Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs: Will the minister outline to the House the stable and certain approach that the Morrison government is taking to protect Australia and its institutions from the threat of foreign interference?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. As all Australians know, the Morrison government are absolutely committed to making sure that we protect our nation and our people and, importantly, our sovereignty, and we do take foreign interference very, very seriously. As the Director-General of Security has consistently stated, the Australian public—our country—faces an unprecedented level of foreign interference, and we're going to deal with it. As the Prime Minister has stated, the government is of course not naive to the threats that we face. We've been actively strengthening our capacity to protect Australia from foreign interference.

I'm pleased to inform the House that no nation is better equipped to deal with this issue. In April of last year, the government appointed the first ever national Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator to coordinate whole-of-government efforts to respond to acts of foreign interference and administer Australia's counter foreign interference strategy.

One of the things we can derive as a benefit from managing the economy well is a further investment into our intelligence and security agencies. When Labor lost control of our borders, they spent billions of dollars trying to fix a problem of their own making. They took money out of the agencies, including ASIO, the Federal Police, the ACIC and others to pay for their broken borders. We on this side fixed the borders. The government have managed the economy well, the budget well, and we have invested some $35 million over four years in the most recent budget as follows: we've put $14.5 million into ASIO; we've put $6.7 million into the Australian Federal Police; $8½ million for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions; a million dollars for the AG's Department; and $3.9 million for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. ASIO's budget for the current financial year is the highest it's ever been, as a result of us managing the budget well.

We have also introduced a number of legislative measures to tighten our laws to make it more difficult for foreign actors to interfere, and that includes the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Act, the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act, the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act and the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Act.

As we know, when Labor is in opposition or in government, they seek to water down every national security bill. We on this side are not going to stand for that. I want to provide another reassurance today to the Australian public that the Morrison government will do everything possible to keep the Australian public safe. It's within our DNA and we will work day and night to make sure that we keep our country and our people safe.