The nation’s spy boss has exposed a sophisticated foreign interference operation that involved a former politician targeting a prime minister’s family.
ASIO boss Mike Burgess has blown the cover of a sophisticated foreign interference operation that involved a former politician betraying Australia and attempting to bring a prime minister’s relative into the orbit of foreign spies.
Autocratic foreign governments have also tried to physically harm Australian-based critics of their regimes and attempted to find Australians who can make dissidents “disappear”, he said. “A few weeks after the conference wrapped up, one of the academics started giving the A-team information about Australia’s national security and defence priorities.
“This might suggest the A-team’s priority is classified material, but its appetites are wider than that,” Burgess said.