Low, moderate, critical: ASIO boss sounds alarm on urgent upgrade of Australia’s terror warnings

The nation’s decade-old terror threat warning level is set to be overhauled at the urging of ASIO boss Mike Burgess, who has revealed he personally warned prominent Jewish Australians they could be targeted for assassination by Iran.

Burgess also singled out China as the country’s top concern for sabotage and espionage, declaring Beijing was capable of shutting down key critical infrastructure assets such as telecommunications networks if a conflict broke out with Australia.

As former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson called for political correctness not to stymie difficult debates about radical Islam, Burgess said that Islamic extremists still make up around 70 per cent of his organisation’s terror caseload.

ASIO officials have held several meetings with the Department of Home Affairs over the nation’s terror threat warning system, which Burgess believes is too blunt and fails to convey the seriousness of the threats the nation faces.

“Australia’s terrorism threat level remains at probable, but I do not believe the system was designed for a situation like the one we now face,” Burgess said in a speech last week to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Doubling down on his argument earlier this year that the current system did “not tell the full story”, Burgess said: “The next level on the scale is expected, which applies when we have intelligence about a specific attack. We do not. But we do know the environment is degrading and acts of politically motivated violence are becoming more likely than ‘probable’ suggests.”

ASIO has disrupted 16 terror plots in the nine months since the Bondi massacre, he said.

Government sources, who were not authorised to speak publicly, said Burgess believed a “more meaningful” terror level system could be established so Australians were not so shocked when the next terror attack happened.

Officials have been scrutinising the alert levels used by other nations, including the United Kingdom.

A Home Affairs spokesperson said: “To ensure that the national terrorism threat advisory system remains effective in an evolving environment, the Department of Home Affairs and ASIO are working together to review the system. The review has commenced.”

Underlining the dramatic changes in national security since the current system was introduced, the spokesperson said that “sophisticated mass-casualty attacks have been increasingly supplanted by individuals or small groups using basic weapons and tactics, making it harder for authorities to detect and intervene”.

The current Australian terror threat advisory system, introduced in 2015, has a scale of five levels: not expected, possible, probable, expected and certain.

By contrast, the UK system includes five different levels: low (meaning an attack is highly unlikely), moderate (an attack is possible but not likely), substantial (an attack is likely), severe (an attack is highly likely) and critical (an attack is highly likely in the near future).

In a lengthy podcast interview with veteran talkback host Neil Mitchell to be released on Friday, Burgess said the terror level was at “the upper end of probable, but I can’t go to the next level, or recommend we do, until I get that specific intelligence”.

The system matters because it sends an important signal to law enforcement agencies and organisers of major sporting events and concerts, as well as the broader public, he said.

Former Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo said he understood Burgess’ concern that the public had become “anaesthetised” to the meaning of a probable terror attack, but added he did not believe changing the warning system would make much difference.

“It frankly wouldn’t matter what gradations or traffic light system you use, such warnings are likely to be ignored without a specific call to action,” he said.

He urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to deliver an annual national security statement to parliament to help Australians better understand the dangers to national security.

“Winston Churchill did not need a terror threat scale or artificial device devised by officials. He could speak eloquently, in brief and memorable phrases, to explain the threats Britain faced,” he said.

In a bracing warning, Burgess told Mitchell: “I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Iran would want to kill prominent Jewish Australians.”

The domestic spy boss said he had raised this in discussions with some community leaders.

While Islamic extremism still makes up most of ASIO’s terror caseload, Burgess said Australia did not have a “growing” Islamic extremism problem, as it had been a threat for some time.

Burgess said that nation states are “hacking power and telco networks, preparing for the day that they can turn them off should they need to … in a time of conflict”.

Describing China as the “principal concern” in this arena, Burgess said: “They are working actively to understand our systems, and I believe in some cases they could [shut down systems] today should they need to.”

Soon before ending his posting in July, then Chinese ambassador Xiao Qian launched a remarkable attack on ASIO in this masthead, accusing it of fabricating espionage claims and issuing a sweeping denial that Beijing engages in foreign interference.

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