Director-General of Security: Statement on Commonwealth Government review

On behalf of ASIO, I want to acknowledge the deep grief and pain of the families, friends and the community for all 15 people killed and those injured in last Sunday’s terrorist attack. Many were celebrating Hanukkah, some were just out and about but all of them deserved to spend that Sunday in peace. This was a heartbreaking and senseless act of violence.

I welcome the Commonwealth's review into Australia's federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

ASIO will fully cooperate.

I expect the findings will give the public confidence that ASIO acts appropriately, legally and proportionately to protect Australians.

This is why I told the Prime Minister I supported a review.

Immediately after the Bondi terrorist attack, I instigated an internal review of our decision-making processes relevant to the case and our functions under law. The review will be shared with our Minister and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, and the findings made public.

If ASIO is found to have made mistakes, we will own them and we will learn from them.

As I have said many times, ASIO is not all seeing and all knowing.

Tragically, in this case we did not know about the attack before it happened. That is a matter of grave regret for me and my officers. It weighs on us heavily.

But that does not necessarily mean there was an intelligence failure or that my officers made mistakes.

I welcome scrutiny and embrace accountability, but some of the recent criticisms of ASIO have been unfounded.

The review provides an opportunity for us to refute claims such as we failed to pass on relevant intelligence, defunded and deprioritised counter-terrorism, and "purged" our experienced counter-terrorism officers. None of these claims are true.

ASIO's officers are highly trained, highly capable and highly motivated. I back them 100%.