Fact Check: This Video Of Australian PM Announcing Cancellation Of Visas For Pakistani Citizens Is A Deepfake

New Delhi (Vishvas News). Following a tragic shooting at a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025 a video has gone viral on social media. The clip purportedly shows Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese identifying the attacker, Naveed, as Pakistani and subsequently announcing the cancellation of visas for all Pakistani citizens.

Vishvas News, in its investigation, found that this video is a deepfake, created using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

What is the viral post?

Facebook user ‘Ek Aur Inqilab’ shared the video on December 16, 2025 (archive link) with the caption, “The Australian Prime Minister has decided to cancel the visas of all Pakistanis after the attack by a Pakistani Islamic terrorist. The whole world is troubled by this community, and in India, people say, ‘Why can’t Abdul buy a house in a Hindu neighbourhood’?”

Investigation

To verify the viral claim, we conducted a keyword search but found no official records or news reports of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese making any such statement.

Then we performed a reverse image search of a screenshot of this video using Google Lens. This led us to a report from The Sydney Morning Herald dated August 3, 2022, in which a picture of Anthony Albanese closely matches the visuals in the viral video. According to the news report, “The photo is from when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, associated with the Labor Party, announced an agreement with the Greens Party on the climate change bill.” 

Searching with keywords, we found the full video of this speech in an article by The Guardian published on August 3, 2022. The entire speech was about climate change.

In the viral video, Prime Minister Albanese’s facial gestures and movements appear somewhat robotic, which raised the suspicion that the video might have been edited using AI.

The AI ​​detection tool Hive Moderation indicated an over 99% probability of the video being AI-generated.

For confirmation, we contacted our partner, the Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU), an initiative of the Trusted Information Alliance (TIA). The team analysed the video using various tools.

HIYA’s audio detector confirmed that the audio was AI-generated.

Aurigin.ai, a Swiss deep-tech company with an advanced audio deepfake detection engine, also indicated a 99% probability that the audio track was AI-generated.

We also spoke to Azahar Machwe, who works in AI and emerging technologies, for confirmation. He also confirmed that the video was created using AI.

Bondi Beach Attack

On December 14, 2025, during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, a shooting carried out by Sajid and his son Naveed resulted in 15 deaths and left 40 injured. Sajid was killed during the police operation, and Naveed was taken into custody. According to news reports, “Telangana police have confirmed that the 50-year-old Sajid Akram, who was killed at the scene, was an Indian citizen originally from Hyderabad, while media reports have confirmed that his son, Naveed, holds an Australian passport.”

The Facebook user who shared the misleading post, ‘Ek Aur Inqilab’, has over 70000 followers.

Conclusion: Vishvas News’s investigation found that the viral video of Australian PM Anthony Albanese is a deepfake. The original footage dates back to August 2022 and concerns a climate change bill. The audio has been digitally altered using AI to spread false claims regarding the cancellation of visas for Pakistani nationals.

Tags

• Australian PM
• Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
• Deepfake
• Visas For Pakistani Citizens