If there are more foreign spies in Canberra than you can point a philby at they aren’t after the Australian Research Council

Labor’s Kim Carr asked in Senate Estimates last week how many Australian Research Council funded projects breached the Defence Control Act, (designed to keep our secrets ours) or been investigated. None, an official answered. Which was the same number as when Senator Carr last asked.

But then again if the government is watching for spies in research the ARC may not be the people to ask. Officers told Estimates that they were not asked to work on guidelines for the University Foreign Interference Taskforce.