Can you paint us a picture of the access that the US military has within Australia? What's the scale of it?

Look, it's pretty extraordinary, and this was a project we worked away over a number of months, and essentially what we found is that out of about a hundred and fifty defense installations, let's call them, around Australia, the US military and sort of military interests, and by that I, I mean largely weapons manufacturers and, and defense contractors, have access to about a hundred and ten of these, so sort of over two-thirds.

The US military itself, uh, has access to about ninety-two bases across the Australian continent.

It is essentially in charge of about seventeen of those.

Most of those involved intelligence gathering and, and those sorts of things.

And you're looking at really big installations and things that are really critical for US, what they term force projection, things like Pine Gap, which downlinks masses of satellite surveillance data, but also things like access to RAAF Tindal, which is an, an air base in the Northern Territory where the B-52 and B-2 bombers take off and, and, and refuel and transit through.

So there is an extraordinary amount of US military activity happening on the Australian continent.

Would we have the right to say, "No, you can't do that"? I mean, th- so that's that question of fundamental authority and sovereignty.

How mu- how much do we know about the agreements we have with these bases in the US and how much say the Australian government has about how they're used?

used?That is certainly the Australian government's position, that the decision to deploy Australian troops remains the sole preserve of the Australian government.

But I think we need to look at how that plays out in actuality.

We saw in March at the beginning of the conflict with Iran, the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, that a US nuclear submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian frigate off Sri Lanka.

There were three Australian naval personnel on board that, on board that boat.

Australia wasn't told about it.

Australia wasn't given the option.

So, so first of all, do we know h- whether or how much support there is amongst Australians for the number of installations that we have?

Mm

... at, at the moment it takes the US 10 years to build an Attack-class submarine.

It takes almost twice as long now to build an Attack-class submarine as it did 20 years ago.

The US is getting slower at building submarines, not faster.

Now, the US by law, by its own legislation, is not allowed to sell Australia a submarine if it would degrade its own fleet, uh, as, as you said.

The US is already short about a quarter of the submarines it needs.

It has 49 boats in the water.

Mm.

Do we have any answers there in this report, and could we see answers later on?

Look, we don't have any answers, and whether this commission is the vehicle that will get us those answers, it's, it's really difficult to tell at the moment.

There are no sweeping calls for change.

We had the prime minister out yesterday saying, "Look, no urgent changes are required to keep Australians safe." So, so the argument coming from the government is that the laws, the legislative framework, the resourcing is sufficient.

I think where Virginia Bell is interested in interrogating is whether the resources were directed in the right way, specifically asked around ASIO whether the resourcing for counterterrorism was adequate in a deteriorating security environment.

So recognizing that we're in a really difficult time in the world right now, that there is a heightened level of antisemitism.

We've got a terrorism level that's been raised to probable.

... to say about that.

What are they alleging?

We're in a really interesting position here and a very delicate situation legally, so we're going to be careful what we talk about.

But we're in an interesting position in that we've heard a lot about these allegations because of the defamation case that's come before it.

And we need to mention that the criminal standard of proof is much higher than it is for a civil case.

So in the defamation case, those allegations of murder, of killing unarmed civilians had to be proven to the balance of probability.

So you might think of that as a sort of 50-50.

In a criminal case, as everybody knows, beyond reasonable doubt.

How difficult has it been for investigators to piece together this information, to gather the evidence required to then lay these charges?

Are we at war with Iran?

Yes, we are at war with Iran.

And I do get this sort of these rhetorical contortions that the government is sort of bending itself into.

But I think it's It's really an act of sophistry to pretend we're not.

We are sending weapons, we are sending material, we are sending troops to the UAE to assist.

As you discussed, there were three submariners who were Australians on board the US nuclear submarine, which sank an Iranian warship.

Australia plays a role in Pine Gap through intelligence and targeting information, which is coming through there.

Can you just tell us how difficult it was to get confirmation of that and whether that is unusual in the context of reporting on defence matters like this?

Can you walk us through how Trump's Board of Peace will operate?

Look, I think that's a fantastic question.

I think there's a lot of international diplomats and prime ministers and presidents around the world who would love an answer to that, because it is part of...

I think the problem with this proposed Board of Peace is it's very unclear exactly what it's going to do and how it's going to work.

The Board of Peace came into being li- late last year when it was given a narrow mandate by the UN Security Council.

We can have another discussion about the ineffectiveness of the Security Council, but it was given a narrow mandate to reconstruct Gaza.

But what we're seeing now when we're, we're seeing the sort of terms of reference, um, uh, for this new Board of Peace is Gaza isn't mentioned, and it's an incredibly broad remit.

Um, how else is it being discussed in Australian politics? Is there anyone that's in favor of this?