Australian politician ‘sold out’ to foreign regime after being recruited by spies, Asio boss says

A former Australian politician “sold out their country, party and former colleagues” after being recruited by spies for a foreign regime, according to Australia’s domestic intelligence agency.

The head of Asio, Mike Burgess, made the allegations as he outlined the prolific activities of a spy network he labelled “the A-team”, although he did not name the former politician nor the country involved.

Delivering his annual threat assessment on Wednesday evening, Burgess said Asio confronted the spy network last year and was now speaking publicly about it because “we want the A-team to know its cover is blown”.

He said more Australians were being targeted for espionage and foreign interference than ever before and people needed to understand the threat was “deeper and broader than you might think”.

Burgess alleged there was an “aggressive and experienced” team in a particular foreign intelligence service with a focus on Australia. “We are its priority target,” he said in a speech at Asio headquarters in Canberra.

“We will call them ‘the A-team’ – that’s not a compliment by the way – the Australia team.”

Burgess said members trawled professional networking sites looking for Australians with access to privileged information.

They looked to recruit students, academics, politicians, businesspeople, researchers, law enforcement officials and public servants at all levels of government, while using false, anglicised personae to approach their targets.

“Some of the names they adopt include Sophy, Amy, Ben and Eric, but the team can and does use others,” Burgess said. “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.

“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.”

Burgess said the A-team was “offering Australian defence industry employees money in return for reports on Aukus, submarine technology, missile systems and many other sensitive topics”.

Former politician targeted

Without naming the individual, Burgess said the A-team “successfully cultivated and recruited a former Australian politician”. He said this occurred “several years ago”.

“This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime,” Burgess said. “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.”

Burgess said that in one alleged plot, “leading Australian academics and political figures were invited to a conference in an overseas country, with the organisers covering all expenses including airfares”.

He said members of the A-team used the conference to build relationships with Australians, openly asking who had access to government documents.

Burgess said another Australian – described as an aspiring politician – “provided insights into the factional dynamics of his party, analysis of a recent election and the names of up-and-comers”.

Asio disrupted this scheme and confronted the Australians involved, he said.

“We helped the unaware ones extract themselves, and severed the links between the others and the foreign intelligence service. Several individuals should be grateful the espionage and foreign interference laws are not retrospective.”

This comment indicates the allegations span many years, as Australia’s tough new laws against espionage and foreign interference passed the parliament in 2018.

Burgess said his agency confronted the A-team directly late last year, when a team leader “thought he was grooming another Australian online” but was actually speaking with an Asio officer.

“You can imagine his horror when my officer revealed himself and declared, ‘we know who you are.’”

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Mike Burgess says Australia’s terrorism threat level remains unchanged at ‘possible’, with conflict in the Middle East ‘resonating’. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Burgess said he had declassified the case because Australians needed to understand what the threat of foreign interference “looks like so they can avoid it and report it”.

But he said this “real-world, real-time disruption” was also intended to signal that Asio would make foreign interference “as difficult, costly and painful as possible”.

Burgess said he was not naming the country involved because numerous countries conducted espionage and foreign interference and he wanted Australians to be alert to “red flags” regardless of the source.

Asked to explain the consequences for the former politician, Burgess said: “We’re a rule-of-law country and if they’re not doing it now they’re not breaking the law.”

Burgess said authorities would investigate “if we see them go active again”.

“Personally, I don’t think they’ll be stupid enough to repeat what they’ve done in the past.”

Threats to dissidents

Burgess said the counter foreign interference taskforce – led by Asio but also comprising the Australian federal police and other agencies – sought to “stop attempts to monitor and harass members of Australia’s diaspora communities”.

It had conducted more than 120 operations to mitigate threats against communities, political systems and classified information since mid-2020.

“In a sign of how the threat has grown, successful disruptions have increased by 265%, and continue to increase exponentially,” he said.

Burgess said the taskforce last year “uncovered and disrupted an individual working on behalf of a foreign government who wanted to physically harm an Australia-based critic of the regime”.

“The individual tried to identify his target’s home address and bank details, hired a subcontractor to take photos of the house and even asked how much money would be required to get the subcontractor to ‘take severe action’ against the dissident,” Burgess said.

“Even more recently, a foreign intelligence service tried to find an Australian who would be willing to make a different dissident quote ‘disappear’.”

Burgess said he was also “aware of one nation state conducting multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure in Australia and other countries, targeting water, transport and energy networks” although it was not believed to be actively planning sabotage.

Australia’s terrorism threat level remained unchanged at “possible”, but Burgess said that did not mean “negligible”, with conflict in the Middle East “resonating” and Asio “carefully monitoring the implications for domestic security”.