In succumbing to a lust for the limelight, the ASIO director, Mike Burgess, is not making it easier for the government and citizens to retain confidence in him and the organisation he’s trying to run.

A repost from 13 November 2025

Unlike his predecessors, all of whom kept low profiles, Burgess has thrust himself into the public square with statements and speeches in which he’s shown an appetite for lurid half stories, boasting, questionable judgment and a fragility with evidence.

In the last few years Burgess has said that:

In early November, Burgess was at it again in a speech at the Lowy Institute in which he included the headline-grabbing claim that “there is a realistic possibility a foreign government will attempt to assassinate a perceived dissident in Australia”. According to Burgess, “at least three nations are willing and capable of conducting lethal targeting here”. Who on earth might they be? Burgess hasn’t said. Well, the US and Israel have form in this field of endeavour, so could it be they’re in Burgess’ sights? And Russia would do well to keep its stores of Novichok within its borders.

It’s possible another country might try to assassinate dissidents in Australia, yet the risk must be so inestimably low as not to warrant Burgess giving it prominence. The government and the community would do better to concern themselves more with the killing of women in their homes, now a........

© Pearls and Irritations