Australia will push back against foreign interference and safeguard migrant communities, Foreign Minister Penny Wong says, following revelations two Indian spies were kicked out of Australia in 2020 for trying to steal defence secrets, cultivating politicians and monitoring the Indian diaspora.

New Delhi was behind the unnamed “nest of spies” that ASIO chief Mike Burgess disclosed in a speech in 2021, The Washington Post revealed. Its story examined the increasingly assertive espionage activities of India’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing, including targeting Sikh campaigners who want to create a new state known as Khalistan.