Australia's security environment degrading, spy chief warns

SYDNEY: Australia faces multi-faceted threats from autocratic regimes, hackers and antisemitic extremists that present a systemic challenge to national security and are degrading the security environment, the country’s spy chief said.

While Australia’s terrorism ​threat level remains at “probable”, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director-General Mike Burgess said the designation does ‌not accurately capture the “concurrent, cascading and compounding threats.”

ASIO’s annual assessment followed a year in which Australia confronted threats on multiple fronts, from online radicalisation, state-sponsored cyberattacks to arson against Jewish businesses and a mass shooting in Sydney.

“‘Probable’ does not tell the full story. ​The next level on the scale is ‘expected’, which applies when we have intelligence about a specific attack. ​We do not,” Burgess said in the annual threat assessment speech on Wednesday night.

“But ⁠we do know the environment is degrading and acts of politically motivated violence are becoming more likely than ‘probable’ ​suggests.”

Despite the challenges, Australia is well-placed to meet security threats, Burgess said. ASIO has foiled 31 major terror plots ​since 2014 and resolved more than a dozen major terror-related cases since the Bondi Beach mass shooting in December at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration that killed 15 people.

Police said the two alleged gunmen appeared to be inspired by the Islamic State militant group.

Burgess defended ​ASIO’s resource allocation leading up to the Bondi attack, saying the agency was countering multiple threats simultaneously and it ​was extremely difficult to “simplistically pivot” from one threat to another.

“We cannot stop every terrorist, just as we cannot catch every spy. ‌But ⁠we continue to work around the clock to keep Australians safe,” Burgess said.

Encrypted chat platforms are radicalising people, including minors, within weeks, while social media is amplifying grievance narratives, eroding trust in institutions, promoting discord and inflammatory rhetoric, and exacerbating polarisation, he said.

Foreign spies are targeting classified information on Australia’s AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership with the United ​States and Britain. An official ​with security clearance was ⁠contacted by someone pretending to be from a consulting firm, Burgess said.

Burgess blamed Iran for arson attacks on Jewish businesses in Australia since the Gaza conflict began, saying ​one of the attacks on a Sydney restaurant was likely coordinated by an Australian ​citizen living ⁠in Iran, working as an agent within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Iranian embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Thankfully, no-one died as a result of the arson attacks…but I do worry that one day an Australian ⁠will ​be killed at the hands of a foreign government here in ​Australia,” he said.

Australia in August 2025 accused Iran of directing two antisemitic arson attacks in Sydney and Melbourne and ordered Tehran’s ambassador to leave ​the country, its first such expulsion since World War Two.