Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil has declared the government will bring foreign interference campaigns in Australia "into the light" by publicly naming the countries responsible for them.
Ms O'Neil also revealed that late last year ASIO disrupted an Iranian government operation in Australia targeting an Iranian-Australian connected to protests over the death of a woman in Tehran, who was accused of breaking the regime's hijab laws.
Ms O'Neil said "ASIO disrupted the activities of individuals who had conducted surveillance of the home of an Iranian-Australian, as well as extensive research of this individual and their family".
"I'm pleased to say our agencies were onto it like a shot. ASIO tracked the operation and shut it down immediately," she told the told the National Security College at the Australian National University (ANU) in a speech on Tuesday morning.
Ms O'Neil said foreign interference posed a profound and growing threat to Australia, and she wanted to "open up a national conversation" on "one of the biggest domestic security challenges that we face".
"To those states who operate in the shadows, I have a simple message: we are watching you," she said.
"Where our national interest is served by calling out your operations, we will."
She took particular aim at authoritarian and hostile regimes targeting diaspora groups in Australia.
Foreign interference will worsen
Australian authorities have become increasingly concerned about the way a number of foreign regimes — including China, Iran, Rwanda and Cambodia – are intimidating and monitoring political opponents in Australia.
"We're not going to stand back and have Australians, or indeed visitors to our country, watched and tracked by foreign governments on our soil," Ms O'Neil said.
"This is Australia, this is our democracy, and if you engage in activities like this, you will be discovered."
Ms O'Neil said foreign governments had not just "tasked human sources to collect sensitive personal information of individuals seen as dissidents", but also organised "counter-protests to instigate arguments with activists with the intent of provoking violence – all at the request of a foreign intelligence service".
"There are examples of harassment of academics and staff who work at various media outlets and think tanks," she said.
She said foreign interference in Australia was "a significant problem that is going to get worse" as geopolitical competition heats up globally.
Ms O'Neil said she was hoping to raise public awareness of the threat, and to encourage a wider and more open public conversation about how to best tackle it.
"One of the things I've been struck by is the disconnect between what I'm reading in intelligence and the public conversation about these matters," she said in her speech.
"And that worries me because I see that gap as a national security risk.
"The best protection we have here is a public which understands that the threat is real."
