“It’s a person who led a delegation with academics to a foreign...

“It’s a person who led a delegation with academics to a foreign country and that they were cultivated,” James Paterson told ABC TV.“Very, very few people who have ever led a delegation to China, it doesn’t cast an aspersion about everyone.”

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/2024/03/01/spy-retrospective
Snippets:
MPs on all sides of politics have expressed reservations about retrospectively applying foreign interference laws to a former politician outed as having helped a foreign intelligence service.

ASIO director-general Mike Burgess revealed an unnamed former politician had been caught up in a spy ring and “sold out their country, party and former colleagues”.

Foreign interference laws came into effect in late 2018.So it could be devised that the former politician was active before that time or that authorities didn’t have enough evidence to support a prosecution, international law expert Professor Don Rothwell said.

Multiple MPs across party lines, speaking to AAP on background on the condition of anonymity, expressed reservations about retroactively applying the 2018 law despite being outraged at the person’s conduct.Reasons for this included it was legally dubious to retrofit laws and a person shouldn’t be targeted for following the laws of the land at that time.

The person wasn’t active and Australia was a rule of law country, Mr Burgess said when pressed on why the name was being kept secret.

But it would be unfair to publicly name someone who hadn’t been charged, especially with the risk of defamation, opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said.He also hit back at suggestions all politicians were besmirched, hinting at who the person was.

“It’s a person who led a delegation with academics to a foreign country and that they were cultivated,” he told ABC TV.“Very, very few people who have ever led a delegation to China, it doesn’t cast an aspersion about everyone.”