SYDNEY: Australia‘s govt faced angry demands Thursday to name a “traitor” former politician accused by Canberra’s top spy of having “sold out” the country to a foreign power.
In an extraordinary revelation, director-general of security Mike Burgess said a spy team from an unidentified country had cultivated and recruited a former politician. “This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime,” he said in a speech in Canberra Wednesday.
Australia is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group that includes the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand – making it a juicy target for operatives from countries like China and Russia.
Burgess said the unidentified former politician had been recruited “several years ago”. The person had even proposed bringing a PM’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.
Following the claims, Alex Turnbull, son of former PM Malcolm Turnbull, said he was approached about an infrastructure project by suspected Chinese agents when his father was in office in 2017.