Terror threat level system needs review: ASIO boss
Changes are being considered for Australia’s terrorism threat level system, as the country’s spy chief warns it is not designed for the “degrading security environment” facing society.
Following its annual threat assessment on Wednesday evening, ASIO chief executive Mike Burgess said the current system needed to be reviewed and was in talks with Home Office Secretary Stephanie Foster about how it could be overhauled.
The country’s terrorism threat level is probable, meaning there is a greater than 50 percent chance of an attack or planning an attack on the ground within the next 12 months.
But Mr Burgess said the level “does not tell the full story”.
“I don’t believe the system was designed for a situation like the one we’re facing right now,” he said.
“This is where a degrading security environment intersects with a diverse security environment.
“In the current environment, it would be overly simplistic to assume that there is a single terrorist threat, or possibly one terrorist threat.”
Mr Burgess’ speech was preceded by a minute’s silence for the victims of Australia’s worst terror attack in Bondi, which targeted Jewish Australians.
People attending the talk in Canberra, including senior defense force officials, federal police and politicians, were shown a video compiling various news stories showing social cohesion in Australia is fraying.
The film shows pro-Palestinian protesters clashing with police, a march on the Sydney Harbor Bridge, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the aftermath of the Bondi terror attack.
As the anti-Semitism royal commission examined intelligence agencies in the wake of the Bondi attack, Mr Burgess said “counter-terrorism remains a priority” although increased espionage and foreign interference warranted greater attention.
“When we raised the threat level in 2024, we increased CT (counterterrorism) resources and it continued to grow in the months leading up to Bondi,” he said.
“The sourcing threat followed.”
It also revealed that an Australian living in Iran and a former resident now living in Iraq planned firebombings of a Jewish delicatessen in Sydney and a synagogue in Melbourne.
ASIO has foiled 31 major terror plots since 2014; Mr Burgess revealed 14 cases had been solved since the Bondi attack last December.
