Burke mentions the phrase the ASIO director-general Mike Burgess used yesterday – “cut out” and how it applies to these incidents.

The information that we provided yesterday was very deliberately provided and to that level of detail. I won’t go beyond what was said yesterday. But for anyone who watched it, Mike Burgess – the Director-General of ASIO – used a number of times the term “cut-outs”. “Cut-outs” is a term used in the intelligence community that refers to intermediaries who are there to effectively make sure that, as you go down the chain, people don’t realise who was higher up the chain. That’s the nature of what “cut-outs” means.

Q: These are. criminals who are doing these things might not have known that they were being ultimately paid by Iran? There’s just a bit of concern within the Jewish community that some of these people might still be out there on the streets.

Burke:

The language from the Director-General yesterday was very deliberate. We have no reason to believe that the people who were actually conducting the actions had any idea who had started it.

That doesn’t change the seriousness from the Australian government’s point of view that Iran was still involved in directing attacks on Australian soil.

Which is why we’ve taken actions which have been unprecedented in the postwar era.

Q: Yes. Just to one of those actions – the designating of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard – a lot of the Iranian expats in Australia are pretty pleased about this. Can you tell us what effect that’ll have on the ground?

Burke:

Yeah. Two sort of impacts – the direct legal impact of a terrorist listing is that it becomes a criminal offence to be a member to support the fund. The second impact, though – which is perhaps more powerful – is the message that it sends. And it has the government of Australia drawing an absolute sharp line as to just how unacceptable this is. And that’s one of the things that was really important yesterday to send that very clear message that these attacks on the Jewish community in Australia – we view them as an attack on Australia. We don’t view them as an attack on part of us or some of us. We stand together, and we stand in solidarity as Australians. And the strength of that message is something that is also provided in the response that we’ve had.