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ASIO officers are being embedded within the Defence Department to help prevent foreign spies from stealing the highly prized nuclear-powered submarine secrets Australia plans to acquire under the AUKUS pact with the United States and United Kingdom.

At occasionally fiery Senate estimates hearings – where two Liberal senators were accused of playing “culture war” politics with national security to increase their popularity – ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess defended the agency’s decision to quietly disrupt several foreign interference plots rather than seek criminal prosecutions.

ASIO Director-General of Security Mike Burgess said criminal prosecutions were not always needed to disrupt foreign interference plots.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Burgess said ASIO was on the lookout for any threat to public safety or foreign interference associated with the upcoming Indigenous Voice to parliament referendum campaign, adding there was the possibility of “spontaneous violence” as debate over the issue intensifies.

Burgess described AUKUS as a “great shiny example of something that foreign intelligence services would like to get insights on”, raising the importance of ensuring the Australian Defence Force has the best possible security protections as the nuclear-powered submarine plan advances.

“It’s a new target that has received new attention from foreign intelligence services,” Burgess said.

“I have people embedded in the AUKUS team in Defence that actually help Defence with their security posture … I’m confident Defence understand the threats to security and the job they have to do to manage that risk effectively.”

Attempts to access sensitive Defence information is a “constant” and “very persistent” threat, he added.

Former US spy boss Mike Rogers warned earlier this year that Australia would become an “even more attractive cyber target” because it is gaining access to nuclear-powered submarines, regarded as the crown jewels of the US military.

Australia is set to become just the seventh nation to have nuclear-powered submarines when the AUKUS plan, unveiled in March, comes into effect in the early 2030s.

Burgess came under questioning from Greens senator David Shoebridge over why overseas citizens involved in several foreign interference plots had been quietly removed from the country rather than charged under foreign interference laws that were introduced with much fanfare in 2018.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed in February that a highly active “hive” of Russian spies posing as diplomats was dismantled as part of a sweeping and aggressive counter-espionage offensive by ASIO that saw the participants sent back to Russia.

Burgess also revealed in a speech earlier this year that ASIO had foiled attempts by two foreign powers to physically harm, and in one case even kill, Australian residents who were critics of those regimes.

No charges have been laid over that scheme, or a separate audacious plot by an unidentified foreign power to covertly recruit senior Australian journalists using the offer of an all-expenses-paid overseas study tour.

“What is the point of passing these [foreign interference] laws if we don’t prosecute a hive of spies when we find one?” Shoebridge asked.

“Am I right in saying you can plan to kill Australian citizens and members of the diaspora community and the risk you face in Australia is to have your visa cancelled?”

Burgess said that was “not a valid characterisation” of the way ASIO operates and criminal prosecution is just one tool the agency uses to prevent foreign interference and espionage.

Sometimes the mere act of “an ASIO officer flashing their intelligence badge and having a chat” to potential offenders can stop them from proceeding with a foreign interference attempt, he said.

Diplomats who are actually operating as spies will usually be forced to leave the country rather than face charges, he said.

“My focus is on dealing with the harm in the most effective way,” he said.

Burgess announced last year that foreign interference and espionage had overtaken terrorism as the nation’s major national security threat.

He said ASIO had not uncovered any planned terrorist attacks or foreign interference plots related to the Voice referendum but said the agency was monitoring the issue closely.

“Of course we always keep an open mind to that and we’re on the lookout,” he said.

“Unfortunately we do expect people, as they express their views and exchange their views online, that might inflame some people.

“There might be some protest and counterprotest and some of that might result in spontaneous violence.”

Most extreme views about the Voice posted online so far could be classified as “awful but lawful” he said.

Labor senator Nita Green, who chairs the legal and constitutional affairs legislation committee, said the hearings had “descended into nonsense” when Liberal senator Gerard Rennick tried to question Burgess about the risks of “gain-of-function” medical research such as that used at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, a focus for believers in the “lab-leak” theory of COVID-19’s origins.

Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt accused Rennick and fellow Liberal Party senator Alex Antic of playing “culture war” politics by trying to achieve a viral moment that appeals to their far-right supporters.

Burgess said about 70 per cent of ASIO’s current terrorism caseload was made up of religiously motivated extremism, which largely involves radical Sunni Islamists, and the other 30 per cent was ideologically motivated extremism, largely from neo-Nazis and similar groups.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.

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