A video of the Premier of New South Wales (NSW) Chris Minns speaking during a press conference is being shared on social media, following the terror attack near Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia on 14 December.
The claim: The video shows Minns purportedly saying,
"In a critical development following the Sydney Bondi attack, India's External Affairs Minister Jaishankar has spoken with Australian Foreign Minister Wong. Minister Jaishankar expressed India's deep condolences and after it was established that the attacker was an Indian national, he directly conveyed India's full support and cooperation into the ongoing inquiry. He assured that Indian authorities are committed to assisting in every way, to help Australian investigators uncover the cause and any possible network behind this tragedy."
How do we know?: First, we noticed that Minns mouth movements did not match the words that were being said in the video.
In the video, he says, "...established that the attacker was an Indian national," referring to the attacker as a single person. In reality, there were two gunmen, named Naveed and Sajid Akram.
Next, we looked for news reports about India's response to the terror attack which claimed 15 lives and left over 40 injured.
On 14 December, the day of the attack, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar shared on post on X, condemning the terror attack "in the strongest terms," and expressing support for the victims and their families.
The following day on 15 December, he shared another post after having spoken to Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, he shared another post saying, "Conveyed our deepest condolences about the Bondi beach terrorist attack and offered our fullest support."
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, shared a post on X, strongly condemning the attack and extending his "sincere condolences to the families who lost their loved ones."
We also checked the website of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) for any press releases by the Ministry of External Affairs from 14 December, but did not find any.
None of these posts or press releases supported the statement made in the viral video.
Since the video carried ABC News' logo, we looked for Minns' video on their official YouTube channel.
This led us to a video published on 14 December, titled 'Bondi Beach shooting declared a terrorist incident | ABC NEWS', which showed Minns in the same clothing.
Providing details about the attack, Minns said that "two individuals began firing on a crowded group of families at Archer Park," targeting the Jewish community on the first day of Hanukkah, calling it a "terrorism event."
He noted that one of the attackers had been killed while the other was in custody.
He did not mention India or EAM Jaishankar in any way.
However, on 15 December, Telangana Police confirmed that one of the two gunmen, Sajid Akram, who was neutralised at the scene, was from Hyderabad in India and carried an Indian passport.
Given the factual errors and audio-video mismatch, we ran the video through Hiya's Deepfake Voice Detector, which gave the audio track a score of one out of 100.
This indicates that the audio track is likely a deepfake.
Similarly, Hive Moderation's AI-generated content detection tool gave it a score of 99.9 percent, with the audio track being 99 percent likely to "contain AI-generated or deepfake content."
We also shared the video with the Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU), who ran it through more tools.
Swiss deep-tech company Aurigin.ai's tool showed 100 percent confidence in the audio track being AI-generated.
Hive's deepfake detector also highlighted one instance of Minns' face being a deepfake in the entire video.
Conclusion: An AI-manipulated video is being shared to falsely claim that NSW Premier Chris Minns said that EAM S Jaishankar had extended full cooperation after one of the Bondi Beach attackers had been identified as Indian.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)