The Australia Security Intelligence Organisation believes there is a “realistic possibility” a foreign government will try to assassinate a “perceived dissident” in Australia, ASIO’s boss Mike Burgess has revealed.

Delivering the 2025 Lowy lecture on Tuesday, Burgess said: “This threat is real.

"We believe there are at least three nations willing and capable of conducting lethal targeting here. It is entirely possible the regimes would try to hide their involvement by hiring criminal cut outs, as Iran did when directing its arson attacks.”

He stressed he was talking about an “attempt to assassinate”.

“ASIO and our law enforcement partners are acutely alive to this threat and are working around the clock, using all our powers, to protect Australia and Australians,” he said.

Burgess said Australia had never faced simultaneously and at scale so many different threats.

There are multiple, cascading and intersecting threats to our social cohesion, fuelled by three distinct but connected cohorts:

He said many Australians were feeling dispossessed, disaffected, and disenfranchised, with spikes in polarisation and intolerance.

Many of the foundations underpinning our security, prosperity and democracy were being tested.

Social cohesion was eroding,........

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