Calls grow to name ‘traitor’ politician who ‘sold out’ Australia to a foreign power
- Spy chief Mark Burgess revealed that a team from an unnamed country had hired a former politician, who proposed bringing a prime minister’s family member into the spies’ orbit
- Opposition leader Peter Dutton said ‘it is incumbent to either give a little bit more criteria or a little bit more of a hint as to who the person might be’
In an extraordinary public revelation, Australia’s director general of security Mark Burgess said a spy team from an unnamed country had cultivated and recruited a former Australian politician.
“This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime,” the spy chief said in a speech in Canberra on Wednesday.
The unnamed former politician had been recruited “several years ago”, said Burgess, who runs the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
The person had even proposed bringing a prime minister’s family member into the “spies’ orbit”, a plan that did not proceed, he said.
The former politician did, however, organise an overseas conference at which spies posing as bureaucrats targeted participants for recruitment, eventually obtaining security and defence information from an academic, Burgess said.