Burgess said ASIO confronted the spies, quietly got them out of the country and canceled the security clearance of the government employee who had access to details of defense technology.
The nation behind the spying operation “was not from a country in our region,” he said at the time, and naming it “would be an unnecessary distraction.”
Some media reports about the 2021 speech speculated that Burgess was likely referring to Russia.
In his 2023 threat assessment, Burgess described the operations of a separate foreign “hive of spies,” which he later identified as Russian operatives by that masthead.
Greens home affairs spokesman David Shoebridge said Australia needed to make clear to India that these were “clearly not the actions of an alleged ally”.
“It speaks volumes for the degree of subservience and self-censorship by successive Australian governments that we are only hearing about this four years after the event through revelations in the US,” he said.
“Australia must have a strong, mature and honest relationship with India that includes being frank about human rights and political challenges [Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party] The BJP administration is creating both at home and abroad.”
An ASIO spokesman said: “As is long-standing practice, ASIO does not comment on intelligence matters.”
The Indian High Commission in Canberra did not respond to a request for comment.
the mail The report also accused an Indian RAW official, Vikram Yadav, of allegedly ordering a contract strike team to kill prominent Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the US.
One of the key figures in the global Khalistan movement, Pannun is the spokesperson and legal adviser for the organization Sikhs for Justice, which advocates the creation of a separate Sikh state.
Pannun has been designated as a terrorist by the Indian government.
Ian Hall, an expert on Indian politics at Griffith University, said he was surprised to learn that the “nest of spies” Burgess referred to in his 2021 speech was an Indian operation.
He said it was telling that the spies had been quietly removed from the country without prosecution or public rebuke from the Australian government.
“That tells you how incredibly important India is and how determined Australia is not to derail the relationship.”
While Australia and the United States were determined to stay close to India for economic and strategic reasons, he added, “These kinds of things can go away and create mistrust.”
Hall said American anger at India's attempt to assassinate Pannun on American soil helped explain why plans to hold a meeting of leaders of the Quad, made up of India, Australia , the US and Japan, in India this year looked shaky.
“Some of the Quad initiatives, like quantum computing, require a lot of trust between member nations, and these kinds of things don't help develop that,” Hall said.
Hall said India's RAW was outdated, underfunded and not as skilled as other foreign spy agencies, such as Israel's Mossad.
Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Randhir Jaiswal responded publicationTwitter's report on Twitter saying, “The report in question makes unwarranted and unsubstantiated allegations about a serious matter.
“There is an ongoing inquiry by the high-level committee set up by the Government of India to investigate the security concerns shared by the US government about organized criminal, terrorist and other networks.
“Speculative and irresponsible comments about it are not helpful.”
The Modi government is expected to easily return to power for a third term in the ongoing elections in India.
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