Australia’s spy boss Mike Burgess highlights foreign intelligence operations, antisemitism and election disinformation in annual threat assessment speechGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAt least three countries have plotted to harm Australians abroad and on home soil, including a planned assassination to silence a human rights activist, Australia’s spy boss has revealed.In a wide-ranging annual threat assessment speech on Wednesday night, which warned of an unprecedented level of threats until 2030, Mike Burgess, the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, highlighted a foreign intelligence operation foiled by his agency.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…Australia’s spy boss Mike Burgess highlights foreign intelligence operations, antisemitism and election disinformation in annual threat assessment speechGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAt least three countries have plotted to harm Australians abroad and on home soil, including a planned assassination to silence a human rights activist, Australia’s spy boss has revealed.In a wide-ranging annual threat assessment speech on Wednesday night, which warned of an unprecedented level of threats until 2030, Mike Burgess, the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, highlighted a foreign intelligence operation foiled by his agency.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…
At least three countries have plotted to harm Australians abroad and on home soil, including a planned assassination to silence a human rights activist, Australia’s spy boss has revealed.
In a wide-ranging annual threat assessment speech on Wednesday night, which warned of an unprecedented level of threats until 2030, Mike Burgess, the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, highlighted a foreign intelligence operation foiled by his agency.
The foreign spies, from an undisclosed country, had attempted to lure an Australia-based human rights activist to a third country, where the plotters would allegedly seriously injure or kill the activist but make it look like an accident.
Burgess said Asio has stopped the activist from travelling to the overseas trap. He said the agency had held similarly grave concerns for a small number of other Australians, and attempts to injure them.
“We shouldn’t be complacent, or consider ourselves insulated from any of these threats. We are not immune to hostile nation states … undertaking acts of security concern on our shores or near region,” he said.
“Whether such acts serve an internal interest, or a form of retaliation against Israel or our allies, we need to remain alert and responsive to these evolutions.”
The top intelligence official also warned of another country attempting to harm and possibly kill Australians on home soil in 2024. Asio worked with international partners to determine it was part of a broader effort to take out the country’s critics abroad – including activists, journalists and ordinary citizens.
“The regime considers them opponents; we would call them human rights advocates,” he said.
In 2023, the former home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, revealed a foiled attempt by Iran targeting an Iranian-Australian critic of its regime on Australian soil.
Burgess said his agency was aware of at least four countries who had targeted individuals living in Australia to coerce their return, noting the foreign spies used a range of tactics including threats against their families, and seizing their assets.
“While coerced repatriations can have dire consequences for the individuals being victimised, they also have a broader chilling effect on diaspora in Australia,” he said.
Israel-Gaza conflict gives oxygen to antisemitism
Spikes in communal violence, one of Asio’s seven focuses, were expected over the next five years, Burgess said, and would continue to impact social cohesion.
“Antisemitism festered in Australia before the tragic events in the Middle East, but the drawn-out conflict gave it oxygen – and gave some antisemites an excuse,” he said.
Burgess said the “normalisation of violent protest and intimidating behaviour” as a result of the conflict in Gaza had lowered the threshold for “provocative and potentially violent acts” against Jewish Australians.
“Narratives originally centred on ‘freeing Palestine’ expanded to include incitements to ‘kill the Jews’,” he said.
“Threats transitioned from harassment and intimidation to specific targeting of Jewish communities, places of worship and prominent figures. I am concerned these attacks have not yet plateaued.”
Election disinformation and foreign interference threats
With a federal election looming, Asio “will be watching”, Burgess said.
“If a foreign regime tries to meddle in the election by pressuring diaspora groups, directing foreign language newspapers, spreading disinformation on social media or using any of the other tactics sometimes seen overseas, we will know. And we will act,” he said.
Burgess said future political tensions or conflicts occurring elsewhere in the world could “resonate quickly” in Australia due to the role of social media.
The online world was also playing a role in the high caseload of minors attempting to carry out terrorist plots.
Almost all of the terrorist plots Asio disrupted last year involved minors, Burgess said in his speech. All were attempted by lone actors or small groups and none of the attacks or plots were directly inspired by the conflict in Gaza.
Burgess said Asio had disrupted five major terrorism plots in 2024 but did not provide further details.
In December, the Australian federal police and Asio put out a joint warning on a rise of youth radicalisation, leading to potential terrorist offences.
The annual threat assessment stated the trend showed the median age minors were first subject to investigation by Asio since 2013 was now 15 years old. About 85% of the minor caseload was male and overwhelmingly Australian-born.
The agency had noted minors allegedly sharing beheading videos at school and one 12-year-old had allegedly planned to blow up a place of worship, he said.
In another investigation, Asio uncovered a 17-year-old allegedly watching Nazi propaganda and Ku Klux Klan videos.
Burgess said “AI-fuelled algorithms” would make it easier for extremist material to find vulnerable adolescent minds that were searching for meaning and connection.
Burgess painted a concerning view of Australia’s security climate over the latter half of the decade. He warned the country had “never faced so many different threats at scale at once”.
“As one of my analysts put it with an uncharacteristic nod to popular culture: everything, everywhere all at once,” he said.
‘High-impact sabotage’ on the cards
Aukus, Australia’s trilateral technology and information-sharing deal with the UK and US, remained a priority target for foreign intelligence services, including from friendly countries, Asio said.
Burgess said multiple countries were “relentlessly seeking information about our military capabilities”. In one example, gifts presented to defence personnel by international counterparts contained concealed surveillance devices.
The intelligence agency was predicting by the end of the decade, foreign intelligence services were likely to focus on undermining community support for Aukus, and potential sabotage, if regional tensions escalated.
“Even in the absence of conflict, foreign regimes are expected to become more determined to, and more capable of, pre-positioning cyber access vectors they can exploit in the future,” Burgess said.
“We are getting closer to the threshold for high-impact sabotage.”
Burgess pointed to adversarial states, such as Russia, or authoritarian regimes as the likely culprits behind more brazen sabotage attempts against Australia’s critical infrastructure.
“As a supporter of and supplier to Ukraine, it is conceivable Russia could also target Australia for sabotage.”
Burgess said while the outlook to 2030 appeared challenging, everyone in society – not just intelligence and law enforcement agencies – needed to work together.
“We cannot be defeatist or insecure about our security. We can and should have confidence in our ability to respond,” he said.
“The dynamics I’ve described are not inevitable. The threats are not insurmountable. Foreign intelligence services are not invincible.”
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