TRANSCRIPT
Mohammed Hashem has felt firsthand the intimidation of a foreign power.
His cousin was executed by Iran's regime, his father threatened over his son's activism here.
"How they are just treating me, my family and every others even those outside Iran, you know, it's really terrible."
He's not alone.
Since 2020, Senior intelligence sources say, more than 120 operations to successfully combat foreign interference have taken place.
In one case, an insider was offered more than $10,000 to do whatever is necessary "to obtain personal data."
In another, a foreign agent hired a private investigator to monitor the home of a perceived dissident and sift through their garbage, asking how much it would cost for them to “disappear”.
Another scheme saw a foreign intelligence service try to lure a human rights activist overseas to be, quote: “disposed of.”
Clare O'Neill is the Minister for Home Affairs:
"What's really disturbing about the foreign interference problem is that it's not coming from just one country and in fact we see quite a diverse array of countries represented in this, whether it's our Cambodian Australian community that need protecting, our Iranian-Australian community or others. The critical point though, here, is that these countries are learning from each other, in their practices."
In response, the government is expanding the reach of its Foreign Interference taskforce to more government agencies, while the Tech sector joins Universities in having a dedicated interference watchdog.
The migration system is also considered a key weapon.
Among the measures - a closer scrutiny of international students applying to study in fields like drone technology - where they could be exposed to sensitive information.
Clare O'Neill again:
"We need to be careful, there's sensitive information, especially in post-graduate research and we need to make sure those students are here to study, and not commit intellectual property theft."
Those found to be foreign agents - could face deportation.
The opposition's Home Affairs spokesman, James Paterson, is looking for more to combat social media threats, and tougher penalties.
"When people aren't charged, when people aren't convicted, when they're not thrown into jail, they don't feel the consequences. Just being asked to hop on a plane and head back home is not a powerful enough deterrent to prevent this activity from occuring in our country, and we need to see more charges coming forward so that people really feel the consequences of engaging in this foreign interference and espionage."
But the opposition is supportive of one key part of the measures: targeted support for multicultural communities...
"This is a really serious and signficant issue in their lives and to date, the Australian government has not been providing them much assistance, and that will change with our reforms."
Mohammed Hashem says that's a start - but only a start.
"It's heartwarming they are caring about us, but honestly its not enough. we need more serious action from Australian government."
...to send the message - bullying Australians is not acceptable.
