The national spy agency is on a recruitment drive for foreign language specialists amid reports China is stepping up espionage activities in Australia.
The Australian newspaper said today that in the past two years ASIO had more than doubled intelligence officers from non-English speaking backgrounds.
Many of the new recruits were said to be fluent Chinese speakers tasked to a new counter-espionage unit created to cope with the increased number of Chinese spies in Australia.
The Chinese spies were said to be posing as diplomats or business figures, seeking information on military technologies and business secrets.
But ASIO was also said to be well below strength in Arabic speakers, with perhaps only a dozen fluent Arabic speakers employed full-time by the organisation, raising fears ASIO is not properly equipped to keep watch on radical Muslim groups in Australia.
The reported shortfall in Arabic speakers matches similar stories from the US, where both the CIA and FBI are said to be struggling to recruit agents with Middle Eastern language skills.
The problem is made worse by the difficulty in obtaining timely security clearances for Arabic speakers, as ASIO is required to look into a candidate's past, including any time spent in the Middle East.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock refused to be drawn on concerns about more aggressive Chinese espionage techniques or on suggestions ASIO was short on Arabic speakers.
"They're not matters that I will comment on," he told Sky TV.
"I can neither confirm nor deny particular numbers and it wouldn't be appropriate to put information of that sort into the public arena.
"You need to have language skills in an organisation like ASIO ... I neither confirm nor deny the precise numbers of people that are available with a range of language skills and cultural backgrounds which can be helpful to the organisation," he said.
The Attorney-General said ASIO was using a number of strategies to bring the organisation's language base up to date.
Labor's homeland security spokesman Arch Bevis said the government had been too slow to recruit foreign language speakers to Australia's intelligence agencies.
"I think there's been a dragging the ball approach across a number of languages and clearly there's been an issue with Chinese speaking people but there's also been a big issue with people of a number of languages," Mr Bevis told Sky News today.
Mr Bevis acknowledged it was a tough ask to recruit large numbers of Arabic speakers, but said there was a large pool of Australian citizens willing to make a contribution the government should be drawing on.
He said it was a concern that ASIO's language base was so slim five years on from the September 11 attacks.
ASIO is currently undergoing the most dramatic expansion in the organisation's history, with plans to increase its numbers from 1,200 to 1,860 by 2010-11.
The move to grow the agency came immediately after last year's terrorist bombings in London, which were carried out by men born and raised in the UK.
The nature of the attacks sparked fears in Australia that ASIO was not equipped to detect similar plots here.
It is believed that not only ASIO, but also other agencies such as the Australian Secret Intelligence Agency, the Defence Signals Directorate, the Defence Intelligence Agency and the Australian Federal Police are all struggling to recruit Arabic speakers.
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