Spy chief Mike Burgess shows Scott Morrison how to deal with a crisis

ASIO chief Mike Burgess appearing at a Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra last week. Picture Kym Smith

Scott Morrison could take a few lessons in transparency, and other things, from his chief spook, Mike Burgess. How the Prime Minister has allowed the Angus Taylor ­affair to get to this point is inexcusable and shows again how clunky and shouty he is on his feet, particularly when the pressure is on.

Morrison should have forced Taylor to make a universal unequivocal apology from the get-go, made him give a proper account of how he stuffed up by providing inaccurate information about Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore to The Daily Telegraph, forced him to sack staff if necessary and, as the son of a cop, Morrison should have known better, despite needling from Labor in parliament, than to personally call the NSW Police Commissioner to check on an investigation. He should have known it had the potential to compromise him, compromise Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, and taint the investigation into alleged fraud by Taylor or his office, regardless of the fact it was referred by Labor, and despite his strenuous efforts yesterday to turn blunders into virtues.

A cabinet minister providing false material smearing a political opponent to one of our biggest newspapers is not trivial but it could have been dealt with quickly. If staff were responsible, they should have been counselled or sacked, as has happened countless times. Instead, poor judgment and poor handling at each point over many weeks by Morrison and Taylor have landed them all in a quagmire.

Burgess, the new Director-General of Security, is no politician yet his unusual swift, spin-free response to unprecedented events involving allegations China had sought to interfere, again, in Australian politics showed how to handle tricky situations.

A benign view is that Burgess gave the government, from the Prime Minister down, a crutch. A less benign view is that he gave them all a prod. The most hopeful, and likely most accurate, was that by telling people simply that, yes, interference was happening, it was real and they were on to it, he made a down payment on an earlier promise to take spookdom out of the shadows.

His statement was precipitated by the exposure of two extraordinary cases by Nine newspapers and 60 Minutes, not directly connected yet inextricably linked. The first involved the defection of a self-confessed spy from China, Wang Liqiang, now seeking asylum; the second Bo “Nick” Zhao, who had informed Australian security agencies before his mysterious death that he was being groomed by a Chinese espionage ring to infiltrate the Liberal Party, then the federal parliament, via the Victorian seat of Chisholm, subsequently won by controversial MP Gladys Liu.

It meant Morrison was not the one out there accusing China of nefarious activities. Burgess was enabling everyone from Morrison down to tuck in behind him, taking refuge in his statement that ASIO was actively investigating the allegations. That was the crutch.

The other stroke of luck for the government was that Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, a safe pair of hands, happened to be at the Adelaide Zoo on Sunday talking about pandas, so was first in the frontline taking questions.

More important, Burgess also guaranteed the stories could not be ignored by the government, the opposition, the body politic, media, universities, business and roughly 25 million Australians. In case anyone missed the warning, Burgess concluded: “Hostile foreign intelligence activity continues to pose a real threat to our nation and its security.” That was a prod. Rest assured we will hear from him again.

Burgess is a new-school spymaster, who, according to those who know him, understands the importance of having public sentiment onside and runs his own game. “He is one fiercely independent dude,” said one associate.

In response to written questions from me about why he had issued the statement, if he had sought clearance from the government, or alerted it in advance, and whether he would continue to ensure Australians were better informed on matters of national security, an ASIO spokesperson replied: “Consistent with longstanding practice, ASIO does not publicly detail its internal processes or operational methodology. The Director-General of Security is an independent, statutory officer, with specific, statutory-based responsibilities to keep the organisation free from any influences or considerations not relevant to ­security. I refer you to Mike Burgess’s numerous public statements regarding his personal commitment to transparency and bringing security agencies ‘out of the shadows’.”

Attached were two speeches from his time at the Australian Signals Directorate where Burgess pledged that, saying: “It would have been easy to shy away from a public discussion about what we do. But it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.” Hear, hear.

There is no overstating the impact of all three events across federal parliament, into the bureaucracy and on the intelligence community.

It has deepened awareness that this is an intergenerational dile­m­ma, beyond the capacity of one government to address or resolve while also renewing anxiety at the lack of a more rigorous, better resourced strategic framework across the spectrum of defence, dip­lomacy, intelligence, the economy, education, culture and the vetting of parliamentary candidates.

Intelligence experts have privately criticised Morrison for dismissing concerns that agencies were inadequately resourced, by reciting legislative action already taken by the government.

“Flip” was the way one described Morrison’s response to the blunt warning from ASIO’s outgoing chief, Duncan Lewis, in its 2018-19 annual report tabled in parliament in October: “With the terrorist threat showing no signs of significantly decreasing, ASIO has limited scope to redirect internal resources to address the increasing gap between demand for our counter-espionage and foreign interference advice, and our ability to furnish this assistance.”

More hawkish intelligence experts and long-time China watchers bristle at what they regard as timid responses from the government to China’s activities, and the complacency of business, driven by fears of trade retaliation. They advocate a more robust response, believing China would respect that more than a supine defence of Australian sovereignty.

As for possible repercussions for business and the economy generally, economist Stephen Joske, who has studied China closely, says its economy is more fragile than people realise and could easily slip into recession within a couple of years, dragging Australia into its first recession since the 1990s. Probably just in time for the next election.

By then at least the Angus Taylor affair should have been dealt with.