It's a big clear to listen to this. This is Daniel Duggan, the Australian citizen who the US wants to extradite and he raised a complaint about

ASEO as part of this. It is that Mr Duggan, he did raise a number of allegations with the Inspector General, which is his right. Any Australian has the right to do that. The Inspector General determines whether they investigate or not. In this case, he chose to. He's conducted his investigation and found all allegations unfounded.

Lastly, on the question of funding and resources, your annual threat assessment speech has become quite a thing each year. It usually has quite interesting anecdotes in it. It's quite headline-friendly. Is there any coincidence in the fact that this is usually done around the time the Federal Government's budget submission process begins? Are you chasing any more funding or powers this year?

So there's so much in that. No, it's actually just the start of the year. It's a good thing to do at the start of the year. If anyone who knew how the budget process works, actually me giving one public address does not influence or enable any of that process, I often laugh when people say that we each year exaggerate the threats to get more money. That could not be true because those people who say that clearly don't understand how the budget process works. I do the threat assessment each year because I want to explain the threats to the people we protect. I want to build trust through transparency by explaining what we are and what we do and what matters, not how we do it. And it's a shameless approach at pushing the brand because we need to recruit the best and brightest Australians from the entire gene pool of Australia to represent the society we protect. And it's very effective in that regard. In regards to the resources, our business is getting more expensive, but that's the same for every Australian. That's a topical conversation around every dinner table in the evening. We are a well-resourced organisation. We have effective laws. My job through the budget process is to argue for more laws if I need it. I have to justify it publicly when I do and the same with resources. Another thing I would say on that regards, because you mentioned it as an opportunity, with the laws people keep saying we collect more and more powers. My organisation doesn't. We have been involved in putting submissions in that actually ask for or suggest we no longer need that power. If you would go to the Parliamentary Joint Committee of Intelligence Security website and see our latest submission on the review of ASIO questioning powers, we are suggesting an element of questioning minors is a power that we no longer need.

That's not the earlier one that you never used.

Well, no. We have the ability to question warrants, do compulsory questioning warrants of minors. We have not used them. We asked for an extension of those powers the last time the review was done, because the threat environment in my mind justified that ask. Parliament agreed. Now we're saying we've seen a recession in the number of minors. It's still an issue. We've now concluded ASIO. That's not the point you want to deal with the problem and therefore we do not need the compulsory questioning power of a

minor. Those matters are best dealt through other authorities. Mr. We're just thanks very much for taking the time to answer our questions. Thanks so much for having me. This episode was produced by James Milson. The executive producer is Miles Martin-Yoni. I'm Daniel Hurst. Thanks for listening.