We give you land, provide expertise, and this is how the Singapore army treats us.......
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
LATELINE
Late night news & current affairs
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TONY JONES: Two weeks ago it was reported that the Federal government had given high-level assurances to concerned executives that it supports the proposed takeover bid of Australia's second largest telco by SingTel.
There's been no confirmation of that since the bid is still before the Foreign Investment Review Board.
But the reports followed a statement by the Defence Minister, Peter Reith, that national security issues posed no threat to the takeover.
Given the close links between SingTel and the Singaporean government, the national security issue has provoked both public debate and deep concern in some sections of Australia's intelligence community.
So, would the position be different if it were known that Singapore had already used its links with Australia to spy on it or if it had recruited an Australian mole in our most sensitive defence communications facility?
Those are precisely the allegations being made by a number of people in our next story, the first of a special two-part investigation by Nick Grimm.
NICK GRIMM: Publicly, Singapore and Australia have long been the best of friends.
But, eight years ago, even as we celebrated the arrival of the first foreign forces to be stationed on Australian soil since World War II, Singapore already had its spies in our midst.
PROFESSOR DES BALL, STRATEGIC AND DEFENCE STUDIES CENTRE: Singapore is more actively engaged in intelligence collection activities in this part of the world than any other Southeast Asian country.
PROFESSOR ROSS BABBAGE, STRATEGY INTERNATIONAL: The reality is we can't afford to be naive here.
It's not just one or two instances that have occurred in the last 20 years.
It's a whole series of instances.
NICK GRIMM: The allegations being raised tonight go much further than the kind of low-level eavesdropping that occurs between most nations.
WARREN REED, FORMER ASIS OFFICER: They're getting some of our most closely guarded secrets and they're being sold by Australian traitors.
NICK GRIMM: In the most serious incident that's been revealed, it's alleged Singapore recruited an Australian military intelligence officer to do its bidding at least 20 years ago.
Despite one arrest being made, it's understood the traitor in the army's intelligence ranks was never caught.
PROFESSOR DES BALL: They still believed that someone was working for the Singaporeans but it was not the individual who had been charged in 1981.
NICK GRIMM: They essentially had the wrong man?
PROFESSOR DES BALL: Yes, there had been suspicions over the past decade that, in so far as some other person had been, and may still have been, working for the Singaporeans, that a fall guy had, in fact, been set up to provide a cover for the operation.
NICK GRIMM: So there is the risk that that compromise of our military intelligence may still exist, that the person may still be out there and may still have access to confidential material?
PROFESSOR DES BALL: That's quite possible.
NICK GRIMM: Lateline understands that ASIO has ensured both the Australian and Singapore governments are fully aware that it knows the extent of the problem.
One of the few official acknowledgements of Singapore's infiltration of our military intelligence system, is a brief mention of espionage by Asian governments in ASIO's 1994 annual report to parliament.
The report stated: "During the year, ASIO identified a number of intelligence functionaries working in Australia and gained new insights into the interests of several foreign governments."
Now, Lateline can make public for the first time that one of the countries of most concern is Singapore.
And, according to Australia's leading military intelligence expert, Professor Des Ball, Singapore did not cease its spying activities when ASIO published its report.
PROFESSOR DES BALL: Those activities included photographic intelligence, signals intelligence collection and, quite possibly, the recruitment of Australians to spy on their behalf.
NICK GRIMM: The extent of Singapore's espionage activity in Australia may have always remained an official secret but for corporate takeover plans by the Singapore government-controlled telecommunications company, SingTel, that would see it swallow up Australia's second largest telco, Cable & Wireless Optus.
With the deal, goes ownership of Australia's main defence satellite, the channel through which many of our most sensitive military communications are sent.
So disturbed by this prospect are some in defence circles, that senior figures, with close links within the Australian government and the Defence Department, are now prepared to go public with details of just how extensively Singapore has breached our military secrets.
In doing so, they're prepared to trigger a diplomatic incident and put their own professional reputations on the line in a bid to protect our national security.
Professor Ross Babbage is a former assistant secretary of the Australian Defence Department and now a leading regional security analyst.
You're saying we shouldn't take the Singaporeans at their word when they say, "We will obey your laws"?
PROFESSOR ROSS BABBAGE: I have trouble personally accepting that that would be the case, given their track record, but, if the government is convinced, well then it seems to me that the Australian public has got a right to know why they are convinced that, in fact, the Singaporeans are going to play straight.
NEWSREEL: Early in the morning and a quiet invasion is under way.
The Singaporeans have arrived.
NICK GRIMM: In 1993, part of the Singapore Air Force took up residence at Pearce Air Base near Perth in WA.
The Singaporeans had come in search of wide-open airspace where they could conduct flight training operations without agitating their neighbouring states like Malaysia.
Pearce offered the perfect setting.
However, it also provided access to a number of other Australian military installations and soon after the Singaporeans arrived claims emerged that some of their pilots were taking aerial photographs of things they shouldn't.
ROBERT KARNIOL, JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY: I was told by a number of Australian defence officials that, in the early 1990s that there was a problem with some of the Singaporean pilots very aggressively flying out of the controlled areas that their flights were supposed to be limited into and engaging in photo reconnaissance activity.
NICK GRIMM: Robert Karniol is Asia Pacific editor with the international defence journal, Jane's Defence Weeky.
When he examined spy rumours seven years ago, he encountered only contradictions.
ROBERT KARNIOL: One Singaporean friend of mine who I asked about this directly said that, in fact, this whole situation centred around a single incident where one particularly enthusiastic young pilot took it on himself to snap some pictures.
NICK GRIMM: According to that version of the story, the issue was discussed by the two governments and the film was returned and the problem ended there.
The Australians that I've spoken to disagree with that and say the problem was broader.
NICK GRIMM: Professor Ball says the Singaporeans were also eavesdropping with the help of a modified C-130 Hercules aircraft filled with electronic monitoring equipment and fitted with retractable antennae, a spy plane which they could fly in and out of our air bases unhindered.
PROFESSOR DES BALL: It would have told them a lot about the sorts of electronic equipment that is around our defence facilities, our radars, the operating frequencies of those radars, different sorts of navigation beacons.
NICK GRIMM: If the spying had stopped there, the breach to our military security would have been serious enough.
But it appears to have gone much further.
It may not look like much, but this field of antennae near Toowoomba in Queensland provides a clue to one of Australia's most sensitive military secrets.
At least, it's supposed to be secret.
This is the home of the Australian Army's Cabarlah Electronic Warfare Unit.
Professor Ball says a spy may have been active at this highly confidential military base for the past two decades.
PROFESSOR DES BALL: In 1993-'94, there was quite significant concern at the DSD listening station at Cabarlah in Queensland, just near Toowoomba, about whether that facility had been penetrated by Singaporean intelligence authorities, in other words, whether the Singaporeans had managed to recruit someone at that listening station.
NICK GRIMM: That must have been pretty serious, if that station had been compromised by a foreign power?
PROFESSOR DES BALL: Yes, it would have been extremely serious.
DSD, our listening organisation, is the most secret, the most sensitive and, undoubtedly, the most productive of all the Australian intelligence organisations.
NICK GRIMM: According to Professor Ball, key military intelligence officers at the Cabarlah listening station were told in a security briefing in 1994 to be on guard against "examples of the hostile nature of the Singaporean authorities."
It appears the gathering of senior officers was warned that a spy may have been active in the Seven Signals regiment since 1981, when it was first discovered that someone had been passing highly confidential material on to a senior Singaporean naval officer.
PROFESSOR DES BALL: There had been earlier evidence, going back to the early 1980s, that the Singaporeans had, in fact, recruited someone already then at Cabarlah, a particular army person was in fact arrested by the Australian Army Intelligence Corps, but charges were never proceeded with against him, not because it wasn't believed that penetration hadn't occurred.
Indeed, it was believed that the Singaporeans had recruited someone there, but it was decided that the particular person that had been charged was, in fact, not guilty that, if, in fact, there was someone involved, it was not him.
It was someone else.
NICK GRIMM: And that other person has never been located?
PROFESSOR DES BALL: No.
NICK GRIMM: Warren Reed is a former intelligence officer of 10 years standing with the Australian Security and Intelligence Service.
He says Singaporean and other Asian spies have long gone unchecked, because the Australian government wants to avoid scandal.
WARREN REED: We should have criminal prosecutions.
We're talking about possible Singaporean espionage activity on Australian soil.
I might ask you to name to me one spy from an Asian country we have ever caught on Australian soil in the last 20, 30 years.
Can you name one?
I can't.
NICK GRIMM: Does that mean they don't exist?
WARREN REED: It certainly doesn't mean they don't exist.
We would be naive in the extreme to believe that intelligence operatives from Asian countries aren't operating on our soil and aren't being successful.
NICK GRIMM: According to Ross Babbage, Professor Ball's allegations come from reliable sources and are just the tip of the iceberg.
PROFESSOR ROSS BABBAGE: Oh, there's a whole range of things.
In fact, there are other things as well as the ones that you have listed.
There's a whole range of things, a portfolio of activities, that have been undertaken in the last few years.
NICK GRIMM: Professor Babbage says he won't reveal details of what he knows about Singapore's spying, because he'd risk being charged with betraying Australia's military secrets.
But he does confirm it's been going on and he's gone public now because he fears vital national security issues are at stake.
And he says there are many people within the Defence Department who share his concern.
PROFESSOR ROSS BABBAGE: There are some people who have the view that the Singaporeans almost can't help themselves in some agencies, you know, when they get into a situation where they can collect some information, it's almost congenital and they're inclined to do it anyway and that's unfortunate and it really has put some stresses in the relationship, stresses where, in a range of situations, I'm well aware, that some senior Australians have been very uncomfortable in allowing routine access by Singaporeans to defence bases and other installations.
NICK GRIMM: So far, the Australian government has indicated to Singapore that it believes steps can be taken to protect our defence communications.
SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVE: You have your processes here and we respect that there must be due process.
NICK GRIMM: But there's a view in Australian defence circles that the Optus takeover shouldn't be allowed to go ahead, under any circumstances, regardless of what safeguards are put in place.
Certainly, it seems the time of these revelations coming now are clearly calculated to increase pressure on the Australian government to reject the deal in the interests of our national security.
PROFESSOR ROSS BABBAGE: I personally would take a lot of convincing that this is -- this can be organised and arranged in such a way that Australia's interests really are going to be safeguarded.
NICK GRIMM: Is part of the concern that regardless of what the Singaporeans do, the Australian security system will be compromised or potentially compromised?
PROFESSOR DES BALL: There will always be questions about the extent to which every particular vulnerability, in terms of every channel, every circuit, every switching point, has been covered.
That concern will be never-ending.
