Peter Dutton confirms Chinese spies in ASIO’s sights

Peter Dutton has confirmed spies from China are among a record number of foreign agents in Australia.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton addresses Chinese language media during a press conference at the Golden Lane Chinese Restaurant in Brisbane on Friday. Picture: AAP

Peter Dutton has confirmed spies from China are among a record number of foreign agents in Australia after the nation’s security agency sounded the alarm over an increase in foreign ­interference.

The Home Affairs Minister said spies from China, Iran and Russia were among a swelling group of foreign agents entering or trying to enter the country — the highest number operating on Australian soil since the Cold War. “I don’t care where people come from,” Mr Dutton told the ABC on Sunday.

“If we find somebody who is acting against our national interest, outside of the law, then we act against them. They’re not just from China, they’re from Iran and Russia and elsewhere.”

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) ­director-general Mike Burgess warned last week of “hostile ­intelligence services” directly threatening Australians, with the country now being targeted by several foreign governments. He also revealed the ­number of active terrorist leads it was investigating had doubled in the past year and there was a growing threat from right-wing groups.

Mr Dutton said the government was still considering recommendations from the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security to allow foreign spies to be detained for 24 hours for questioning.

“You’re talking about significant powers. There needs to be proper oversight, needs to be judicial oversight. There’s a lot to get right and we’ll work through that,” Mr Dutton said.

Asked about his government’s policies on curbing right-wing extremism and why he thought the sentiment was growing, Mr Dutton said: “People will be attracted to all sorts of causes, cults, and movements.

“If you have got that information, if you are reading it, if you’re believing it, if you’re watching it on YouTube, you’re listening to these sermons, then people will fall for that. And we need to make sure that people are educated.’’

Mr Dutton said he did not believe the process for defining terrorist groups needed to be changed in light of ASIO’s concern about right-wing groups.

“I think the listing process has served us well for a long period of time. It’s obviously an arduous process in that it needs to go for consultation to the states and territories, to their first officers and it’s signed off by the Prime Minister as well. But I have not rejected advice from ASIO.

“I have been criticised for not listing Hezbollah over the course of the last 12 months or so, but the agencies look at all of this and we don’t have a presence in our country of some of these right-wing groups as well.”