08-05-2025
Former home affairs boss says risk of regional conflict ‘very concerning' as he outlines major security risks facing Albanese government
Former home affairs boss Michael Pezzullo has outlined a series of major national security challenges facing the Albanese government, including the 'very concerning' risk of a conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
For over nine years, Mr Pezzullo was one of Australia's most powerful and influential national security bureaucrats, serving as head of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection before becoming the inaugural secretary of the Department of Home Affairs.
Speaking to Sky News Australia on Thursday, the former public servant said that while the Albanese government would be keen to deliver on its election promises, they were also 'very alert to how messy, lonely and hard the outside world is'.
'So I think those issues will demand a greater proportion of the PM's personal time and the time of the National Security Committee than perhaps people outside of the system might anticipate,' Mr Pezzullo said.
The former home affairs boss said there were a number of 'key defence decisions' that needed to be resolved in this term of government.
'Particularly what we do to ensure that we don't have a submarine capability gap, extending the Collins class and making sure that the Virginia acquisition and the AUKUS design are all on track,' he said.
'And there are a whole lot of other defence issues… I think defence funding will be a concern… So that'll be a challenge.'
But Mr Pezzullo also said there would be 'dramatic developments' when it came to Australia's alliance with the United States over the next three years.
'Setting aside the trade tariff issues, just strictly on the defence side, we'll start to see the arrival of the four US combat submarines in 2027,' he said.
'If you actually look at the available submarine force the Americans have, allowing for boats that are in maintenance… it's about four out of 32 combat submarines (that will be based out of Perth)… a very significant deployment.
'That will play Australia into a whole lot of geopolitical issues that we're really, frankly, unused to - being directly involved in supporting US combat forces operating from Australia.'
Mr Pezzullo, who was fired as Home Affairs boss in 2023 after it was revealed he had been using back channels to weigh in on cabinet appointments.
According to an independent inquiry, he had breached public service code of conduct at least 14 times, including by failing to remain apolitical, failing to disclose a conflict of interest, and using 'his duty, power, status or authority to seek to gain a benefit or advantage for himself'.
However the former bureaucrat has continued to be viewed as an experienced national security professional, with the Opposition openly discussing bringing him back into government prior to the election.
Mr Pezzullo said that Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong had 'got the right balance' in her approach to Asia, ensuring there an equilibrium in the region and Australia does not get 'sucked into great power conflict'.
But he said that the introduction of defence and security protection discussions into the bilateral relationship with Korea, Japan and the Philippines presented a new challenge on this front.
The former home affairs boss also said there was a lot of work to be done to 'bring different parts of the community along' in terms of the geopolitical challenges Australia faces, adding that he was 'very distressed and concerned' some Chinese Australians thought they were being accused of being disloyal.
'I think there's a lot of work to be done in the social cohesion space as it relates to defence and security,' he said.
'There's a lot of data and a lot of outreach that the (home affairs) department has, and its Minister has, with a lot of the community groups. A lot of work was done in collecting data on attitudes, for instance. I think it's very important that that work be revisited.'
Mr Pezzullo clarified that it was important for Australia to have discussion about 'how brutal and how authoritarian' the regime of the Chinese Communist Party is, but the politicians needed to take much more care in making it clear they were not talking about Chinese people.
'We just have to have a very nuanced, layered, very differentiated discussion. But we must always, always not make it about race, about culture or ethnicity.
'We must always split it off from any sense that we've got any kind of antagonism or difference on racial or civilizational or cultural grounds with the wonderful Chinese people, it's just so important.
'You've got to overcorrect… you've got to constantly be talking about the loyalty of the wonderful Chinese Australian community here in Australia
'It's geopolitics, and we've really got to be quite explicit in our language and hone in on the geopolitical concerns that we have about Communist China."
Mr Pezzullo also discussed the risk of escalation from India's strike on targets in Pakistan overnight, warning there was a risk it could get 'very dangerous'.
'It's very concerning if…we're in a process that's now known as escalation management, where you escalate the controlled application of violence.
'The Indians have attacked into Punjab and other parts, as well… Pakistan administered or controlled Kashmir as well, saying that they're striking at terrorist infrastructure.
'The Pakistanis have now said, from their Prime Minister down, we reserve the right to strike back. They've made the point, mercifully, that they will focus on military targets.
'The problem is a lot of the targets, whether they're air bases, or fuel dumps, or command and control centres, are in close to civilian populations.'
Mr Pezzullo said Pakistan couldn't let the Indian strike go unanswered, and hopefully the conflict would end there, but there was a risk it could lead to a series of strikes and the outbreak of a larger war between the two nuclear-powered nations.
'If it's sort of a draw and they can all back off, and questions of prestige and honour and sort of the blood lust of retribution are all kind of dissipated, then I think we'll get through without a significant conflict emerging.
'If, however, the escalation just keeps going strike, followed by strike, followed by strike, it might be that one side then decides to launch a massive attack to pre-emptively start to degrade the other side's military capability.
'That gets very dangerous…I don't think it's going to get to that level. I think common sense and humanity will prevail, but it is a risk."
