Judge for yourself: does the head of the department overseeing security and immigration seem reluctant to answer simple questions? Do her answers give you confidence?
Secretary Stephanie Foster refused to say how safe Australians currently are. Instead, she tried to deflect the question to ASIO, only belatedly mentioning that the government had allocated $102 million to assist with security for Jewish sites.
Minister Watt and the government haven’t received the message: One Nation will not vote for legislation that packages necessary legal provisions we support with “bundled” provisions that strip away basic rights such as free speech and instil needless control over the people.
The answer to terrorism is not to take away the basic freedoms of Australians; the answer is to stop terrorists from entering Australia in the first place. Based on Minister Watt’s response today and Minister Ayres’ response yesterday, it’s clear that Labor is growing concerned about the surging support for One Nation.
Rather than misleading by omission and spreading falsehoods about One Nation, wouldn’t it be more effective if the “Uniparty” — Liberal and Labor — started serving Australians?
Telling the truth can be tough. However, as One Nation does, it’s better for the long-term interest of the country to raise difficult truths and facts. Instead of dragging others down out of fear, Labor should try lifting itself up.
— Senate Estimates | February 2026
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: These questions are for Home Affairs. What is the risk to Australians of a terrorist attack on Australian soil since the Bondi atrocity at the hands of Islamic terrorists of Middle Eastern extraction and the failed bombing attempt by homegrown white supremacists?
Ms Foster: You’re absolutely right that is a question for the Home Affairs portfolio, but the threat assessments are actually done by ASIO. Director-General Burgess will be appearing later today.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m going to ask him similar questions. Isn’t it pertinent that you should know as well?
Ms Foster: That’s a specific role assigned to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you interact with ASIO and AFP to coordinate activities?
Ms Foster: We do. In terms of actually formulating that assessment, that’s a role that belongs with them.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m not asking you whether or not you formulate the role. Thank you for explaining that ASIO does that. I thought they did that. What I’m asking is: do you know it? I can ask you questions about your department’s response based on the level of threat.
Ms Foster: I’m hesitating because an amount of the assessment work is classified in nature. I’ll need to take the question on notice before I answer about what is my state of knowledge of the classification level of the material that I have.
Senator ROBERTS: I just want to know whether or not your department knows what the level of risk is right now. What’s the rating?
Ms Foster: That’s the question I’m being cautious of. When agencies make assessments about threat, that can often be drawn from classified sources. It’s on the public record that the Director-General raised the threat level for terrorism to ‘probable’ on 5 August 2024. That’s the national terrorism threat level, which as he explains means a more than 50 per cent chance of that occurring.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll ask him this question as well, and thank you for that answer. My understanding is that the risk level rating has to be increased immediately after an attack. Has it been increased? What I’m getting to, Secretary, is: what are you doing differently now compared with before Bondi?
Ms Foster: Again, publicly, the director-general has affirmed that the national terrorism threat level remains at ‘probable’, that he did not, on the basis of information available to him, change that at the time. In terms of what we collectively have done since Bondi, you’ll see a very significant range of activities—obviously some of which you participated in in the debates on the bills which were passed a couple of weeks ago.
Senator ROBERTS: How safe are we now, living in Australia?
Ms Foster: I can only give you my previous answer, which is that it is the director-general of ASIO who makes assessments of Australia’s national terrorism threat level, and he will be appearing later today. But I’ve given you the publicly stated information to date. Mr Hansford has just reminded me that, in terms of another very significant action since Bondi, there is the allocation of a $102 million investment in security for Jewish institutions, places of worship and educational facilities.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you do anything to educate everyday Australians or citizens of Australia as to what we can do to enhance our safety?
Mr Hansford: We—as in the Commonwealth—have a range of actions, including information on the national security website and a range of information that can help people to be informed about security issues in Australia. We also play a leadership role, and I co-chair the Australia-New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee that has met post Bondi a number of times to talk about how we prepare, knowing what we know about Bondi from the law enforcement and policy community across Australia. We’ve had discussions around how law enforcement and policy agencies can respond to and learn from what’s happened in Bondi, cognisant of the inquiries that are underway.
Senator ROBERTS: It doesn’t sound very concrete to me. What about things like tightening up immigration standards regarding who we let into the country?
Senator Watt: We recently passed some laws to strengthen the minister’s powers to cancel visas of people promoting hate, and your party voted against those laws.
Senator ROBERTS: That was because of other things that we did not like in the bill.
Senator Watt: So you voted against what you were asking for?
Senator ROBERTS: We voted against the other provisions of your bill.
Senator Watt: Which were to make it easier to ban association with Neo-Nazis. Was it that bit that you didn’t like? What was it that you didn’t like?
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, we could talk for hours about the specifics of that bill. This is a time for you to answer my questions; it’s not for me to answer your questions.
Senator Watt: The problem with One Nation is that you call for things to happen and then vote against them. You’ve done that now on hate speech and hate crime.
Senator ROBERTS: We do not vote against tighter immigration.
Senator Watt: You voted against same job, same pay, when you called for better labour standards.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, will you increase the immigration vetting standards?
Senator Watt: You voted against cheaper medicines when you wanted things done for poorer Australians. At some point, Australians are going to see through One Nation and observe that you make promises that you don’t keep when you come to Canberra. You did it again recently, by calling for hate preachers to be banned and restricted and then voting against laws that would do that. You called for migration screening and then voted against it. So I’ll leave it to Australians to see through what One Nation does rather than what One Nation says.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, do you think Australians are fools and not seeing what you’re doing right now? We’ve asked for tighter immigration standards. Will you answer the question: will you provide tighter immigration standards to keep terrorists out?
Senator Watt: We just did that, and you voted against it.
Senator ROBERTS: That was because of other things in your bill.
Senator Watt: But we did what you were asking for, and you voted against it—
Senator ROBERTS: Correct, because of the other things.
Senator Watt: just as you always vote against the things that you say need to be done, and we’re onto you.
Senator ROBERTS: We’re happy to leave it in the hands of the Australian people.
Senator Watt: The Australian people, over time, will be onto you.
Senator ROBERTS: Will you call out ideologies that promote terrorism?
Senator Watt: We’ve done that, and we’ve just passed laws.
Senator ROBERTS: It took a long while for you to call out ideologies—
Senator Watt: We’ve done that. We’ve gone and done more than just call it out; we’ve passed laws. We’ve just passed laws. We don’t just call things out; we pass laws to restrict hate speech and hate preachers, and you vote against those laws.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, until the Bondi attack, only one party was calling out ideological Islam, and that was us. Now, all of a sudden, we’ve got more doing so.
Senator Watt: That’s not true.
Senator ROBERTS: The Prime Minister didn’t.
Senator Watt: There’s a long series of statements from the Prime Minister and ministers in this government. They have condemned some of the hate speech that we’ve seen in the community, whether it be from Islamic preachers or white supremacists; there is a long series of those statements. But we don’t just call things out. When we come to Canberra, we pass laws to restrict that kind of activity. So I invite you to work with the government to restrict that kind of activity, rather than just pretend that you care about these issues.
Senator ROBERTS: Secretary, do you have adequate resources to do what needs to be done?
Ms Foster: The Department of Home Affairs has a very substantial budget and staffing level, and I am able to deploy those resources to the government’s priorities.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.
