Shake-up for foreign agents scheme

Christian Porter will overhaul the staff and skills of the team administering the ­Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.

Attorney-General Christian Porter will shake up the staff and skills of the team administering the ­nation’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, but says his ­department doesn’t need foreign language experts to run it.

Mr Porter said there had been a “lack of common sense to date” in the administration of the scheme, following revelations the department targeted Tony Abbott and conservative-aligned non-profit LibertyWorks as ­alleged agents of foreign influence.

He said he would discuss the scheme with department secretary Chris Moraitis to ensure it “has the right personnel and skills to make smarter and more effective decisions”.

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Mr Porter earlier reported to the Senate that the team implementing the scheme did not ­employ anyone specialising in a language other than English, and there were no plans to hire ­foreign-language experts. His spokesman said the department could source language skills from the National ­Interpreting and Translation Service.

Labor senator Kimberley Kitching said the ­department’s lack of in-house foreign-language expertise “raises ­serious questions about the ­capacity and capability of the scheme”.

“Do we seriously expect those who seek to influence our political processes to do so in English for our convenience?” she said. “If you can’t speak the language foreign agents of influence use, how can you detect their law breaking?”

Senator Kitching said the scheme was at risk of becoming an “opt-in” system rather than a forensic scheme that worked with ­security agencies to identify agents of foreign influence.

Liberal senator Eric Abetz also questioned the ability of the ­Attorney-General’s Department to administer the scheme without any foreign-language experts on staff.

“Without them, the only ­potential targets … are those that speak English, who hardly pose a threat to us,” Senator Abetz said.

When he introduced foreign interference laws into parliament in late 2017, then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull cited moves by the Chinese Communist Party to “interfere with our media, our universities and even the decisions of elected representatives”.

Security experts have warned that the government has failed to properly resource the administration and enforcement of the foreign influence scheme.

The department has just 8.2 full-time employees overseeing the scheme out of more than 1400 staff, while ASIO warned in its ­latest annual report it had insufficient resources to respond to an “unprecedented” foreign interference threat.

Australian Strategic Policy ­Institute analyst Alex Joske — a Chinese-language and foreign ­interference specialist — said the government needed to prioritise the hiring of Mandarin-speakers if it wanted to uncover Chinese Communist Party influence.

“The Chinese Communist Party’s influence networks seem opaque to most, but Chinese-­language research is able to quickly reveal these networks and their links to Beijing,” he said.

The Weekend Australian revealed that Mr Abbott was asked by the Attorney-General’s ­Department to register as an agent of foreign ­influence for ­addressing the Conservative Political ­Action Conference in ­August. The former prime minister ­refused the request, labelling it ­“absurd”.

The event’s Australian organiser, LibertyWorks chief executive Andrew Cooper, was ordered to hand over documents, which he refused.