Mike Burgess AM, Director-General of Security

26 October 2026

 

Good morning. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

I would like to acknowledge the NSW Minister for Police and Counter Terrorism, the NSW Police Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner. And I also spy the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security – it’s always good to have your oversight watching you. 

I also want to acknowledge the brave, courageous, important work our police partners do every day – thank you.

 ASIO is a forward-leaning and forward-looking organisation.

We are not only expected to detect and counter current threats to Australia’s security – we are also expected to anticipate them.

It will surprise none of you that our assessment of the immediate future is far from rosy. 

None of the drivers degrading our security environment are expected to dissipate and sadly, some of them will only intensify.

I’ll circle back to this in a moment.

This year, we’ve also spent some time looking back, reflecting.

It’s 70 years since Australia and New Zealand joined the Five Eyes partnership, forming the most consequential intelligence sharing partnership in history, and much of that intelligence sharing is about terrorism.

Last month we commemorated the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a devastating event shocking in scale and impact. 

And of course, we are approaching the anniversary of the massacre at Bondi – another shocking act of terrorism, and this time on Australian soil.

So given the theme of this conference – 'terrorism: new challenges' – I want to explore what has changed between 9/11 and Bondi. 

The contrast tells us a great deal about the counter-terrorism environment now – and what it demands of us all.

Contemporary Security Environment

First, a quick recap of the environment in which we and you and all of us are operating.

Despite the excellent work of the people in this room and the agencies we represent, Australia’s security environment is dynamic, diverse, and degraded.

I don’t believe we have confronted so many serious security threats, at scale, at the same time.

For the first time in our nation’s history, we face 3 principal security concerns:

- espionage

- foreign interference, and

- politically motivated violence, which includes terrorism and nation-state threats to life.

And if that’s not bad enough, the temperature and trajectory of politically motivated violence is concerning.

More Australians are being radicalised online – and more Australians are being radicalised more quickly.

More Australians are embracing a diverse range of ideologies, and more Australians are mobilising to violence with little to no warning.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, transnational terrorism continues to remain a significant, security concern. 

Al-Qa’ida, ISIL and their affiliates are exploiting permissive spaces in the real world and online to grow their capabilities, demonstrating a renewed desire to conduct and inspire attacks outside their immediate areas of influence. 

These groups still see Western interests as legitimate targets. And on top of that the threat is exacerbated by terrorism orchestrated by nation-states.

The United Kingdom recently publicly attributed Iran’s involvement in a security incident at a RAF base. This followed a campaign from an Iran-aligned group running a wave of attacks across Europe. 

Most were low capability, involving arson or rudimentary incendiary devices; most targeted Jewish interests; and all were designed to drive fear as part of Iran’s anti-American, anti-Israel, antisemitic agenda.

Iran lit the matches and fanned the flames here in Australia, too – orchestrating at least 2 arson attacks on buildings associated with Jewish Australians in late 2024.

Iran continues to view Australia as a legitimate target for covertly directed acts of violence, and I remain concerned about their willingness to conduct violence such as arsons or worse still even assassinations on Australian soil.

The national terrorism threat level is PROBABLE, and unfortunately acts of politically motivated violence are more likely today than they have been in previous years.

In the last 12 months, ASIO has experienced a 50% increase in counter-terrorism leads. Even more striking is an 80% increase in our CT warrants over the last 12 months.

These numbers not only reflect an adjusted threshold for operational activity they reflect the degraded security environment.

Since the tragedy at Bondi, there has been one terrorist attack in Australia – an unsuccessful one thankfully. A Western Australian man inspired by a neo-Nazi ideology allegedly threw a home-made device or bomb into an Indigenous rally.

And since Bondi, there have been 4 major terrorism plots foiled and prevented in this country by the people in this room.

There are many more cases where police, with the assistance of my agency, have been able to intervene before the planning reached an advanced stage.

Between Bondi and August of this year, we dealt with 16 serious terror-related cases, in the preliminary stages of planning or consideration of planning. 

They included alleged planning for an antisemitic attack, alleged threats to kill Muslims and an advocate of racist violence allegedly found in possession of weapons and ammunition.

A Changed CT Environment

Terrorism is an enduring and evolving threat.

Notwithstanding my earlier comments about transnational terrorism, the dominant domestic challenge has shifted.

Sophisticated mass-casualty plots have increasingly given way to individuals or small groups using basic weapons and tactics – often with less preparation, fewer observable indicators and therefore less opportunity for us to detect and intervene.

Terrorist motivations are also far more diverse than they were 25 years ago.

Sunni violent extremism still remains the majority of ASIO’s counter-terrorism caseload. But unlike the period after 9/11, it is now too simplistic to speak of a single terrorism threat, or even a single most likely form of terrorism.

Together with our law enforcement partners we have recently investigated:

  • An individual inspired by an extreme right-wing ideology who allegedly plotted to bomb Western Australia’s Parliament and police headquarters.
  • Attacks on defence manufacturers by individuals inspired by extreme left-wing ideologies.
  • Multiple individuals inspired by mixed and incompatible beliefs, including one who combined ideological and extreme Christian beliefs, and allegedly wanted to blow up a school. 

So, these cases show the diversity, complexity, and unpredictability of our current security and terrorism environment.

But many of the drivers are quite different these days compared to 2001. 

  • Instead of embracing fixed ideologies, radicalised individuals are increasingly embracing mixed ideologies. 
  • Instead of being radicalised by associates in the real world, individuals are often being radicalised by strangers online.  
  • Instead of being radicalised in group settings, individuals are often being radicalised alone.  
  • Instead of being radicalised over years, individuals are increasingly being radicalised in weeks and months.  
  • Instead of being radicalised as adults, individuals are all too often being radicalised as minors, and  
  • Instead of gathering in prayer halls or backyards, radicalised individuals are often gathering in encrypted chat rooms. 

Taken together, these dynamics make the current terrorism environment fundamentally different – and in some respects harder to detect, understand and disrupt – than it was 25 years ago.

The tragedy at Bondi embodied many of the features of ‘new terrorism’: 

  • the threat posed by individuals or small groups
  • the targeting of crowded places
  • the use of less sophisticated tactics
  • a digital ecosystem spreading extreme ideologies and propaganda at speed and scale
  • the prevalence of encrypted communications, and 
  • the way offshore events seem to resonate here domestically.

The methods have changed. So too have the drivers.

Grievance, intolerance, and polarisation are straining social cohesion, degrading our security environment, and making politically motivated violence unfortunately more likely.

Conflicts in the Middle East have contributed to this, fuelling frustration and anger. Social media algorithms have amplified and accelerated grievance narratives, carrying them further and faster.

Whether online or in the real world, when intolerance is tolerated – when violent rhetoric and violent acts are left unchecked – they become normalised. 

This creates a more permissive environment for further violence.

The normalisation of intolerance and antisemitism, in my opinion, contributed to the degraded security environment that existed ahead of the tragic events of Bondi.

9/11 brought the twisted worldview of a small number of religious extremists into sharp focus. 

Bondi exposed something different: fissures and fractures within our society that run deeper and broader.

That should give us all, pause for thought – leaders, media, institutions, and communities. All of us.

Counter-terrorism remains the work of intelligence and law enforcement, but the environment in which terrorism takes root is shaped by society and owned by society.

Conclusion

Despite these challenges, we should not be insecure about our security.

As the terrorism threat level evolved, ASIO evolved: its powers were amended, our capabilities sharpened and our partnerships deepened.

We are now a larger and more diverse workforce than we were prior to 9/11, including officers born in a post-9/11 world. 

Working with our law-enforcement partners, I remain confident that when we collectively know about a serious threat, we will deal with it. 

But the degraded and degrading threat environment continues to test us in this regard.

Threats to life will always be a priority for intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. But we must also detect and counter threats to our way of life.

This is another significant shift since 9/11. 

Terrorism remains a serious and enduring threat, but it is no longer the dominant security threat it became in the years immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

Persistent and pernicious threats such as espionage, foreign interference and preparation for sabotage are at extreme levels and demand an increasing share of our attention and resources.

These threats damage our sovereignty, democracy, and economy and in extreme circumstances, they are also threats to life.

Of course, ASIO is not all-seeing and all-knowing. Nor should we be.

We cannot stop every terrorist, just as we cannot catch every spy. 

But with our law-enforcement partners, we will continue to work around the clock to find the threats early, disrupt them where we can, and keep Australians safe.

Much has changed since 9/11: the actors, the ideologies, the technology, the speed of radicalisation and the broader security environment. 

Our mission – and our collective resolve and dedication to it – have not.

Thank you for the work you all do to help keep Australians safe. 

Thank you, I am now very happy to take questions.