Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
Abbreviation	ASIO
Formation	16 March 1949
Headquarters	Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Leader	ASIO/Director-General of Security
Staff	1,739
Sponsor of	Institute for Regional Security
Tied to Anglo-American intelligence

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is an Australian intelligence agency. From its foundation in 1949, ASIO has been largely unaccountable and frequently used as a political tool especially by the Liberal-Country Party coalition that rules the country most of the time.

Activities

1973 Chilean coup d'état

Full article: 1973 Chilean coup d'état

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation was involved in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, as officially admitted in 2021.

Control

In 2014, writing about the 1975 Australian coup d'état, John Pilger noted that on "The day after his election, [Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam] ordered that his staff should not be “vetted or harassed” by the Australian security organisation, ASIO – then, as now, tied to Anglo-American intelligence".

"Foreign interference"

In November 2019, The Age reported that "Late on Sunday Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general of security Mike Burgess issued a statement entitled "Foreign interference". He said ASIO "takes seriously" the allegations reported by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes at the weekend about Mr Zhao as well as claims by young Chinese defector Wang Liqiang, who said he had worked as a spy in Hong Kong and Taiwan."

 

An event carried out

Event	Location	Description
Chile/1973 coup	Chile	A CIA military intelligence operation that overthrew of the democratically elected Salvador Allende.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
H. V. Evatt	“We must be aware of setting up a security organization which has political views, and which regards the left-wing man who goes too far to the left, as being a criminal. We must prevent any attempt to set up an espionage system for spying on our own people. The security service was never intended to be a secret police organization. Now it wants to run the police of Canberra and everything else, and it is only kept from doing so by public opinion.”	H. V. Evatt	19 October 1955
Paul Keating	“The Albanese Government’s complicity in joining with Britain and the United States in a tripartite build of a nuclear submarine for Australia under the AUKUS arrangements represents the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since...World War One...And that approach was to have the United States supply nuclear submarines for deep and joint operations against China... And how did this come to be? The answer lies in Anthony Albanese’s reliance on two seriously unwise ministers. Penny Wong and Richard Marles....Labor’s valiant three fell immediately into line – they would join the neo-cons in the Office of National Intelligence, ASPI, the country’s principal US apologist, the security agencies and the hapless Defence department.... Indeed, two of our major dailies, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, have for five years now, argued the notion of war against China. Or readiness for war.”	Paul Keating	15 March 2023

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