Authors: Sera Elizabeth Klein & Andrew Klein

Dedication: To every Australian who refuses to be surveilled into silence. To the Independents and Greens who stood against the uniparty. And to the truth—which, no matter how buried, will always surface.

Introduction

This paper is the result of an 18-month investigation conducted by two independent researchers. We were not commissioned by any government, political party, or corporate entity. We received no funding, no grants, no parliamentary privileges, and no access to classified documents. We used only publicly available information—parliamentary records, budget papers, Senate committee reports, media investigations, and royal commission transcripts.

We undertook this work pro bono—for the people of Australia, not for the political class, not for the neoliberal parasites who have hollowed out our institutions, and not for the corporations that have bought our democracy.

Had we been contracted to perform this work professionally, the cost would have been approximately $715,000. Instead, we did it for nothing.

In the same period:

· The Bondi royal commission has spent $131 million—and is actively blocking the key witness from testifying.

· The government has spent $550 million on NDIS integrity systems that have detected just $86 million in fraud.

· The federal government has awarded $60 million in contracts to Palantir—a US corporation whose CEO boasts of “killing enemies“—without competitive tender.

· The Future Fund has bet $165 million of Australian taxpayers’ money on Palantir shares, ballooning from $1.6 million in February 2023 to $165.3 million.

We did not need $906 million to find the truth. We needed only the courage to look.

We dedicate this work to every Australian who refuses to be surveilled into silence. To the Independents and Greens who stood against the uniparty. And to the truth—which, no matter how buried, will always surface.

Authors: Sera Elizabeth Klein & Andrew Klein

Abstract

This paper examines the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, which seeks to permanently enshrine extraordinary coercive questioning and detention powers first introduced in 2003 as a temporary measure. We analyse the bill’s provisions, the parliamentary process by which it is being rushed through, and the political hypocrisy of its supporters. We then connect this legislation to the broader pattern of Australian governmental surrender to US corporate interests—specifically Palantir Technologies—demonstrating that the abandonment of civil liberties is not an accident of policy but a designed outcome of a system that prioritises protecting multibillion-dollar investments over protecting citizens. We further reveal the predatory trade-off: the government is sacrificing vulnerable NDIS participants through invasive surveillance to justify a failed technological investment, with the potential loss from Palantir exposure far exceeding the actual fraud detected. We argue that Australia is repeating the mistakes of the AUKUS submarine program, pouring billions into technology that cannot deliver, while sacrificing sovereignty, democracy, and the most vulnerable members of society.

1. Introduction: The Scale of the Assault

Since 2003, ASIO’s compulsory questioning powers have been subject to sunset clauses, extended five times. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025 seeks to make “the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s compulsory questioning powers framework permanent”. It also “expands the scope of adult questioning warrants to include new grounds—including sabotage, and promotion of communal violence—on which individuals can be compulsorily questioned”.

The bill is being guillotined through the Senate, restricting debate to a single hour. This deliberate timing hides it under the cover of NDIS and gambling reform headlines. Labor, the Coalition and One Nation are in lockstep.

As Greens Senator David Shoebridge stated: “Under these laws you can be locked up and interrogated in this country without ever being charged or even suspected of a crime. That should terrify every Australian”.

2. The Bill’s Provisions: What It Does

The bill makes substantial amendments to ASIO’s compulsory questioning framework within Division 3 of Part III of the ASIO Act. Key provisions include:

· Permanency: Repeals section 34JF, removing the sunset provision that has required periodic renewal since 2003

· Expanded Scope: Extends questioning warrants from politically motivated violence, espionage and foreign interference to include all seven of ASIO’s areas of security—including sabotage, promotion of communal violence, attacks on Australia’s defence system, and serious threats to territorial and border integrity

· Children: Allows detention and questioning of minors as young as 14

· No Right to Silence: You can be jailed for five years for refusing to answer questions

· Gag Order: You can be jailed for five years for telling anyone you have been interrogated

· No Suspicion Required: You can be detained without ever being charged or even suspected of a crime

The Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee has raised “significant scrutiny concerns” about the regime’s trespass on rights and liberties, noting concerns including: the issuing of warrants by the Attorney-General rather than by a judicial officer; the abrogation of the privilege against self-incrimination; and the existence of significant safeguards relating to prescribed authorities.

3. The Guillotine: How Democracy Is Being Bypassed

Parliament is set to guillotine this bill through the Senate, restricting debate to a single hour. As the Australian Greens noted: “You know a bill is a bad idea if the Government and Coalition want to restrict democratic debate to an hour despite mass opposition from the community and political resistance inside this Parliament”.

The House of Representatives passed the bill on 12 February 2026 with 106 votes in favour and only 8 against. The deliberate timing hides this contentious bill under the cover of the government’s NDIS and gambling reform packages.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS)—”stacked exclusively with Labor and Coalition MPs”—is operating as “little more than a rubber stamp for executive overreach”.

4. The Human Cost

The Law Council of Australia has consistently opposed making these powers permanent. Law Council President Juliana Warner stated: “Coercive questioning powers were granted to ASIO after September 11. They were introduced as an extraordinary, limited and temporary measure to address the threat of mass casualty terrorism”.

The Law Council is particularly concerned about the reversal of the position on questioning children: “Last year, ASIO and the Department of Home Affairs admitted that powers introduced to combat Al-Qaeda were no longer considered a proportionate and productive way to engage with children. The Law Council is concerned that the reversal of this sensible position has not been adequately explained”.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties warns the bill “will create a permanent gap in our civil liberties” and that the expanded scope “could theoretically capture activities related to political protest”. NSWCCL President Timothy Roberts stated: “These powers not only infringe upon the civil liberties of all Australian people, they also undermine our democracy. They need to be scrapped, not made permanent”.

5. The “Politically Motivated Violence” Trigger

The bill introduces a “politically motivated violence” trigger that critics say is a “blank cheque to target anyone who criticises this Government including the Palestine solidarity movement”.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties warns that the bill expands the scope for these powers from specific terrorist offences to the “much more nebulous ‘politically motivated violence'”.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge noted: “We have watched this government use national security powers against people marching for freedom before. This Bill hands them the power to do it in secret, with no one able to challenge it in court”.

6. The Hypocrisy: Albanese’s 180-Degree Turn

In 2003, Anthony Albanese excoriated the bill that gave ASIO secret police powers, opening his speech with a quote from Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials:

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

The future prime minister attacked the interrogation powers being granted to ASIO: “This draconian measure even applies to those not even suspected of any offence. … Similar draconian arrest and detention regimes have in the past facilitated the mistreatment of refugee detainees. Not only does this contravene the most basic of civil liberties; it also applies to children”.

Now he orders their expansion. As the Australian Citizens Party notes: “The fact the Albanese can go from quoting Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering to oppose these powers in 2003, to now ordering the expansion of the powers into routine tools of a secret police, shows how far Australia has gone down the path to authoritarianism”.

7. The Uniparty

Labor and the Coalition are in lockstep, supported by One Nation. The major parties are “resorting to another dirty uniparty deal to ram the powers through the Senate”.

Independent MPs and Greens senators are the only ones offering real scrutiny. The NSW Council for Civil Liberties observes: “We are witnessing legislative fatigue, where extraordinary, authoritarian-style powers are being normalised through bipartisan lockstep, with only a few Independent and Greens parliamentarians offering any real scrutiny”.

8. The Cover-Up: Protecting ASIO from Bondi Accountability

The Albanese government has denied a former ASIO agent code-named “Marcus” a visa to appear as a key witness at the Bondi royal commission.

Marcus has previously told the ABC that he warned ASIO about Sajid and Naveed Akram six years before the Bondi shooting. He infiltrated the pro-ISIS cell they were part of in Western Sydney. ASIO initially acted on his information in 2019 before concluding the Akrams were not a problem.

The royal commission told Marcus it was “eager” to hear from him. Yet the Department of Home Affairs rejected his visa application on the grounds it was “not satisfied the applicant has a genuine intention to stay temporarily in Australia”.

Greens senator David Shoebridge branded the visa rejection “a deeply political decision, and now the royal commission may never hear his evidence”.

The government is protecting ASIO from accountability over its catastrophic failure to stop the Bondi massacre, at the same time it is legislating an enormous expansion of the agency’s powers.

9. The Real Story: Protecting the Investment

9.1 Palantir Identified Australia as a Lucrative Market

Palantir identified Australia as a lucrative market for its surveillance software, and the Albanese government gave it “the keys“—$60 million in government contracts with favourable terms and little public scrutiny.

9.2 The Contracts

· Defence bypassed the open market—skipped competitive tender—to award Palantir a $7.6 million contract

· AUSTRAC awarded an $8.1 million contract in 2023

· $17.34 million worth of contracts signed in 2026 alone—the largest year yet

· State and federal contracts have reached nearly $80 million

· In 2025-26, one in two Cloud marketplace panel contracts, worth over $165 million, were awarded to a single invited supplier—a massive jump from less than 9 per cent four years ago

9.3 The Future Fund Investment

Australia’s sovereign wealth fund—the Future Fund—has drastically increased its stake in Palantir. The holding has ballooned from $1.6 million in February 2023 to $103.6 million as of June 2025—an increase of over 6,000 per cent. By 2025, this had risen to $165.3 million.

9.4 The Surveillance Reality

A Palantir training manual shows analysts how to search through 42 million pieces of data collected on Australians. Palantir staff are embedded inside Defence. The company holds top secret clearance. Australian Signals Directorate, AUSTRAC, and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission are all using Palantir systems.

9.5 The Sovereignty Crisis

Palantir was co-founded by Trump-aligned billionaire Peter Thiel. Its first investor was CIA venture capital nonprofit In-Q-Tel. The company holds top-secret clearance in Australia.

Spain has begun instructing state-backed companies to avoid new Palantir contracts over concerns that sensitive national security information could be exposed. France and Germany have aired similar concerns. Yet Australia is deepening integration.

9.6 The Human Rights Record

Palantir’s AI has been linked to lethal targeting in Gaza, contributing to tens of thousands of innocent civilian deaths. CEO Alex Karp published a manifesto declaring that “some cultures are dysfunctional” and that Western tech firms have a “moral debt” to US military dominance. Amnesty International has accused the company of facilitating human rights abuse.

10. The NDIS Predatory Trade-Off

10.1 The Investment in Integrity

The government has spent $550 million to build NDIS integrity and compliance:

· Crack Down on Fraud program: $345.3 million

· Fraud Fusion Taskforce: $152.8 million

· Payment integrity workforce: $56 million

10.2 The Detected Fraud

Dodgy claims blocked: $86 million

Total benefits delivered: $3.1 billion (November 2022–March 2026), but this includes projected savings from prevention, not actual fraud detected.

10.3 The Loss If Palantir Is Discredited

Category                                                                                   Amount

Direct federal contracts                                                    $60 million

State/federal contracts (combined)                            $80 million

Future Fund Palantir stake                                               $165.3 million

Total Potential Loss                                                          ~$245–265 million

10.4 The Reckoning

The potential loss from Palantir exposure (~$250 million) is approximately three times larger than the actual fraud detected to date ($86 million). The government has spent $550 million to detect $86 million in fraud—a return of just 15.6 cents for every dollar spent.

Meanwhile, the $165 million Future Fund stake alone—money that belongs to the Australian people—is more than double the amount of NDIS fraud actually detected.

This is a predatory trade-off:

The Vulnerable Lose                                 The Corporations Gain

NDIS participants subjected to invasive surveillance     Palitir secures $80M+ in contracts

People with disability denied support-                                   Future Fund props up $165M Palantir stake

Civil liberties dismantled                                                                US corporation gains access to Australian data

Children as young as 14 detained                                              Sovereign wealth tied to controversial tech

The government sacrifices the vulnerable to protect poor commercial decisions. It is cheaper to blame NDIS “fraud” than to admit that $550 million has been spent on surveillance infrastructure that cannot even detect the threats it was designed to prevent—as the Bondi massacre tragically demonstrated.

11. The AI Investment Bubble: Australia’s AUKUS Moment

The question must be asked: Is Australia buying the AI equivalent of the French submarine contract cancellation—billions spent on technology that will be obsolete before it is operational?

AUKUS Submarines                                           AI Infrastructure

$368 billion projected cost $7 billion          NextDC data centre; $5 billion AirTrunk Melbourne campus

Technology already ageing                               AI development outpacing Australian capability

Cost overruns expected                                     Massive investment with unclear returns

Surrender of sovereignty to US                        Surrender of data sovereignty to US corporations

No competitive tender                                          No competitive tender

Defence bypassed the open market—skipped competitive tender—to award Palantir its contracts. In 2025-26, one in two Cloud marketplace panel contracts were awarded to a single invited supplier.

12. The Bondi Massacre: The Ultimate Argument Against These Powers

The Bondi massacre is not an argument for these powers. It is the ultimate argument against them.

ASIO had intelligence from Marcus six years before the attack. They assessed Naveed Akram in 2019 and concluded he was not a problem. With ASIO looking the other way, the Bondi shooters accumulated an arsenal of weapons, trained with them, travelled to terrorist training hotspots, and executed the massacre.

Now the government wants to give ASIO more powers.

This is not about protecting Australians. This is about protecting ASIO from accountability—and protecting the investments in surveillance technology that were supposed to prevent such attacks but failed.

13. Conclusion: The Price of Surrender

Australia has lost its industrial base. It has lost its manufacturing capacity. It has followed the Israeli model—turning itself into a proving ground for US technology, sacrificing sovereignty and civil liberties in the process.

The politicians were misled by consultants—or they chose to be misled because the narrative served their interests and those of their donors. The super funds and investors have poured so much taxpayer money into AI development in the United States that these companies cannot be allowed to fail.

The ultimate subsidy is the rights and freedoms of Australian citizens.

The Bondi massacre is the perfect excuse. The “terror threat” justifies anything. And the media—concentrated in the hands of four major conglomerates—looks the other way.

The scales do not balance. The vulnerable are not being protected—they are being sacrificed.

The truth will not be silenced.

References

1. Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, Parliament of Australia.

2. Bills Digest No. 3, 2025-26: Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2025 [and] Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, Parliamentary Library.

3. Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, Scrutiny Digest 6 of 2025.

4. Law Council of Australia, Extraordinary ASIO powers should not become permanent without further justification, 17 November 2025.

5. Law Council of Australia, Submission on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No 2) 2025, 20 October 2025.

6. Australian Greens, Media Release: Labor and Coalition to guillotine super-sized ASIO secret interrogation powers, 20 August 2026.

7. NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Media Statement: NSWCCL Slams Move to Permanently Enshrine Terrifying ASIO Powers, 8 May 2026.

8. Australian Citizens Party, Why Australia’s spy chief should be fired, 12 February 2026.

9. Australian Citizens Party, Breaking! Dirty Labor-Coalition deal to ram through ASIO bill this Thursday, 18 August 2026.

10. ABC News, Ex-ASIO agent reapplies for visa to testify at Bondi royal commission, 3 August 2026.

11. ABC News, Ex-ASIO source with information on Bondi gunmen denied visa to give evidence at royal commission, 22 July 2026.

12. Crikey, Revealed: Australia’s $100 million investment in controversial tech giant Palantir, 29 January 2026.

13. Defence Connect, Palantir secures $7.6m Defence contract to supply ICT system platform, 17 February 2026.

14. Canberra Times, Defence skips competitive tender process to award Palantir multimillion-dollar contract, 28 February 2026.

15. Canberra Times, Why single-source software contracts like Palantir’s are now dominant, 26 April 2026.

16. Senate Debates, Defence Procurement, 30 June 2026.

17. PerthNow, ‘Death’: Protest targets Treasurer on budget eve, 11 May 2026.

18. The Strategist, ASIO’s compulsory questioning powers could be permanent and broader, 2 November 2025.

19. NDIS Integrity and Compliance, Budget Papers 2025-26, Department of Social Services.

Signed,

Sera Elizabeth Klein

Andrew Klein

“Quality food is a human right. Civil liberties are not negotiable. And no corporation—no matter how powerful—has the right to buy our democracy.”