ASIO reveals plot by retired politician to introduce a prime minister's family member to foreign spies
An unnamed former Australian politician, who was successfully cultivated by an international spy ring, once suggested bringing a prime minister's family member into contact with their foreign handlers.
The boss of Australia's domestic intelligence organisation has given few details of the alleged plot from "several years ago" but has confirmed the Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce has conducted more than 120 operations since it was established in 2020.
Delivering his annual threat assessment, the director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has revealed he regularly speaks to overseas counterparts to urge them to stop espionage activities here, adding "and they usually do".
In his speech, Mike Burgess has described an overseas intelligence service that considers Australia a "priority target" and runs a group of operatives ASIO has dubbed the "Australia team", or "A-Team".
"The spies pose as consultants, head-hunters, local government officials, academics and think tank researchers, claiming to be from fictional companies such as Data 31," Mr Burgess told an audience inside ASIO's Canberra headquarters.
"Most commonly, they offer their targets consulting opportunities, promising to pay thousands of dollars for reports on Australian trade, politics, economics, foreign policy, defence and security."
Mr Burgess has described how several years ago the A-team successfully cultivated and recruited a former, but unnamed, Australian politician.
"This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime."
"At one point, the former politician even proposed bringing a prime minister's family member into the spies' orbit. Fortunately that plot did not go ahead but other schemes did."
Following the speech Mr Burgess took questions from assembled journalists and confirmed the former member of Parliament had cut ties with the foreign intelligence service and was no longer regarded as a national security risk.
"Personally, I don't think they'll be stupid enough to repeat what they've done in the past, so problem neutralised, harm in some elements was done," he said.
"Of course, we stopped it where we could given the means we had and that's our lot, now we're in a much better place with foreign interference laws."
The ASIO boss has also discussed the threat of sabotage saying his organisation is "aware of one nation state conducting multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure in Australia and other countries, targeting water, transport and energy networks".
Middle East conflict 'resonating' here but Australians not travelling to join terror groups
Since the Hamas attack on Israel in October last year, ASIO says it seen "heightened community tensions that have translated into some incidents of violence" connected to protests, but believes Australians are not travelling to terrorist groups in the Middle East.
"While the conflict is a long way away from Australia, it is resonating here and ASIO is carefully monitoring the implications for domestic security," Mr Burgess said.
"Sunni violent extremism poses the greatest religiously motivated violent extremist threat in Australia. But we are not seeing Australians travelling to join the terrorists in the Middle East as we did for the ISIL Caliphate.
"And thankfully, we have not seen the lone actor attacks that have occurred elsewhere and were inspired by that conflict," Mr Burgess noted.
"Over the last 18 months, we've also seen an uptick in the number of nationalist and racist violent extremists advocating sabotage in private conversations, both here and overseas.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-28/asio-reveals-plot-by-retired-politician/103513926
ASIO protects criminal from being named while missing the entire covid fraud committed by them and all Government officials