Foreign spies in our midst

FOREIGN spies under the control of governments overseas are feared to have planted digital viruses to disrupt Australia’s critical networks such as electricity, water and food delivery in the event of the country going to war.

The Sunday Territorian can reveal intelligence agencies have learned that a “dormant presence” is believed to be lurking in the country’s critical networks, ready to be deployed if Australia becomes involved in a conflict in the region or in a humanitarian crisis.

It can also be revealed that more than 10 suspected spies have left Australia in the past 12 months after being confronted with strong evidence they were involved in foreign interference.

In an exclusive interview with News Corp, Liberal senator James Paterson, chair of the federal parliament’s powerful intelligence and security committee, said espionage efforts by China in Australia had never been higher and the country is “by far and away the biggest threat”.

Speaking about the spectre of foreign spies having infiltrated Australia’s critical infrastructure, Senator Paterson did not name China directly, but said: “The sobering thing about that is we have had independent experts before the committee say they believe it is likely there is already a dormant presence on some of those critical networks of a foreign state that could be activated in the event of a regional conflict or crisis.

“And that activation could be used to disable Australia internally and to weaken us to prevent us from projecting our power in the region and prevent us from coming to the aid of our friends and allies.”