Australia’s domestic spy agency, ASIO, has disrupted a plot by an unnamed foreign state-power to help friendly candidates get elected in this year’s federal elections. Director-General of ASIO Mike Burgess made the announcement in his Annual Threat Assessment speech on Feb. 9, saying the plot was an excellent example of what political interference “actually looks like.” “I can confirm that ASIO recently detected and disrupted a foreign interference plot in the lead-up to an election in Australia,” Burgess said, admitting that the agency saw attempts at foreign interference at all levels of government and in all states and territories. According to Burgess, a wealthy individual with “direct and deep connections” to a foreign government and its intelligence agencies acted as a puppeteer hiring an Australian proxy to secretly shape the political scene of a local electorate to benefit the foreign power directly. Burgess declined to name the electorate and the foreign …