Labor says government has been ‘dragged kicking and screaming to restore funding’ to Asio and the federal police

Australia’s counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence operations will get a funding injection of more than half a billion dollars in Tuesday’s federal budget.

The $570m boost includes packages for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) and the Australian federal police, and will fund programs such as anti-drone technology for the police.

The funds would also be used to bolster intelligence-gathering in war zones, investigations into foreign fighters wanting to return to Australia, and artificial intelligence technology for Asio.

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The federal police will receive the bulk of the money, getting an additional $512m.

“The terrorist threat to Australia remains at probable, cyber-threats are unrelenting and increasing, and there are new and emerging national security challenges,” the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, said in a statement on Saturday.

“The AFP is now conducting seven times more counter-terrorism operations and monitoring eight times the number of people of interest than it did five years ago.”

In a statement, Labor said the government had “been draged kicking and screaming to restore funding” to security agencies before the election.

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“Most notably, last year, AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin confirmed the 2018-19 budget contained a $205m cut to resourcing for the AFP over the forward estimates – impacting their work to tackle fraud, organised crime and anti-narcotics,” the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, the and opposition spokeswoman for justice, Claire O’Neil, said.

“As a result of Liberal cuts, AFP staffing was predicted to fall from 6448 personnel in 2018-19 to 5881 personnel in 2021-22 – an extraordinary reduction of 567 AFP personnel.”

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will hand down the budget on Tuesday night, with a federal election due in May.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Saturday the security funding increase was not related to the Christchurch mosque massacre but in recognition of “the growing threat of extremist terrorism in so many different forms”.

“Remember, we have thwarted 15 terror attacks in Australia, and we need to make sure that our authorities have the resources to keep doing that,” he said.