Did Australia actually attend the May 2023 Five Eyes briefing on UAP?

Conflicting statements

Conflicting statements by the Australian Department of Defence (DOD) have not been resolved by a recent request I submitted under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA.) As outlined in a 27 December 2023 blog post; during a presentation on 31 May 2023, former U.S. All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick stated that he had recently held a forum on UAP for the Five Eyes partners, which includes Australia.

Grant Lavac

Australian researcher Grant Lavac posed a series of questions to the Australian Minister of Defence, one of which was "What was the extent of Australia's involvement in the Five Eyes Forum on UAP and who from Australia was represented?" The answer, dated 30 June 2023, was from the acting head of Air Force Capability "Air Force did not attend the Five Eyes forum on UAP."

Senator Whish-Wilson

In July 2023 Senator Whish-Wilson posed the following question to the Australian DOD. "Did Australia attend the recent Five Eyes meeting held in May 2023? If so, did it attend the briefing on UAPs." The reply was: "Australia did not attend a United States briefing on UAPs." However, the Senator then asked another question, in November 2023, at the 2023-2024 Supplementary Budget Estimates Committe:

"Did the Australian Department of Defence receive an invitation from the U.S. All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to attend the Five Eyes forum on UAP in May 2023 led by AARO's Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick?" 

The Australian DOD responded on 15 December 2023and said "Yes. A Defence representative of the Australian Embassy in Washington attended."

These conflicting statements were also highlighted by journalist Jamieson Murphy in the 10 February 2024 issue of the "Canberra Times" newspaper.

FOIA request

Defence Attaché - Head of Australian Defence Staff | Australia in the USA (embassy.gov.au)

Based on the 15 December 2023 DOD response that "A Defence representative of the Australian Embassy in Washington attended," on 30 December 2023, I submitted the following FOIA request to the Australian DOD which became Defence FOI 583/23/24:

"...copies of correspondence, including but not limited to copies of emails and relevant attachments to/from/cc'd Rear Admiral Ian Gordon Murray, Australian Defence Attached to the USA, containing the keywords "UAP" and/or "Five Eyes" and/or "All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office." The time period I would like is from 1 May 2023 to 30 June 2023."

According to the Australian Embassy Washington website, Rear Admiral Murray has been the Defence Attache to the US since January 2023. My rationale for selecting the Rear Admiral was that if anyone in the Australian Embassy in Washington would be aware of this May 2023 UAP briefing, it would be the Head of Australian Defence staff in Washington, namely the Rear Admiral.

FOIA response

On 13 February 2023 I received a response from the relevant DOD FOIA decision maker which stated "I have identified no documents as falling within the scope of the request." It went on to say:

"SP& I conducted searches of their information holdings including the Defence Record Management System, identified as 'Objective', personal and group email accounts and hard copies repositories for documents matching the scope of the request. This included searches by Defence staff at the Australian Embassy in Washington D.C. No records were found matching the applicant's scope."

SP & I is the Strategy, Policy and Industry Group of the Australian DOD.

Conclusion

So, at the moment, I am still unclear as to whether or not a representative of Australia attended the May 2023 Five Eyes briefing on UAP, in Washington D.C, and if so, exactly who attended. Other Australian researchers are conducting their own inquiries into this matter, and I hope to further report on the topic in due course. 

Update: 24 June 2024

Researcher Grant Lavac, via an FOIA request has received a copy of the agenda of the Five Eyes 24 May 2023 meeting run by AARO. The agenda shows that someone from Australia did attend and present a report.