Australia spy chief warns of neo-Nazi threat
Australia's intelligence chief has warned of a "real threat" to the country's security from neo-Nazis.
ASIO Director General Mike Burgess said "small cells" of right-wing extremists were meeting regularly to salute Nazi flags and share their ideology.
He said the threat from foreign espionage was also now greater than through the Cold War.
And he revealed that a foreign "sleeper agent" had been planted in Australia and conducted espionage for a few years.
After a long amount of dormancy, the agent had started feeding information to handlers and causing problems for dissidents from their country of origin, before being caught, Mr Burgess said.
He didn't specify which country had planted the agent.
In a rare public address at the headquarters of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Mr Burgess said the threat from the extreme right was real and growing.
"In suburbs around Australia, small cells regularly meet to salute Nazi flags, inspect weapons, train in combat and share their hateful ideology," he said.
He cited the case of an Australian being prevented from leaving the united states to fight on a foreign battlefield.
Cases such as this were rare at the moment but "concerning", he said.
Two years ago Australian media obtained a photo of an Australian army vehicle in Afghanistan flying a swastika flag in 2007, an incident that was condemned by then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as "completely unacceptable".
However, defence sources said the incident was much more likely to be always a "twisted joke" than genuine right-wing extremism.
About foreign espionage, the intelligence chief said a variety of nations were seeking to influence politicians, media figures, business leaders and academics.
"The amount of threat we face from foreign espionage and interference activities happens to be unprecedented. It really is higher now, than it had been at the height of the Cold War," he said.
Mr Burgess's comments come despite a wide-ranging package of laws being passed in 2018 targeted at avoiding foreign interference including espionage.
At the time Mr Turnbull acknowledged "disturbing reports about Chinese influence", an assertion strongly denied by Beijing.
