Declassified ASIO files have revealed the national security agency planted spies among a group protesting against the Pine Gap military base in Alice Springs during the 1980s.
The 1987 documents, released last year by the National Archives of Australia, show intelligence about peace activists and their protest plans were being fed to ASIO's central office by one or more covert operatives who surreptitiously attended the group's meetings.
The peace movement had gained momentum in the political landscape during the Cold War era, as concerns ran high over the threat posed by the Soviet Union and the possibility of nuclear warfare.
Pine Gap, the top-secret defence facility that had begun operating during the previous decade on the outskirts of town, was feared to be a target due its strategic importance to the United States Department of Defense and the Australian government.
Surveillance of peace group no surprise
Russell Goldflam was a bright-eyed idealist and vocal member of the Alice Springs Peace Group (ASPG) in the late 1980s.
Now a semi-retired lawyer still living in Alice Springs, he was not surprised to learn that ASIO had been surveilling the group's activities.
"I would have been amazed if there hadn't been a spy amongst our ranks," Mr Goldflam said.
"We were campaigning against the largest spy base run by the United States outside the continental US.
"It would have been absolutely extraordinary if [ASIO] — or somebody in the security establishment — didn't go to some trouble to try and make sure that there was no threat to that base from local people who were publicly saying, 'We want to get it closed down'."
Protest meetings documented
There are hundreds of files, with some revealing nothing more than bland meeting minutes, while others contain heavy redactions and delve into the perceived threats posed by peace activists.
One file said:
"Russell Goldflam reported that he had spoken with an Aboriginal elder concerning sacred sites in the Pine Gap area.
"He said that the elder had told him tht [sic] although there were sacred sites in the area, including Pine Gap itself to which they were denied access, they should not worry about it."
Covert operatives remain a mystery
Mr Goldflam, who was arrested several times for trespassing at the military base during demonstrations, said he was never able to confirm the identity of any covert operatives.
"No doubt, at particular meetings, I might have looked out the side of my eye at someone and thought, 'Oh, I don't know who that is'," he said.
"My personal approach to this was just to assume that we were always under surveillance and never say anything in a meeting that was going to cause any embarrassment."
ASIO's legislative functions cover a wide scope of security activities, including protecting Australia from politically motivated violence and attacks on Australia’s defence system.
An ASIO spokesperson pointed to recent comments made by director-general of security Mike Burgess.
"ASIO does not have any issue with people who have opinions they want to express," he said.
"This is a critical part of a vibrant democracy.
"We do not — and cannot — investigate peaceful protest or dissent."
A 'true existential threat'
The 1980s were characterised by a great power conflict, and represented a "true existential threat" that humankind had never faced before, according to John Coyne, head of the Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
"Today, we talk about existential threats in terms of climate change, but certainly in the 1980s, the thermonuclear war was a reality," Dr Coyne said.
"What we saw was a world that was poised and teetered on the edge of an existential threat. Pine Gap itself was a physical manifestation of one side of that."
He said the intelligence collected by ASIO about groups such as ASPG was "very much part of what we should expect our governments to do, back then and even today".
"When we're sitting in 2023, we look back at these documents and this time, we know now they weren't a threat, but back then there were very real concerns about infiltration of those groups by terrorists, and by foreign actors, specifically the Russians," Dr Coyne said.
"[For] any group that has shown a capability and an intent to disrupt critical infrastructure, to disrupt national security capabilities, assessments are done on those sorts of groups.
"As part of those assessments, intelligence and information is collected overtly and covertly. It's brought together and an assessment is made whether or not these groups actually represent a threat."
A 'great privilege'
Mr Goldflam has provided legal assistance throughout his career to a number of peace activists who had broken the law at Pine Gap and faced serious charges.
"It was a great privilege to be able to work as a lawyer for those people fighting for what are pretty fundamental rights, and that's the right to be able to express an opposing point of view," he said.
He believed the documents also painted the national security agency as holding grave concerns about the peace movement having a "malign influence" on local Aboriginal people, which Mr Goldflam said "couldn't be further from the truth".
"Our concern is where opinions tip into the promotion of violence, or actual acts of violence."
