On November 4, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess used the 2025 Lowy Lecture to warn about the "realistic possibility" of foreign-ordered assassinations in Australia, with ASIO assessing at least three nations as "willing and capable" of conducting lethal targeting here, possibly using "criminal cut-outs" to obscure involvement.

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Iran was the primary concern in the latter context. (The unnamed trio is likely Iran, Russia and China - although India is also a possibility.)

Historically, Australia has been remarkably insulated from the extraterritorial violence that plagues other nations, with no confirmed instances of a foreign government successfully assassinating its political opponents or dissidents on Australian soil. This assessment is based on declassified intelligence and historical records. What we see instead is a landscape of foiled plots, proxy attacks, and escalating threats, rather than executed killings.

A noted historical incident was the 1980 assassination of the Turkish consul-general and his bodyguard in Sydney's Woollahra. Gunmen ambushed their vehicle with automatic weapons, killing both in what NSW Police described as Australia's "first international politically-motivated attack".

Justice Vasta, in a 1982 inquest, attributed the attack to the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG), an Armenian terrorist group seeking revenge for the Ottoman-era Turkish massacre of Armenians. This incident does not qualify as a foreign government operation as JCAG operated independently and was funded by........

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