A Conversation Between Bruce Dawe and Mike Burgess
For 3CR Performance
[FADE IN: A Canberra afternoon. BRUCE DAWE sits opposite MIKE BURGESS in a nondescript office. Coffee cups. Files scattered. The light’s that particular Canberra grey that makes everything look slightly unreal.]
BRUCE: Mike, thanks for taking the time. I wanted to talk to you about something that’s been bothering me. You know how it is – you get to my age, things that don’t quite add up start to nag at you like a stone in your shoe. And mate, I’ve got to tell you, your threat assessments have been feeling like a whole gravel pit lately.
BURGESS: I appreciate the opportunity to discuss our security work, Bruce. We take our responsibility very seriously.
BRUCE: Yeah, righto. So last week you held a press conference – beautiful venue, very impressive – and you told us that foreign intelligence officers had been caught red-handed in Australia. Caught red-handed. That’s what you said.
BURGESS: That’s correct.
BRUCE: And how many of them have you charged?
BURGESS: (slight pause) We have to be careful about compromising sources and methods.
BRUCE: Right. So… none, then? Zero charges? Not one bloke standing in front of a magistrate going, “Your Honour, I plead not guilty”?
BURGESS: The legal process is complex.
BRUCE: It is complex, Mike. But here’s what’s not complex: if you catch someone red-handed, you charge them. That’s what happens. You don’t just… announce it. You don’t just tell the media, “Yeah, we caught some spies,” and then go back to your office and have a cuppa.
BURGESS: We’re following proper procedures.
BRUCE: I’m sure you are. I’m sure you’re following procedures right now. But Mike, can I ask you something? And I’m genuinely curious here, not being difficult. If I walked into a Bunnings and told the manager, “There’s a bloke stealing tools from aisle seven,” and the manager said, “Thanks for the heads up, we’ll handle it,” and then three months later I asked him, “So what happened with that bloke?” and he said, “Can’t tell you, mate, security reasons,” I’d start to wonder if there was actually a bloke in aisle seven at all, wouldn’t I?
BURGESS: This is a false equivalence.
BRUCE: Is it? I don’t reckon it is. I reckon it’s a pretty accurate equivalence. You tell us there’s a threat. We ask for evidence. You say you can’t show us. And then we’re all supposed to just… what? Stay frightened?
BURGESS: The threat is real, Bruce.
BURGESS: It’s not about staying frightened. It’s about being realistic about the security environment.
BRUCE: Right. The security environment. That’s a lovely phrase. Very abstract. Very… environmental. But here’s the thing, Mike. I’m a bloke in my seventies. I’ve lived through a few security environments. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember when we actually could see the threat – on the telly, nuclear warheads on boats. You could point at it. You could understand it.
But your threats? Your threats don’t have edges. They don’t have names. They don’t have courtrooms. They’re like fog. And the more you talk about them, the thicker the fog gets, and the more we’re meant to trust you to navigate through it.
BURGESS: We have classified information that –
BRUCE: Yeah, and Mike, that’s the bit that troubles me. Because classified information is information you won’t show us. It’s the opposite of transparency. It’s the opposite of democracy. Democracy’s meant to be about people knowing what’s going on. But you’re asking us to trust you on things we’re not allowed to know about.
That’s not democracy, mate. That’s an arrangement. You do something in the dark, and we’re supposed to clap and say thank you.
BURGESS: The people need to trust their security agencies.
BRUCE: They do. But trust isn’t blind. Trust isn’t “just believe us.” Trust is “show me enough so I can actually understand what’s happening.” Trust is transparency with legitimate exceptions – not total opacity dressed up as security.
You know what I think, Mike? I think you’ve confused security with secrecy. They’re not the same thing. You can have one without the other.
BURGESS: (carefully) We operate under strict oversight.
BRUCE: Do we? Because I’m not seeing the oversight, mate. I’m seeing you making announcements, and I’m seeing nobody asking you hard questions because they’re all terrified of looking weak on national security.
When’s the last time you sat in front of an actual journalist – not a friendly one – and had to defend your evidence in detail? When’s the last time someone said, “Right, Mike, produce it”?
BURGESS: Parliamentary oversight –
BRUCE: Is done in camera. Behind closed doors. By people who can’t tell anyone what you said. That’s not oversight, mate. That’s theatre. That’s the appearance of oversight while you get to do whatever you want.
[BRUCE leans back. Takes a sip of cold coffee. Makes a face.]
BRUCE: Look, I’ll be straight with you. You’ve been doing this long enough that you’re good at it. Really good at it. You come in, you’re grave, you’re serious, you’re carrying the weight of the nation’s secrets. You drop a bombshell. You won’t say much about it. The media runs with it. Politicians get nervous. Everyone shifts a bit to the right. And then next month you do it again.
It’s beautiful work, in a way. It’s just not what a security agency’s supposed to be doing.
BURGESS: What are we supposed to be doing, in your view?
BRUCE: Your actual job, mate. Briefing government. In private. With evidence. Letting government decide what to do with that information. Not running foreign policy by press conference. Not constraining democratic choices through threat inflation.
You know what worries me? What really worries me? I think you might actually believe your own performance now. I think you might actually think you’re protecting democracy while you’re slowly dismantling it.
BURGESS: That’s quite an accusation.
BRUCE: It’s not an accusation. It’s an observation. Accusations require evidence. I’m just saying what I see.
And what I see is an unelected apparatus running its own foreign policy while elected government gets smaller and smaller, confined to a space you’ve already defined.
I see Wong wanting to stabilise relations with China, and you making that politically impossible through narrative and threat.
I see accusations that never reach a courtroom. I see prosecutions that don’t happen. I see evidence that’s too classified to be revealed but somehow real enough to reshape foreign policy.
I see theatre, Mike. I see very good theatre. But I don’t see intelligence work.
BURGESS: The government understands the threat.
BRUCE: Does it? Or has it just accepted the constraints you’ve put on it? There’s a difference.
[Pause. The Canberra afternoon light hasn’t changed. It’s still that same flat grey.]
BRUCE: Here’s what I want to know. And again, I’m genuinely asking. Not being difficult. Just asking.
Who do you answer to?
BURGESS: The government.
BRUCE: Do you? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like the government answers to you. Or at least, it answers to the constraints you’ve created.
So let me ask again. Who do you really answer to?
BURGESS: (longer pause) I answer to my responsibility to protect Australians.
BRUCE: That’s not an answer, mate. That’s a dodge. That’s something you’d say at a press conference. I’m asking you, in this room, just us – who calls the shots? Who tells you what threats are important? Who tells you what to warn about?
BURGESS: We conduct our own assessment of threats.
BRUCE: Independent assessment? Or assessment in consultation with Five Eyes? Because I’m a bloke who reads the papers, Mike. I know how ASIO works. I know it’s part of a network. I know that when you warn about Chinese espionage, it aligns perfectly with American strategic preferences. I know that when you warn about Russian interference, it aligns with NATO priorities.
That’s not a coincidence, is it?
BURGESS: We share intelligence with our partners. That’s how the system works.
BRUCE: I’m sure it does. But here’s the question: does Australia get a say? Does the Australian government get to actually decide what Australian foreign policy is? Or is it decided in Washington, and you just communicate it through threat assessments?
Because if it’s the latter, mate, that’s not security work. That’s colonisation. That’s running Australia as a branch office.
BURGESS: We have a strong relationship with our American partners. That’s no secret.
BRUCE: It’s not a secret. But it’s a relationship where you seem to be taking their preferences and dressing them up as Australian security assessments. And then the Australian government- our government – finds itself unable to do anything different without looking soft or naive.
That’s not a partnership, Mike. That’s a mugging.
BRUCE: Alright. Last question. And then I’ll let you get back to whatever you do in those classified rooms.
If I’m a voter – if I’m just an ordinary Australian – and I want to know if the threats you’re warning about are actually real, how do I find out? How do I verify?
BURGESS: You have to trust the assessment of your security agency.
BRUCE: (laughs) Jesus, Mike. That’s it? That’s the answer? “Trust us”?
Do you understand what you just said? You just said the way for democracy to function is for people to trust an unelected agency that won’t show its evidence and won’t justify its claims.
That’s not democracy, mate. That’s the opposite of democracy. That’s what authoritarian states do. That’s what regimes do when they want to control people through fear.
And I’m not saying you’re an authoritarian. I’m not saying you’re trying to be. I’m saying you might not have noticed that you’ve built a system that works exactly like authoritarianism, except you call it security.
BURGESS: The people have to accept that some things must remain classified.
BRUCE: Do they? Or have we just accepted it because you’ve made it politically impossible to question? Because you’ve created an environment where saying “show me the evidence” gets you branded as soft on security?
Mike, I’ve been around long enough to know the difference between legitimate security compartmentalisation and just not wanting to be accountable. And I’m looking at what you’re doing, and I’m seeing the second one a lot more than the first one.
[BRUCE stands. Puts his coffee cup down.]
BRUCE: You know what really bothers me? Not that you’re doing this. People abuse power. It’s what they do. What bothers me is that we’re letting it happen. That we’ve all got so frightened of looking weak that we’ve forgotten to ask the hard questions.
I used to think Australia was a place where you could stand up and say, “That doesn’t add up. Show me the evidence.” But you’ve made that politically impossible. And that’s the real threat, Mike. Not spies. Not assassins. Not foreign interference.
The real threat is democracy slowly disappearing because nobody dares to question anymore.
BURGESS: I’m trying to keep Australians safe.
BRUCE: I know you are. But mate, you can’t keep people safe by making them afraid. And you can’t keep democracy safe by making it impossible for people to ask questions.
Those are contradictions. And sooner or later, contradictions don’t hold. Things break.
I’m just hoping we figure it out before Australia does.
[FADE OUT]
EPILOGUE
What Bruce Might Say After the Interview
[BRUCE, alone, to camera/audience]
You know what’s strange about that conversation? What bothered me most wasn’t the answers he gave. It was the answers he wouldn’t give. The questions he dodged. The way he spoke in that careful, measured tone that bureaucrats use when they’re protecting something.
And I thought: what is he protecting? Is he protecting Australian security? Or is he protecting his own power?
Because here’s the thing about power, and I’ve lived long enough to understand it: people who have it don’t usually know they’re abusing it. They think they’re just doing their job. They think they’re keeping people safe. And meanwhile, democracy’s getting strangled in the background, and nobody’s even noticing.
Burgess isn’t a villain. He’s not twirling a moustache and thinking, “How can I destroy democracy today?” He’s probably genuinely convinced that what he’s doing is necessary. That the threats are real. That the secrecy is justified.
But Mike, mate – that’s exactly how it always happens. That’s exactly how democracies die. Not with a bang. With a press conference. With careful language and classified evidence that nobody’s allowed to see.
And we just… accept it.
Well, I’m not accepting it. And neither should you.
Because somewhere along the way, we forgot that we’re supposed to be running this country. Not Mike Burgess. Not ASIO. Not the American security apparatus wearing an Australian badge.
Us.
And if we don’t remember that soon, we’re going to wake up one day and realise we’ve lost something precious. And we won’t even know when it happened.
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This piece captures exactly what so many of us have been feeling. For years now, Burgess has rolled out dramatic “security warnings” with big headlines, but with zero transparency, zero prosecutions, and no evidence available for public scrutiny. We are constantly told, “trust us,” while nothing ever reaches a courtroom.
If these threats were genuinely “caught red-handed,” there would be charges. There would be names. There would be outcomes we could verify. Instead, we get press conferences designed to keep Australians fearful and politically compliant.
Real democracies require accountability, not secret claims that conveniently align with American strategic interests. It should never be controversial to ask for proof. If the evidence is strong enough to shape foreign policy, then it should be strong enough to withstand daylight.
Fear is being used as a political tool here, not a national security necessity. And Australians have every right to question it.
David, once again you have absolutely nailed it. I saw the TV grabs of Burgess and had the same reaction you have articulated so clearly. The thing is where most previous ASIO chiefs have shunned the limelight, Burgess seems to revel in it but it might just lead to his ultimate undoing because he’s opening himself up to the type of inquisition of which your piece is an example. I can imagine there’s a bit of soul-searching going on in AG’s (?) at the moment. Or at least I hope there is. Cheers
I love it! Beautiful. Share, share, share!
Funny thing : when Burgess said there were 3 nations could commit assassinations on our citizens , my immediate thought was ” well, USA is the first then who? ?l remembered the Whitlam sacking, thought of those little boats in the Caribbean bombed to oblivion , no questions asked.
Mr Burgess and his team have just refined and upgraded the old “reds under the bed” scare. If China, Russia or some unknown assailant was going to attack us, I’d ask, why would they wait until we received (if ever) thos nuclear submarines?
I’d like to say something about this essay of David’s but I can’t comment, you know, it’s sensitive, security reasons and all that, the old ‘loose lips sink ships’ problem, too much said and the bloody cat’s out of the bag and all hell breaks loose and the whole shebang falls apart and we just can’t have that happening in these perilous times, what with Putin sitting in his war room throwing darts at the map of the world, and Xi Jinping smiling inscrutably as ever while probably assembling the PLA for a mass attack on the northern borders… bloody hell… you’d think we would’ve been told about it by now but no, don’t alarm the locals, keep it quiet, even though we’ve got red hot evidence… sales of peking duck and mapo tofu have gone through the roof in Port Moresby and if that’s not a giveaway I don’t know what is.
Then there’s the unknowns… I have it on good authority that Mikey Burgess has a framed copy of Rumsfeld’s dictums on his office wall, the old ‘known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns,’… he plays this office game on Friday afternoons, a bit like charades…they write down their latest threat assessments on bits of paper which are then folded and passed around and the guys get to guess which Rumsfeld category they fall into… a ton of fun apparently and especially when they get to vote on which one they’ll tell the government about.
Anyway, keep it sweet, thanks David, for a sterling piece and keep your head down.
Denis
Thank you for this excellent and thoughtful comment. You’ve perfectly articulated the central frustration and the core questions that many Australians are grappling with in this ongoing debate.
You are absolutely right to focus on the glaring disconnect between the gravity of the accusations and the complete absence of the usual legal and public accountability mechanisms. Your point—”If these threats were genuinely ‘caught red-handed,’ there would be charges”—is the crux of the matter. It highlights the fundamental difference between having intelligence and having court-admissible evidence.
There are two ways to interpret this disconnect, and both lead to troubling conclusions, as you note:
The “Robust Secrecy” Argument: The government would argue that revealing evidence in court would compromise intelligence sources and methods, potentially burning invaluable assets or tipping off adversaries to our surveillance capabilities. In this view, the press conference is the public outcome, designed as a deterrent.
The “Political Tool” Argument: Your critique rightly points out that this same secrecy creates a system ripe for potential abuse. When claims are made without verifiable proof, they function purely on an appeal to authority. This can, as you say, “keep Australians fearful and politically compliant” and allow the government to align public opinion with strategic interests (like those of the United States) without having to make a public case.
Your final line; “Fear is being used as a political tool here, not a national security necessity”, is a powerful and necessary challenge. It forces us to ask: where is the line? A functional democracy must be able to trust its institutions, but that trust cannot be unconditional. It must be earned through transparency and accountability wherever possible.
The controversy isn’t about doubting that threats exist; it’s about the government’s insistence that we alter our policy and public discourse based on claims we are forbidden from examining. As you put it, if the evidence is strong enough to shape foreign policy, it should be strong enough to withstand at least some form of independent, security-cleared scrutiny.
Your comment gets to the very heart of the tension between state secrecy and democratic principles. It’s a conversation we need to keep having.
Jen
Thank you. And also to Michael and Carol Taylor for their heroic dedication to the AIMN as an independent forum and vehicle whereby citizens may speak truth to power, hold our masters to account. I wrote the piece to share and also to be in the common domain whereby readers could imaginatively access the autocratic mentality and be confronted by the grotesquely elevated power of the state, aided and abetted by an exalted class of mandarin evident also in the Robodebt drama, that would seem to have escaped all necessary accountability and checks and balances on their use and abuse of power.
Canguro, your comments are very much appreciated as is your concern for the risks we all take in venturing our opinions, giving voice to conscience or expressing dissent. Naturally, I shall take all measures necessary to safeguard the homestead and its provisioning officer regarding Beijing Duck, which I am reliably informed is very real. Peking Duck is also very real; as real as intelligence briefings, weather balloons, and Friday afternoon “morale exercises.” The original dish comes from Beijing; painstakingly lacquered skin, roasted to perfection, sliced so thin it could almost be classified. But in the current climate, who’s to say what’s just dinner and what’s data?
As for my essay, cunningly disguised as an imaginary dialogue, best to say nothing, at least officially. Sensitive material, you understand. Need to know and all that. We’ve all seen what happens when someone drops the wrong adjective in the wrong inbox. Still, between the Kremlin’s dartboard diplomacy, Xi’s culinary offensives, and Mikey Burgess’s Rumsfeld charades, it’s hard not to wonder if satire has become the only reliable branch of intelligence left.
I`m waiting for Mike Burgess to be a little more assertive, and he is in charge of funds that are not audited.
He could shop around for an outfit that specializes in spectacular events like piloting aircraft into significant structures and gets them to collapse in a time frame suited the attention span of your average tv viewer.
He can then apply his skills to telling us where the threat came from, and who we start a war against.
We can then unite in warfare against his nominee.
I’ll leave it to Joseph Camilleri, who I first read ‘An introduction to Australian Foreign Policy’ 3rd edition in 1976, which was totally bastardised under Howard!
It’s a totally different beast now as discussions here have borne out and totally conflated with Defence.
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/when-truth-can-no-longer-be-silenced/?
It goes like this: Mossad cooks up a story to “explain” anti-semitic activity in the ‘burbs and relays this to ASIO. ASIO doesn’t have a way of refuting this and doesn’t want to be seen as doing nothing so he tells Rupert and as after-thought whispers into Albanese’s ear. Anthony fowls his drawers in fright and solves the matter by instantly buying a one-way ticket out of here for the Iranian Ambassador. Problem solved but meanwhile will somebody tell Rupert that we don’t actually sell war making thingies for the Israelis and moreover we are not sure yet if China is a good idea. All threats disappear from tomorrow’s chip wrappers and peace reigns in Canberra.
Mediocrates, never mediocre, on reading your post a spontaneous guffaw burst forth, well done sir! Not being esoteric here, it had to do with chooks in drawers and the spontaneous image of Anthony laying an egg or two. Thanks for the afternoon delight. 🙂
Mediocrates:
Thanks for this; you’ve nailed the farcical choreography of the whole Iranian diplomat pantomime. That logic chain you’ve sketched; Mossad whispers, ASIO clutches pearls, Murdoch amplifies, Albanese panics and produces a one-way ticket – captures exactly how security theatre operates when political cowardice meets manufactured crisis.
What strikes me most is your recognition that we’re watching shadow puppetry where the actual threat matters less than being seen to do something. The Iranian Ambassador becomes the sacrificial offering on the altar of “looking tough”; never mind whether his expulsion addresses any genuine danger or simply satisfies the media cycle’s demand for dramatic gestures.
Your point about Australia not actually selling “war making thingies” to Israel cuts to the heart of it. We’re confronted by our own help to kill innocents in Gaza, while genuflecting to intelligence narratives we can’t verify and aren’t allowed to question. The whole affair reeks of borrowed paranoia; we’re acting on scripts written in Tel Aviv and Washington, playing our assigned role as dutiful deputy sheriff.
And that closing image of tomorrow’s chip wrappers – perfect. Today’s existential national security emergency vanishes into tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper, forgotten the moment the next manufactured crisis arrives. That’s the beauty of security state announcements: maximum drama, zero accountability, no follow-up required.
The real question your satire exposes is this: whose interests does Australian foreign policy actually serve? Because it’s increasingly clear it’s not ours.
Thanks for the keen eye and the dark humour. We need more readers willing to call bullshit on this sort of theatre.
roflmao.
Who should I trust for (real) information.
answer….your local security agancy.
yes, David.
this was a cunning stunt.
No, I didnt read the lot but I “grocked”, or empathised, with those parts I read.
Which is why I don’t worry about “anti semitic” bullshit.
Just back from another soc meeja site, where I’ ve just read how an Israeli court found three soldiers”not guilty” ofrping a girl or woman to death.
Excellent telling.
My mind hasn’t shaken off my own ad hoc script.
Could it be fantasy: the ABC’s rerun of BBC’s ‘Spooks’ has MI5 section D boss, Sir Harry, duped by a mole & double agent handler, then framed by them as a double agent to be tortured by his own, then after saving blighty, kidnapped by the bad guys. Lots of spook deaths along the way. But at least in that it’s the pollies that do the rapping to the public.
One can only wonder whether Mikey B is punting for celebrity, and for a knighthood, and whether he lets his spooky nightmares affect him being kidnapped and becoming blood-sacrifice to the altar of the spooky networks?