ALP uses privilege to call out ‘puppeteer’

A Labor senator has used parliamentary privilege to accuse Chinese-Australian business developer Chau Chak Wing of being the man behind a recent attempted foreign influence plot.

It comes a week after ASIO said it had recently detected and disrupted a foreign interference plot in the lead-up to an election in Australia.

The case involved an unnamed wealthy person – described as the “puppeteer” – who had “direct and deep connections with a foreign government and its intelligence agencies”, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said.

It was later revealed by Nine newspapers that this person was an unnamed Chinese businessman who had tried to bankroll potential federal NSW Labor candidates and get sympathetic MPs elected to parliament.

Victorian senator Kimberly Kitching on Monday night asked Mr Burgess under privilege if the man he referred to as the “puppeteer” was Dr Chau.

“I am reliably informed that the puppeteer mentioned in your case study in your annual threat assessment speech given last week is Chau Chak Wing,” she said during a Senate estimates hearing.

But Mr Burgess wouldn’t be drawn on the man’s identity, telling the hearing it was “unfair” of the senator to publicly ask him such a question.

“I will not comment on speculation of who is and who isn’t targets, in general, or in specific,” he said.

In 2021, billionaire Dr Chau was awarded $590,000 in damages after a Federal Court judge found a 2017 joint ABC/Nine report had defamed him.

Dr Chau had sued the ABC, Nine and Nick McKenzie, an investigative reporter at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, over the joint report “Power and Influence”.

While Justice Steven Rares rejected a claim the report aired on Four Corners and published in Nine outlets imputed Dr Chau was a spy for China, he did find the report suggested he paid huge bribes to Australian political bodies to advance China’s interests.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese last week said the head of Australia’s counter-espionage and intelligence agency had never raised concerns with him about any Labor candidates.

Labor senator Kristina Keneally pressed Mr Burgess in the estimates hearing about whether there were concerns about foreign interference involving any of Labor’s federal candidates.

Mr Burgess would not specifically comment except to say Mr Albanese “gave an accurate account of the conversation I had with him last week when he asked me that question”.

Senator Keneally also took aim at security sources linked to last week’s Nine story, with Mr Burgess saying the term “security sources” should be taken broadly and does not explicitly mean an ASIO staff member.

“So, for example, people you brief, their advisors, people who have access to written briefings on secure servers, when we talk about ‘broad’ is that the type of ‘broad’?” the senator asked.

Mr Burgess replied: “By its very definition ‘broad’, there have been many people, not just in my organisation that fall into that category”.

He said he wouldn’t take it to assume the security source referred to an ASIO agent.

Senator Keneally noted ASIO’s legislation said “the communication of intelligence on behalf of the organisation shall be made only by the director-general or by a person acting within the limits of authority conferred on the person by the director-general”.

Mr Burgess said he provided an outline of what his threat assessment would cover to the minister for home affairs but “didn’t go into great detail”.

He didn’t confirm whether there were any internal investigations into how the details of the plot were leaked to the media.

“That’s difficult, because that’s, you’re talking about (this) as if this was true. So I need to be careful on how I answer that question,” he said.

“Hypothetically, our intelligence is there to be used for national interest purposes only, not interests of individuals. Where it is misused that’s a problem.”

Mr Burgess said if there were any hypothetical misuse of information, he would look at whether an investigation was necessary.

ALP uses privilege to call out ‘puppeteer’
Independent Information