19 February 2025
Mike Burgess, Director-General of Security
Welcome to the Ben Chifley Building, welcome to ASIO and welcome to my Annual Threat Assessment.
Attorney-General, The Honourable Mark Dreyfus KC, Chair, Deputy Chair and members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, Excellencies, Directors-General, Inspector-General, CDF, Military Chiefs, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen.
This morning, as I do before every annual address, I was reflecting on what I will say and the security impact it will have.
It struck me that while this is the sixth Annual Threat Assessment, it is also the first of its kind.
In previous years, I’ve focused on past and present threats.
This year is different.
This year’s Assessment is future focused. And I think it’s fair to say it’s the most significant, serious and sober address so far.
Fortunately I was born with the glass-half-full gene.
I remain optimistic and positive – and I think this is going be critical as we navigate the future I’ll describe.
ASIO is always looking ahead.
We do not only detect and defeat threats to Australia’s security – we anticipate them.
ASIO’s Futures Team pours over classified intelligence, reviews open source information, consults experts and uses structured analytical techniques to develop in-depth assessments about future trajectories and vulnerabilities.
We do not predict future events, rather we chart broader trends in the security environment.
To use a meteorology analogy, our futures work does not forecast particular weather events – specific storms or lightning strikes – instead, we seek to anticipate fundamental, longer-term shifts in weather patterns.
Make no mistake, we are charting significant changes in the security climate – changes ASIO will be required to counter.
Our forecasts are not always 100% right – we are not all seeing and all knowing – but you would be impressed by how accurate they usually are.
Looking back over our recent futures assessments – going back to the future as it were – ASIO provided early warnings about the growth in nationalist and racist violent extremism… we put the radicalisation of young Australians on the national agenda… we predicted the growth in grievances, conspiracies and anti-authority beliefs and updated our terminology accordingly… we assessed withdrawal from Afghanistan would not have immediate security implications for Australia but could prove problematic in the medium term… when we raised the terrorism threat level in August last year I said we should expect spikes in politically motivated violence.
We were correct about all those things.
ASIO’s futures work is usually classified because of the intelligence it is based on. Tonight, though, I will reveal elements of our most recent assessment, the security outlook to 2030.
It is a frank, uncomfortable assessment. But it is profoundly important, which is why I am declassifying parts of it.
Australia has entered a period of strategic surprise and security fragility.
Over the next five years, a complex, challenging and changing security environment will become more dynamic, more diverse and more degraded.
Many of the foundations that have underpinned Australia’s security, prosperity and democracy are being tested: social cohesion is eroding, trust in institutions is declining, intolerance is growing, even truth itself is being undermined by conspiracy, mis- and disinformation.
Similar trends are playing out across the Western world.
So what does this mean for our security environment?
Australia is facing multifaceted, merging, intersecting, concurrent and cascading threats. Major geopolitical, economic, social and security challenges of the 1930s, 70s and 90s have converged. As one of my analysts put it with an uncharacteristic nod to popular culture: everything, everywhere all at once.
Or as I described it a moment ago, more dynamic, diverse and degraded.
More Dynamic
Dynamic, because ASIO assesses we are likely to have more security surprises in the second half of the decade than we did in the first.
That’s a big and potentially unwelcome call when you consider the major shocks since I delivered my first Threat Assessment five years ago: a protracted war in Europe, a global pandemic, and bloody turmoil in the Middle East.
Each of those shocks is still buffeting our domestic security environment.
The war in Europe prompted a more aggressive and reckless Russian intelligence apparatus to target Ukraine’s supporters, including Australia.
COVID and its associated lockdowns fueled and accelerated spikes in grievance, conspiracy and anti-authority beliefs.
The war in the Middle East has not yet directly inspired terrorism in Australia, but it is prompting protest, exacerbating division, undermining social cohesion and elevating intolerance. This, in turn, is making acts of politically motivated violence more likely.
These concurrent dynamics are on top of the pre-existing challenges I spoke about in 2020… in particular, great power competition in our region is driving heightened levels of espionage and foreign interference, while rapid advances in technology are accelerating almost all the trends I’m describing.
The result of all this will be a dynamic security environment with an unprecedented number of challenges, and an unprecedented cumulative level of potential harm.
Australia has never faced so many different threats at scale at once.
ASIO’s remit is carefully defined and limited by the ASIO Act. We are empowered to investigate seven heads of security:
- Espionage
- Foreign interference
- Politically motivated violence (which includes terrorism)
- The promotion of communal violence
- Sabotage
- Attacks on Australia’s defence system, and
- Serious threats to border integrity.
When we were founded, espionage and sabotage were our principal security concerns.
Terrorism became the priority in the 2000’s, espionage and foreign interference overtook it in the 2020’s, only for us to raise the national terrorism threat level again in 2024.
The most confronting thing about the new security environment – the prevailing security environment and the future security environment – is there is no single security concern.
Three of our heads of security are already flashing red: espionage, foreign interference and politically motivated violence.
In the next five years we expect three more could join them.
I’ll go through each head of security in turn.
Espionage and foreign interference are already at extreme levels and we anticipate they will only intensify.
In a more complicated, competitive world, nation states will want greater insights into their enemies – and some of their friends – to better understand strategic intent and capability.
In a more complicated, competitive world, regimes will seek to exert more influence and control over diaspora communities.
Espionage and foreign interference will be enabled by advances in technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence and deeper online pools of personal data vulnerable to collection, exploitation and analysis by foreign intelligence services.
Artificial Intelligence will enable disinformation and deep fakes that can promote false narratives, undermine factual information and erode trust in institutions.
Our next head of security is politically motivated violence, To 2030, we expect politically motivated violence to remain an elevated concern.
I’ve seen commentary claiming this is a new concept. It’s not; it’s been a legislated head of security for decades.
I’ve also seen suggestions we are using the term ‘politically motivated violence’ as an alternative to terrorism. This is equally false.
Politically motivated violence refers to a violent act or threat intended or likely to achieve a political objective. A violent protest and vandalising an electoral office could be acts of politically motivated violence.
As forecast, these types of behaviours have become more common in Australia. ASIO expects the dynamic will continue. The grievance narratives, conspiracies and online echo chambers that proved so potent during COVID have festered and evolved into a diverse threat environment susceptible to sudden shifts in response to events.
Terrorism is a subset of politically motivated violence. It covers acts or threats intended to advance a political, religious or ideological cause through intimidation. So while a protest or an attack on an electoral office might be an act of politically motivated violence, it may not meet the threshold of terrorism.
We raised the national terrorism threat level in 2024 and I do not anticipate being able to lower it in the foreseeable future.
Politically motivated violence is raising the temperature of the security environment and making acts of terrorism more likely.
At the same time, traditional transnational terrorist groups such as Islamic State, al-Qa’ida and their affiliates are exploiting permissive spaces to revive and renew their capabilities, particularly in Afghanistan and parts of Africa. The groups have demonstrated their ability to conduct successful external attacks, although I stress that none of last year’s terrorist incidents in Australia were directed by an offshore group, and our greatest threat remains a lone actor using an easily obtained weapon.
We expect nationalist and racist violent extremists to continue their efforts to ‘mainstream’ and expand their movement. They will undertake provocative, offensive and increasingly high-profile acts to generate publicity and recruit. While these activities will test legal boundaries, the greatest threat of violence comes from individuals on the periphery of these organised groups.
I remain concerned about young Australians being caught up in webs of hate, both religiously and ideologically motivated, and I will return to this challenge later this evening.
In the polarised, grievance-rich environment I’m describing, social cohesion will remain strained and we can expect spikes in communal violence, our fourth head of security.
As the term suggests, the promotion of communal violence refers to activities that are directed to incite violence between different groups in Australia, so as to endanger the peace, order or good government of the Commonwealth.
Australia’s Jewish community is seeing this first hand.
Anti-Semitism festered in Australia before the tragic events in the Middle East, but the drawn-out conflict gave it oxygen – and gave some anti-Semites an excuse.
Jewish Australians were also increasingly conflated with the state of Israel, leading to an increase in anti-Semitic incidents.
The normalisation of violent protest and intimidating behaviour lowered the threshold for provocative and potentially violent acts. Narratives originally centred on “freeing Palestine” expanded to include incitements to “kill the Jews”. 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.
Looking forward, targets of community violence are likely to be broad, depending on the perceived grievance, and will not be limited to nationality, race, culture, religion or gender.
A hyper-connected world will allow political tensions or conflicts overseas to resonate quickly in Australia, spread by social media and online echo chambers, inflamed by mis- or disinformation.
Moving to our next head of security, Australia’s defence system will face greater threats from espionage, foreign interference and potentially sabotage over the next five years.
Multiple countries are relentlessly seeking information about our military capabilities. Defence personnel are being targeted in person and online. Some were recently given gifts by international counterparts. The presents contained concealed surveillance devices.
AUKUS will remain a priority target for intelligence collection, including by countries we consider friendly.
ASIO has identified foreign services seeking to target AUKUS to position themselves to collect on the capabilities, how Australia intends to use them, and to undermine the confidence of our allies.
By 2030, as the submarine project matures, intelligence services are more likely to focus on foreign interference to undermine community support for the enterprise and potentially sabotage if regional tensions escalate.
Sabotage is a head of security in its own right. We expect sabotage will pose an increasing threat in the next five years and this is not limited to an attack on defence assets. 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.
We are getting closer to the threshold for high-impact sabotage.
ASIO assesses authoritarian regimes are growing more willing to disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure to impede decision-making, damage war-fighting capabilities and sow social discord.
Russia’s reckless campaign in Europe is a potent example. And while Russia’s demonstration that physical sabotage remains a weapon, it is cyber-enabled sabotage that presents a more acute concern for Australia.
Cyber units from at least one nation state routinely try to explore and exploit Australia’s critical infrastructure networks, almost certainly mapping systems so they can lay down malware or maintain access in the future.
We recently discovered one of those units targeting critical networks in the United States. ASIO worked closely with our American counterpart to evict the hackers and shut down their global accesses, including nodes here in Australia.
ASIO’s final head of security is border integrity. In recent years, border threats have diminished. But they have not disappeared. We expect persistent, small scale people-smuggling operations to continue to 2030. Conflict, economic decline and climate change will continue to displace large numbers of people who will seek refuge and economic security.
While there are likely to be periodic spikes in people-smuggling, we expect Australia’s operational and policy settings will mitigate this challenge, making it the one head of security unlikely to be elevated this decade.
So that is the scale of the challenge we face as a security service, and as a nation.
An age of strategic surprise and security fragility.
A more dynamic security environment – and unfortunately I do not mean dynamic in a positive way.
More Diverse
At the same time, we anticipate the environment will become more diverse.
Threats are intersecting, boundaries are blurring. I’ve already talked about the unprecedented breadth of scaled threats.
Another manifestation is greater crossover between state and non-state actors. ASIO’s more aggressive counter-espionage posture has made it more difficult and expensive for foreign spies to operate in Australia, so they are increasingly using proxies to do their onshore dirty work.
Proxies put distance between the foreign regime and its activities, granting governments a degree of deniability.
In some cases the proxies are unwitting – private investigators being hired to conduct surveillance for example – in others, they almost certainly know what they are doing and who they are working for.
In coming years, we could see state-sponsored or state-supported terrorism or criminal proxies being used to conduct sabotage.
These things will challenge traditional definitions, categorisations, assumptions – and potentially, responses. An attempt to physically damage a nuclear-powered submarine could simultaneously be an act of sabotage, an act of politically motivated violence, an act of foreign interference and an attack on a defence system.
Is an attack on a synagogue terrorism, communal violence, politically motivated violence or foreign interference? Depending on circumstances and motivations, it could be all of those things, or none of those things – and of course I acknowledge the impacted community will be understandably more interested in protection and justice than language and labels.
At a more granular level, traditional distinctions between extremist motivations are also breaking down.
Individuals are cherry-picking seemingly antithetical ideologies to create new, hybrid beliefs. In one case last year, we found an individual apparently motivated by Islamic State propaganda and neo-Nazi propaganda. In another, an individual
allegedly described himself as a left-wing environmentalist aligned with Adolf Hitler. Yet another apparently considered himself to be ‘a radical communist anarchist’ while allegedly embracing nationalist and racist violent extremism.
This diversity is expected to escalate – and further diversify.
More Degraded
While I am troubled by the breadth of security threats, I am more concerned about their depth. Or more specifically, the depths some regimes are willing to plumb in pursuit of their strategic interests. This is why we assess the security environment is becoming more degraded.
If the spy game has a rule book, it is being rewritten. If there are red lines, they are being blurred – or deliberately rubbed out.
A small number of authoritarian regimes are behaving more aggressively, more recklessly, more dangerously. More willing to engage in what we call ‘high harm’ activities.
Russia’s brazen acts of sabotage in Europe show authoritarian regimes are willing to use a wider range of tools and tactics to coerce, intimidate and damage perceived adversaries. As a supporter of and supplier to Ukraine, it is conceivable Russia could also target Australia for sabotage.
Apart from sabotage, we’ve seen several of our closest allies dealing with what appear to be state-sponsored murders and attempted murders. We’ve seen compelling evidence brought before overseas courts that individuals working for foreign governments committed these crimes – some orchestrated by countries whose intelligence and security services are known to target Australian interests.
We shouldn’t be complacent, or consider ourselves insulated from any of these threats. We are not immune to hostile nation states, such as Iran, undertaking acts of security concern on our shores or near region. 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.
ASIO investigations have identified at least three different countries plotting to physically harm people living in Australia. In a small number of cases, we held grave fears for the life of the person being targeted.
In one operation, a foreign intelligence service wanted to silence an Australia-based human rights activist. The scheme involved tricking the unsuspecting activist into visiting a third country, where the plotters would be waiting. They planned to arrange an “accident” that was anything but accidental, with the objective of seriously injuring or even killing the activist.
Fortunately, ASIO intervened to stop the travel and foil the plot before it occurred.
More recently – last year in fact – ASIO intelligence indicated a different hostile foreign intelligence service wanted to harm and possibly kill one or more individuals on Australian soil. Working with our international partners, we determined this plot was part of a broader effort by the regime to eliminate critics of the foreign government around the world – activists, journalists, ordinary citizens.
The regime considers them opponents; we would call them human rights advocates.
Again, ASIO disrupted the Australian part of the operation at an early stage.
It goes without saying that plots like these are repugnant. They not only involve plans to hurt people – obviously bad enough – they are shocking assaults on Australian sovereignty and the freedoms we hold dear.
I should point out in both the cases I’ve described, the plotters were offshore and beyond the reach of Australian law. But the governments and intelligence services involved are in no doubt about how utterly unacceptable their behaviour is, and how we will deal with their agents.
Beyond those egregious examples, multiple foreign regimes continually attempt to monitor, harass, intimidate and coerce cooperation from Australians and those who call Australia home. This includes trying to strong-arm people to report on other members of their diaspora community, threatening perceived dissidents and their family members with violence, and coercing people in Australia to return to the country of their birth to face questioning or charges – or possibly worse.
I have previously talked about forced repatriations, where a foreign state physically forces an individual to go to another country against their will.
Coerced repatriations are different. In a coerced repatriation, the foreign government applies so much pressure, the victim believes they have no alternative but to leave Australia, irrespective of the consequence.
Coerced repatriations are insidious; they undermine Australian sovereignty and law enforcement processes. They are also significantly under-reported to Australian authorities.
ASIO is aware of at least four countries that have plotted this sort of despicable behaviour in Australia.
In one case, an Australian citizen with dual nationality, despite living in Australia for many years, endured constant pressure from his former country’s authorities to return to face historical allegations. After he refused, the authorities began a campaign to break his will.
I would like to ask, how can it be considered acceptable that:
Members of your local community and Australian businesses are secretly tasked, paid and manipulated to track you down?
You receive repeated unsolicited phone calls at all hours from a foreign official demanding you return to explain yourself?
A regime threatens your wife, parents, friends and former classmates until they too urge you to return to the country of your birth?
Your family’s overseas savings and assets are seized, with the threat they will remain frozen until you go back?
The answer, clearly, is none are remotely acceptable. And yet all of them happened in this case. As we know, bullies think the rules don’t apply to them.
In this instance, our Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce was aided by Australians who saw what was happening and reported the matter to authorities. Australians have a tradition of backing the underdog. There is something to be said about the quality of a people based on what they stand up to.
While coerced repatriations can have dire consequences for the individuals being victimised, they also have a broader chilling effect on diaspora in Australia. This can lead to individual and community self-censorship and disengagement from political activities. Coerced repatriations contribute to a ‘culture of fear’ within the diaspora, reinforcing a perception that a hostile foreign government’s reach extends across the Australian border.
We will not be able to stop every attempted case of coerced repatriation, or mitigate the issue through intelligence and law enforcement channels alone. If you are being pressured, I strongly urge you to contact the National Security Hotline. I also strongly urge those complicit in these activities to reconsider their involvement – we are watching and we have zero tolerance.
A Collective Response
Some of you may be wondering why I’ve chosen to declassify parts of our outlook to 2030. One of the key reasons I deliver an Annual Threat Assessment is to explain the threats Australia and Australians are facing. This year I am also explaining future threats because the future belongs to us all.
We – as a society, not just as a security service – need to consider how we respond to these significant challenges.
Like addressing changes in the climate, we cannot leave our responses too late or they will be too late. The future starts now.
This is particularly relevant to the new, more complicated terrorism landscape.
I’d like to go into some detail here because I do not think the ‘new normal’ is well enough understood outside government.
We – and, again, I mean all of us – cannot counter a threat if we do not recognise it. Or refuse to see it. Or ignore it as an inconvenient truth.
The new terrorism environment is significantly different to the last time ASIO raised the threat level to PROBABLE. The face, form and motivations of terrorism are more diverse and complicated. It would be a mistake to look at contemporary terrorism through a lens manufactured when Islamic State and al-Qa‘ida were at their height; you’d get the wrong picture.
Yes, religiously motivated violent extremism still represents a significant threat but the dynamics are very different to a decade ago.
At the height of ISIL and al-Qa‘ida, offshore groups or individuals were inspiring and directing attacks in Australia.
Now, extremists are self-radicalising, ‘choosing their own adventure’ – and often their own unique, blended belief system.
At the height of ISIL and al-Qa‘ida, individuals would usually be radicalised over an extended time period.
Now, the process can take days and weeks rather than months and years.
At the height of ISIL and al-Qa‘ida, individuals would often be influenced by family members or associates who held extremist views.
Now, the most likely perpetrator of a terrorist attack is a lone-actor, from a family previously unconnected to extremism.
At the height of ISIL and al-Qa‘ida, extremism tended to be concentrated in major cities.
Now, extremism is much more diffuse – and much more diverse.
We are seeing an increase in issue-motivated extremism, fueled by personal grievance, conspiracy theories and anti-authority ideologies.
This means you cannot assume there is a single ‘type’ of terrorist threat, or even a ‘most likely’ motivation for a terrorist attack.
ASIO and our partners in law enforcement disrupted a number of terrorist plots last year.
I cannot go into detail because many of them are before the courts but I would like to make some general points about the new terrorism environment.
Of all the potential terrorist matters investigated last year, fewer than half were religiously motivated. The majority involved mixed ideologies or nationalist and racist ideologies.
Almost all the matters involved minors. All were lone actors or small groups. Almost all the individuals were unknown to ASIO or the police and it is fair to say they allegedly moved towards violence more quickly than we have seen before.
Importantly, none of the attacks or plots appear to be directly inspired by the conflict in the Middle East or directed by offshore extremists.
These troubling characteristics make our job much more difficult.
While ASIO and our partners remain well positioned and well-practiced at detecting and disrupting traditional terrorism, many of the factors now driving extremism are challenges we cannot solve alone.
This is the other reason I am declassifying our Outlook to 2030.
The impacts of social media, mental health, the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories, ubiquitous encryption, growing grievance and the radicalisation of minors all require whole of government, whole of community, whole of society responses.
You cannot arrest your way to social cohesion.
You cannot regulate your way to fewer grievances.
You cannot spy your way to less youth radicalisation.
In this environment, national security is truly national security – everybody’s business.
Intelligence agencies such as ASIO will need to expand their partnerships beyond the traditional – but still critical – law enforcement and security relationships to include education, health, social services and big tech.
That’s why I welcome the recently released counter-violent extremism strategy, and its whole-of-government approach to early intervention.
I particularly welcome the initiatives to address the radicalisation of minors and to strengthen support services for families and carers.
In December, the Five-Eyes law enforcement and security agencies called for a whole-of-society response to help identify and deal with the radicalisation of minors – especially online.
We asked government agencies, the education sector, mental health and social well-being services, communities and technology companies for a renewed effort to identify and counter this phenomenon.
Once law enforcement and security agencies become involved, it is often too late.
Radicalised minors can pose the same credible terrorist threat as adults. Many of the recent cases we have dealt with are as sad and sobering as they are shocking:
Minors allegedly sharing beheading videos in the schoolyard;
A 12 year old allegedly wanting to blow up a place of worship;
A 17 year old allegedly watching Nazi propaganda and Ku Klux Klan videos and scrawling “gas the Jews” on the walls of the classroom;
A 12 year old allegedly planning a school shooting.
That last example is not actually from Australia but does have an Australian connection. ASIO maintains a team of covert online operators – officers who conduct human intelligence activities on the internet. This is an increasingly critical capability as more of our targets embrace encryption, and more of our targets are radicalised online.
In this case, our officers found a self-professed neo-Nazi on a popular social networking site. The 12 year old talked about live streaming a school shooting and then moving on to a church, synagogue or mosque.
We immediately brought the case to the attention of our US counterpart, and they were able to prevent a potential massacre – thanks to ASIO’s intelligence.
In many of the cases we’ve investigated, the minors did not have a clear or coherent ideology beyond an attraction to violence. But even when a young extremist does not mobilise to violence, there can be lifelong consequences.
ASIO recently reviewed its counter-terrorism caseload since 2013 to identify patterns that may help researchers, psychologists and social workers identify and address radicalisation.
The most obvious trend is that the young are getting younger. The median age at which minors are first subject to ASIO investigation is now 15.
Our minors caseload is overwhelmingly male – around 85%.
It is also overwhelmingly Australian-born. Fewer than 17% of the minors we’ve investigated were born offshore, and of those, the median age when they first arrived in Australia was four and a half years old.
That’s the picture looking back.
What will the future look like?
Our 2030 Outlook notes we will see a generation of digital natives – people who have spent all their formative years online – enter a vulnerable age for radicalisation.
For some, their sense of normality, identity and community will be more influenced by the online world than the real world.
If technology continues its current trajectory, it will be easier to find extremist material, and AI-fuelled algorithms will make it easier for extremist material to find vulnerable adolescent minds that are searching for meaning and connection.
These dynamics are of deep concern but we cannot afford to throw up our hands and say, “all too hard”. Our children deserve better than that. When engagement with extremism is identified and addressed early, vulnerable children can be diverted from the radicalisation path.
That’s certainly been ASIO’s experience, particularly when parents play an active role – we’ve seen multiple cases where teenagers who advocated mass casualty attacks turned their backs on violence and extremism.
Security Insecurity
Positive outcomes like these are reminders we cannot and should not be insecure about our security.
Yes, the outlook I am describing is troubling but it would be much more difficult had we not already taken extensive and effective steps to harden our environment and build our resilience.
Our counter-terrorism architecture remains robust and effective.
Since 2014, ASIO and our law enforcement partners have disrupted dozens of major terrorism plots, including five last year.
Australia’s world-leading legislative, operational and policy efforts to combat espionage and foreign interference have made this country a significantly harder target. While authoritarian regimes are being more brazen and aggressive, some countries have all but given up trying to harass members of their diaspora here. Others have stopped their spying – for now at least.
This does not mean ASIO will in any way relax our commitment to countering threats to Australia’s security.
I am acutely aware that this year’s federal election will be held in a security environment characterised by eroded trust in institutions, mis- and dis-information, incidents of politically motivated violence and attempts at foreign interference.
Ensuring our elections remain free, fair and peaceful is business as usual for ASIO. We have already established specialist teams and operations to work with the Electoral Commission and other partners to protect the integrity of the poll.
We will be watching. 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.
The same goes for AUKUS. I am determined ASIO will do its part to see the projects delivered without compromise. My message to any foreign intelligence service targeting AUKUS is simple: where we see you attempting to conduct clandestine intelligence operations – and we will see you – you will be dealt with. Australia has strong laws against espionage and foreign interference and ASIO works hand-in-glove with the Australian Federal Police. This may include publicity – something I know you hate. We will not only disrupt individuals acting as intelligence agents – we will disrupt your intelligence officers as well. Consider yourself warned.
Security is a shared responsibility, and our partnerships will be critical as we respond to these challenges. Many of our most important partners are represented here tonight and I thank you for the invaluable assistance you give me and my officers. As I mentioned earlier, a more dynamic, diverse and degraded security environment will require ASIO to work outside its traditional comfort zone. We will need to widen and deepen our partnerships, including our partnership with the community we protect.
Our most important community capability is something we rarely discuss in public.
Throughout the long and storied history of the intelligence profession, human sources have been central to our success. This has been true in every era and location in which governments have sought to protect their domains and people against the threats that challenge them. Human intelligence – ‘HUMINT’ – remains as critical to ASIO’s mission now as it was in the Cold War.
Technology presents new threats and opportunities for Australia’s security, and for ASIO’s mission, but HUMINT provides a constant and consistent way to understand and stay ahead of our adversaries. A well-placed, well-motivated, and well-supported human source can collect information broadly, or very precisely; they ask questions, draw inferences, and prioritise; they operate with technology to create new opportunities and to defeat or bypass technological barriers; and they can change the operating environment and adversaries’ behaviour to reduce the threats Australia faces.
A human source might work with ASIO for a short time, for years, or decades.
They are not rendered obsolete by a security patch or a new operating system. They adapt. But they are human.
They have emotions, families, they have other careers.
Their ASIO role is part of their life – often a big part – but only a part; and a secret part, at that.
Our human sources make significant personal sacrifices to work with ASIO, diverting time and effort they might otherwise spend on families, livelihoods and recreation. Fundamentally, they do this for Australia and their fellow Australians. Their secret work protects Australians’ safety, security and prosperity, and is done without public fanfare or recognition, even by their closest friends and family.
ASIO will recognise the contributions and sacrifices of these brave individuals by installing a permanent plaque here in the Ben Chifley Building.
Human sources are not our only critical human capability.
A dynamic, diverse and degraded security environment will also require a security service full of dynamic, diverse and determined officers.
There are lots of myths about who you need to be to get a job at ASIO – the truth is there is no one ASIO type, other than a team player who thinks critically and wants to make a difference. We have a vast array of jobs requiring a vast array of skills.
The roles we are currently advertising give you a sense of the breadth of our mission and its requirements: from entry level to experienced professionals… our Intelligence Development Program to information managers… lawyers to cyber specialists… technologists who collect the dots to analysts who connect the dots… roles in HR, finance, policy and project management to name a few. Every ASIO officer contributes to our mission; every ASIO officer makes a difference.
New recruits can expect three things: you will be fulfilled; you will be a part of a terrific team; and you will be busy.
As I have explained tonight, the future threat environment will be more difficult than anything we have seen in at least fifty years.
Increasing tensions in our society, geopolitical competition and technological advances will create simultaneous, cascading and compounding threats…
…an era of strategic surprise and security fragility…
…dynamic, diverse and degrading.
But while the outlook to 2030 is difficult, we cannot be defeatist or insecure about our security. We can and should have confidence in our ability to respond.
The dynamics I’ve described are not inevitable. The threats are not insurmountable. Foreign intelligence services are not invincible.
We will need to consider how we – which means all of us here today and all Australians who advance our nation’s interests – shape our strategic environment to deter foreseeable challenges.
I can assure you ASIO will use all of the tools we have available to identify and counter these threats.
Our powers are significant, our capabilities are exceptional, our resolve is resolute.
Strategic fragility, yes, strategic fluidity perhaps – but not strategic futility.
Thank you.