Labor rebuilds Home Affairs portfolio it once sought to dismantle
Anthony Albanese has reversed course on Labor’s security shake-up, citing intelligence gaps during a Sydney terror probe as justification. Some say this was foreseeable.
When Anthony Albanese was asked in July last year why he had moved Australia’s domestic spy agency ASIO out of the Department of Home Affairs and into the Attorney-General’s Department, the prime minister said it needed to be “in the same place as the Australian Federal Police”.
But it was Albanese himself who, two years earlier, had separated the two agencies by shifting the AFP to the Attorney-General’s portfolio.
At the time, senior Labor sources expressed concern to Capital Brief, warning that then Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil had already experienced difficulties accessing the AFP following its move to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’ department. The government denied any such concerns last year.
The government also played down concerns over new Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke retaining responsibility for counter-terrorism, counter-espionage and counter-foreign interference, despite lacking oversight of the operational agencies.
