Good work, Mr Burgess. But how about some prosecutions? How about getting some names out in the open to deter others?

"Based on what ASIO is seeing, more Australians are being targeted for espionage and foreign interference than at any time in Australia's history - more hostile foreign intelligence services, more spies, more targeting, more harm, more ASIO investigations, more ASIO disruptions," Burgess said in his Annual Threat Assessment statement. "From where I sit, it feels like hand-to-hand combat."

Well, maybe ASIO would be wrestling with fewer villains if we put a bit of wariness into unpatriotic Australians before they took reckless or treacherous decisions to undermine the security of this country.

The problem is not just spying. As we finally came to understand around 2017, foreign governments also try to influence our politics to shape our policy in their favour. And some seek to silence their critics in this country.

Burgess did not disclose how many cases ASIO is uncovering, but a reasonable guess is that it's tens per year, many or most of them involving some crime under our national security laws.

Yet we see almost no prosecutions.

Analyst John Coyne of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute cautions that a security agency is in no position to send all its cases to court.

An agency may have enough information to be sure that someone should be quietly kicked out of the country, or it may know quite enough to confidently let a foreign government's operative know that he or she has been sprung.

But that, Coyne says, may be a long way from having beyond-reasonable-doubt evidence - and more particularly such evidence that the organisation is willing to expose in court. Security agencies have to go about their business quietly.

Fair enough, but in some cases it should be possible to call in the police for separate investigations that independently uncover usable evidence of crimes. It's a fair bet that this is hardly ever done mostly because of ASIO's cultural habit of keeping its head down. Publicity just isn't its cup of tea.

Burgess told a story of someone whom he called a lackey of another country's intelligence service, a person who tried to organise a trip to that country for Australian journalists so they, their phones and computers could be pumped for information.

This person was "well connected and well regarded in business and political circles, Australian-born and not publicly associated with the overseas government but all too willing to put its interests ahead of Australia's."

From that description, we can't tell whether an offence was committed, let alone whether evidence could have been taken to court. But if in fact the case had proceeded to prosecution and the scoundrel had been publicly exposed, perhaps jailed, the next Australian who wouldn't mind selling out our country might be a little more hesitant.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus needs to talk to Burgess about this reluctance to prosecute. The load on ASIO is growing, and the more it has to do, the greater the chance that it will miss things. So we should be making it harder for foreign governments to find Australians who are willing to betray us.

Meanwhile, we have an arrangement for people and organisations to register connections with foreign governments, the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.

In what must be one of the most ridiculous governmental performances in years, the Attorney-General's department has turned it into a farce.

As Malcolm Turnbull told the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security this week, the scheme was devised in 2018 when he was prime minister to create transparency. Everyone knew that the chief problem was China.

More particularly, the problem was, and is, the activity of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, whose chief function is controlling and exploiting overseas Chinese. We can assume it wants its fingers in every ethnic-Chinese organisation in Australia.

If people or groups fail to put their connections on the foreign influence list, the A-G's department can chase them with please-explain letters. Yet it does not seem to have been highly focused in this work.

MORE AGE OF THE DRAGON:

Turnbull told the committee: "According to the transparency register, there is apparently no organisation in Australia that has any association with the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China. Now, I would love to think that was true, but regrettably I can say absolutely that it is not true."

"If in fact it were true there would be terrible repercussions in Beijing for those responsible for the United Front Work Department," he added, suppressing a giggle.

But never fear. Our bureaucrats have been busy. They have indeed been sending foreign interference letters to some people, including - wait for it - Malcolm Turnbull.

And Kevin Rudd. And Tony Abbott.

All have had some connection to organisations owned by foreign governments. Rudd was interviewed by the BBC, for example. So A-G's was on to him.

I reckon even the writers of Yes Minister would have had trouble coming up with that story line.

The committee is looking at how the legislation could be improved, and it surely can be. Turnbull suggests it might just be administered a little more intelligently.

Frankly, it's astounding that he needs to say so.