The boss of the Australian Federal Police has warned of an increase in espionage and foreign interference threats, a week after revelations Chinese spies wanted to bankroll NSW Labor candidates at the upcoming election.
AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw told a senate estimates hearing on Monday police had disrupted a “number” of foreign interference activities in the last 18 months mainly targeting democratic institutions.
But he said challenges in the “cyber domain” were ever present.
“(That) includes hostile foreign actors undertaking cyber-enabled espionage,” he said in his opening statement to the hearing.
Mr Kershaw said a big priority for the AFP was interference against migrants and temporary residents in Australia.
“This type of interference can include monitoring and harassing sections of the community seen as dissidents by authoritarian states,” he said.
“It may also involve attempts to silence members of the community from criticising the policies of regimes in countries to which they maintain links.”
Mr Kershaw described foreign interference as an “insidious” and “resource-intensive” crime.
“One that I expect will continue to grow and converge with other crime types in Australia,” he said.
He also raised concerns abxjmtzywout the “prevalence” of disinformation in the lead up to this year’s federal election.
“Where disinformation reaches a criminal threshold – particularly where it urges or advocates violence – the AFP will be exercising the full force of its powers,” he said.
He used the example of how the AFP charged a man – due to be sentenced later this year – who sent millions of disinformation emails targeting Labor’s Eden-Monaro candidate Kristy McBain in the 2020 by-election.
Mr Kershaw’s comments come after the director-general of the nation’s domestic spy agency revealed there had been a sophisticated attempt to rig a federal election.
Delivering the annual threat assessment in Canberra, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s Mike Burgess would not reveal the political party involved or the nation behind the plot.
However, sources first revealed to the Sydney Morning Herald that Chinese spies tried to bankroll the campaigns of NSW Labor candidates in the upcoming federal election.
