AUSTRALIAN spies have been seconded to Hong Kong to conduct widespread bugging and other technical dirty tricks for the British Government's Secret Intelligence Service MI6, a former top spy claimed.
A former controller with Australia's secret overseas spy service, ASIS, told the South China Morning Post in an interview yesterday that some of the operations performed for the British in Hong Kong ''appalled'' him.
''We know of things they did and we just shook our heads,'' the former ASIS agent, a scientific expert who quit the service 10 months ago, said in Canberra.
He said espionage operations in Hong Kong were performed by ASIS ''tech-ops'', who were seconded to MI6 in London and then sent to Hong Kong to illicitly secure sensitive commercial and political secrets for Britain's use.
''In Hong Kong they were working for the British, one of the most aggressive operations in the world. I'm sure the Australian authorities did not know what they were doing,'' the agent, calling for an overhaul of ASIS, told the Post.
He said he knew of details which demonstrated jobs done by ASIS spies in Hong Kong had commercially benefited the British to the detriment of Australia.
The Australians bugged many offices in Hong Kong for MI6, an agency which regards the territory and China as pivotal to its spying operations.