you that they do perhaps have something to hide? Well, if they've got uh something to hide, uh or indeed, I'll put it the other way. They might well have nothing to hide. But I'm astonished that they would not want to at least have the commissioner because remember this uh
ruling by the commissioner only relates to whether these documents will be examined by the commission internally, not even for public release. You and I can't read uh these documents. Um, look, there are uh there's traditionally, and the attorney general made this point last week on a couple of media interviews, there traditionally has been a basis to protect cabinet confidentiality because you do want ministers to be able to speak in cabinet with cander. There's no question about that. But typically that relates to uh not divulging that to a plaintiff say in a in a legal proceeding or perhaps not uh divulging cabinet documents to a hostile Senate inquiry for instance which might really just uh deal with
those documents in a very political way. This is not one of those proceedings. This is meant to be an inquisitorial proceeding that is meant to get to the bottom of everything and that includes the relative prioritization, the funding decisions, the resource allocation decisions and what we now know Shie only because of the release of the commissioner's ruling is that she makes it quite clear and you had an extract uh earlier in your introduction. There's another sentence that's equally uh relevant. It says that the uh the relative priority before August 24 be to devoted to counterterrorism and after is important because that's when the terror threat level was raised and she makes it quite clear the government considered that
prioriti that prioritization. In other words, it was a decision either made by or endorsed by the government. So if they haven't increased the fund sufficiently or indeed they did raise the fund sufficiently that in the end under ministerial responsibility is a matter for those ministers and the only way to get to that is through these documents. So I'm glad that the commissioner has stood up to the government. Exactly. The right decision from the commissioner. Absolutely. Mike Bazulo, great analysis as always. Thank you so much for your
