Cameron Stewart of “The Australian” newspaper (21 February) reports Burgess as saying:
“As the AUKUS project matures, (foreign adversaries) might go ‘the best way to stop Australia from having this is to turn the community against nuclear-propelled submarines’ … (they will) stir the pot, which will be detrimental to our national interests.”

So Burgess thinks that people like Malcolm Turnbull (and me) who speak out against the AUKUS project are acting against Australia’s “national interests”. In Russia, people who speak out against Russian military policies are often jailed as traitors. Burgess would appear to welcome something like this in Australia.