Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Payne. In what has been described as a 'rare public speech' last night at the ANU, the foreign minister finally acknowledged the issue of foreign state backed disinformation in Australia. The risks of foreign state backed disinformation have been known for many years, given, for example, the occurrences in Crimea in 2014, the US in 2016 and Hong Kong last year. Can the minister explain why it has taken the government until now to finally act?