(Image: Zennie/Private Media)

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) is paying $252,067.50 for “promotional merchandise”. Now, we don’t claim to be experts on spying, but we’ve always thought one of the smartest and coolest things James Bond does in The Living Daylights is opt out of the MI6-branded hoodie Q branch gives him.

The recipient of this largesse is Paddywack Promotional Products, whose jingle, in case you’re interested, goes:

“Paddywack, place your name on anything,

“Paddywack, will make you famous,

“Monogrammed in caps, put your name on this and that,

“There’ll be absolutely no one you’re the same as.”

We asked the ASD for some examples of what would be produced (clothing, stationery etc) and what purpose this would be put to — but those masters of the dark arts would reveal only that “ASD acquires merchandise to support its public-facing cybersecurity function”.

Of course, spending a quarter of a million bucks on T-shirts advertising that the owner survived a certain team-building exercise is extremely on brand for Australia’s “funnest” spy gang. Back in 2018 it launched an unverified Twitter account, hilariously reminding us that it is always listening: “Hi internet, ASD here. Long time listener, first time caller.”

Was that a reference to the data and telecommunications traffic from Australians that the ASD obtained from tapping a regional undersea telecommunications cable on behalf of the US and UK intelligence agencies? Or perhaps its offer — revealed by Edward Snowden — to share “bulk, unselected, unminimised metadata” about Australians with Five Eyes agencies? The account is still there, incidentally, still unverified, still knocking out fun puns and Star Wars content.

And of course it was the ASD that spent up on a run of 50,000 commemorative 50 cent coins etched with a code and covered with lines and lines of numbers, as well as the phrase “reveal and protect”, a combination which as well could have come with its own conspiracy theories attached.