ASIO’s pre-emptive attack on a Four Corners investigation into the Bondi killings was vague, thinly evidenced and ultimately counter-productive.

The ASIO Director, Mike Burgess, has taken a lot of trouble to praise himself and his organisation for their part in “keeping Australians safe”. Yet the disjunction between these inbred encomiums and whether something might have been missed in the advent to the Bondi atrocity may have left Burgess and ASIO more than usually sensitive. Boasting is risky.

On 8 February, ASIO issued a formal statement claiming that a ABC Four Corners program to be run on the following day contained “serious errors of fact”. Unfortunately the statement was ambiguous and light on evidence. If ASIO should last for a thousand years, few might say that this was its finest hour.

The Four Corners program included interviews with a former ASIO “agent”, code-named Marcus. The agent says he “infiltrated Sydney’s Islamic State network for six years” and mixed with a range of people associated with a Street Dawah in Bankstown which contained Islamic State supporters of various radical hues, some of whom have had trouble with the law.

Marcus says that in 2019 the accused Bondi murderer, Naveed Akram, was introduced to the Street Dawah and that he met Naveed “on a regular basis, face to face over many years”. Marcus says he also met Sajid Akram, Naveed’s father, who he thought had more extreme views than his son.

When ASIO investigated the Akrams in 2019 it concluded they did not intend to engage in violent extremism. Marcus says that he agreed with that judgment but that he thought the Akrams “showed real signs of radicalisation” and support for the Islamic State, views not then shared by ASIO and, possibly, one of the reasons it did not keep the Akrams on its radar. This now seems to trouble ASIO and prompted its pre-emptive strike on the Four Corners program.

After the usual qualifications about being restricted in commenting because of the risk of prejudicing court and Royal Commission proceedings, the ASIO statement says that:

• In 2019 it “assessed that he [Naveed Akram] did not adhere to or intend to engage in violent extremism at that time.” If that means the assessment related to Akram’s intention to engage in violent extremism in 2019, then ASIO was right. If it means the assessment was about intentions after 2019, then that judgment is more problematic.
• Marcus “mis-identified Naveed Akram” and “claimed…Akram said and did things that were actually said and done by an entirely different person.” ASIO provides no details that would give satisfaction about this assertion.
• Any claim that Naveed Akram was “a close associate of known terrorists is false”. How close is close given Akram was mixing with people who held radical sympathies for the Islamic State.
• “…it is false to claim ASIO received intelligence about Sajid Akram being part of a group that discussed a plan to establish a pro-ISIS community in Turkiye.” ASIO provides no source for the claim and it’s not clear who is making it.
• “The claim that any resourcing decision increased the likelihood of the Bondi attack is false” and that “additional resourcing would not have prevented it.” Again it is not clear who is making these claims and ASIO doesn’t provide references for them. Whatever, in the Four Corners program Marcus says that the re-allocations of resources “affected our work” on terrorism.

The ASIO statement has a heading ‘Claims about intelligence sharing’ but it doesn’t say what these claims are. Rather it says that “ASIO works closely with federal, state and territory law enforcement partners, and we routinely share intelligence through the Joint Counter Terrorism Teams”. It’s to be hoped so.

ASIO says its agent Marcus was “unreliable and disgruntled” with a “track record of making statements that are untrue.” Again no evidence is provided in support of these assertions although, if they are true, ASIO might like to review its recruitment procedures to see that the risks of getting in people who are unreliable, disgruntled and untruthful are minimised.

Finally, ASIO ices its statement saying that “..the journalist (it doesn’t say if that is the principal journalist in the Four Corners program or someone else) has previously broadcast false claims about the ASIO” (these also are not specified) and that if “the ABC chooses to publish claims it cannot substantiate – particularly ones it has been told are untrue – we will reserve our right to take further action.” That looks like a not so subtle hint that the ABC should amend its Four Corners program to fit with ASIO’s wishes or not run it, or else. Whatever the intentions, they’re a bit rich given that most of ASIO’s claims in its statement are not substantiated.

It’s not clear what ASIO has gained by its statement on the Four Corners program. The attempt was clumsy and inept and, it’s to be hoped, it doesn’t represent the best ASIO should be able to do. And it was largely futile as the ABC ran the program and the agent Marcus is sticking by what he said in it.

Anyway, the public can rightly have confidence that the Bell Royal Commission, aided by the redoubtable former ASIO, Defence and Foreign Affairs head, Dennis Richardson, can bring a much more disciplined consideration to the contentions in the Four Corners program and all related matters.