The Bondi attack has renewed scrutiny of whether Australia’s domestic intelligence agencies have sufficient cultural reach and human intelligence within the communities they monitor.

One conclusion may be fairly drawn from reportage so far on the Bondi tragedy. It seems that ASIO may not have a sufficiently wide antenna within the relevant communities.

Many years ago, when the Communist Chinese domino theory was in vogue, there was resistance to recruiting capable, properly aligned native informants for areas from which Australia felt threatened. The opposition was based on fear of penetration of our anglo-white sphere and nervousness about how to manage a totally different ethnicity on staff and as agents. When opposition from the powers that be relented and Australia recruited the right staff and informants, a good flow of real-time intelligence was secured.

Much of the Ukrainian intelligence success may be attributable to Kyiv knowing the language, the culture and having good human intelligence (HUMINT) inside Russia. Likewise, in the fight against terrorism in Australia we need an assurance that all elements of our domestic intelligence community are up to the task.

It seems that history repeats. No amount of Lowy Institute speeches, liaison with allies, electronic skill and AI displaces perceptive staff/agent management.

The Prime Minister should drill down and ask the right questions about this. Namely, what is the size relatively and the level of ASIO’s relevant ethnic origin staff and informant resources? I suspect the answer may not be encouraging.

Rather than the Prime Minister and the ever-enthusiastic Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke continuing to parrot ASIO’s explanations, perhaps they might consider a visit to ASIO HQ to ascertain the ground truth. History may seem truly to repeat… if your readers recall what I am referring to.