Aussie politicians ‘cultivated’ by foreign spies: ASIO boss
Foreign spies are working at unprecedented and unacceptable levels against the nation’s interest, according to the top intelligence boss. And Aussie politicians are among their prime targets.
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Australian politicians are being actively “cultivated” by foreign spies as the foreign interference and espionage reach “unprecedented and unacceptable levels”, the nation’s top spook has revealed.
ASIO director-general Mike Burgess will warn all federal politicians in the coming weeks that they are “attractive targets” to foreign agents who are very active in Australia right now.
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He revealed a foreign plot to infiltrate Australia’s own spy ranks was recently disrupted.
The intelligence agency boss said foreign spies were seeking to steal secrets from Australian politicians.
“The level of foreign interference and espionage is at an unprecedented level, an unacceptable level,” Mr Burgess told a Senate estimates hearing.
“We see evidence of intelligence services deceptively cultivating politicians at all levels of government who will advance the interests of the foreign country.
“In the coming weeks I will write to all Commonwealth politicians to warn that they are attractive targets for those trying to steal our secrets and trying to manipulate our decision making.”
He reiterated previous comments that there are more foreign spies and their proxies active in Australian “than there were at the height of the Cold War”.
“ASIO recently disrupted a plot to infiltrate the Australian intelligence community, for example,” he said.
“An Australian based foreign national and team of intelligence officers were trying to recruit Australian security clearance holders.
“The agents wanted sensitive information about our intelligence activities, particularly those directed against their home country.”
He said the attempt had been “effectively disrupted” and that no information had been lost.
The ASIO boss also revealed the growing threat of right-wing extremists had forced him to allocate more agents to watching the dangerous groups.
He said they believed that COVID-19 “reinforces the narrative and conspiracy” of their ideology.
“They see the pandemic as proof of the failure of globalisation, multiculturalism and democracy and confirmation that societal collapse and a race war are inevitable,” he said.
“At the moment, right-wing extremists are getting more organised, sophisticated, ideological and active than previous years.”
Mr Burgess said up to 40 per cent of their counter-terror investigative subjects were now right-wing extremists.
“While we have been actively monitoring the threat for some time we are reprioritising our activities to focus additional resources on the evolving threat,” he said.
