Crackdown targets foreign agents harassing dissidents

Australians targeted by autocratic regimes on our shores will be protected and sensitive technology cordoned off in major changes to stop countries such as China and Iran from meddling in the nation’s affairs.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has announced the Albanese government’s first reforms to bolster defences against foreign interference by countries trying to quash dissent in diaspora groups and secretly infiltrate media, universities and critical infrastructure.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Australians with Iranian, Chinese, Cambodian, Rwandan and Indian backgrounds have reported foreign agents harassing and assaulting them on local soil in recent years.

The government fears nations are learning from one another how to target people in other countries.

Some Australian subjects, including anti-Chinese Communist Party activists, have said their phone calls have not been followed up or adequately dealt with by authorities, prompting O’Neil to create a community hub providing mental health support, legal resources and advice for overseas travel.

“This world-leading package of reforms addresses emerging elements of this constantly evolving threat,” O’Neil said in a statement.

A senior intelligence source, not authorised to share classified information publicly, said foreign agents were befriending and bribing bank workers, university staff and policemen to gather the home addresses and financial details of Australians critical of countries from which their families hailed.

In one case cited by the source, a foreign agent hired an Australian private investigator to snoop around the home of a target and asked how much it would cost to have them “disappeared”.

The source was unwilling to divulge which nation was behind the alleged plot. Another scheme involved luring a human rights activist overseas to try to harm them.

Under the laws announced by O’Neil, a new mandatory test will be created to identify any risky links to autocratic regimes when international students apply for postgraduate study in areas such as drone technology where sensitive information could be stolen.

People who diaspora members have identified as acting on behalf of foreign governments could be asked to leave the country, and Labor is expanding the Countering Foreign Interference task force set up by the former Coalition government and adding to it agencies such as the Tax Office.

ASIO boss Mike Burgess has said threats to Australians’ way of life, chiefly through foreign meddling and spying, had surpassed terrorism as Australia’s principal security concern.

“We have come full circle. While the terrorism threat level is possible, if we had a threat level for espionage and foreign interference it would be at certain – the highest level on the scale,” the spy agency’s 2024 threat assessment said.

Labor has been pressured by the Coalition to act on recommendations to boost defences against foreign interference conducted through social media.

The government is also confronting new challenges from Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon, which Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson recently said had been targeting Australian power, water and transport networks “for the purpose of future sabotage”.

The government is expected to announce new cyber defences later this year.

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