Mr Burgess warned Australia was currently the target of "sophisticated and persistent espionage and foreign interference activities from a range of nations". China has previously been blamed by security agencies for large-scale hacking in Australia, while ASIO is investigating a suspected Chinese military intelligence operative in Melbourne who had approached a Liberal Party member to run for parliament. Mr Burgess said there were more foreign intelligence officers and their proxies operating in Australia now than at the height of the Cold War, and many of them had the capabilities and intent "to cause significant harm to our national security". Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video He said a foreign intelligence service sent a "sleeper" agent to Australia, who lay dormant for many years and quietly built community and business links, while secretly maintaining contact with his offshore handlers. The agent started feeding his spymasters information about expatriate dissidents in Australia, which directly led to harassment of them and their relatives overseas.

"In exchange for significant cash payments, the agent also provided on-the-ground logistical support for spies who travelled to Australia to conduct intelligence activities," Mr Burgess said in his address at ASIO’s headquarters in Canberra on Monday night. Loading "These are the sort of insidious activities ASIO works to detect and disrupt every day. And in the case of the sleeper agent, I can confirm ASIO did disrupt the operation. Regardless, the threat is real and the threat is extremely serious." Mr Burgess said ASIO has also uncovered cases where foreign spies have travelled to Australia with the intention of setting up sophisticated hacking infrastructure targeting computers containing sensitive and classified information. While foreign interference was a growing issue, Mr Burgess confirmed Australia's terrorist threat was still sitting at "probable", and will remain "unacceptably high for the foreseeable future".

Violent extremism of the type embodied by Islamic State and al’Qaida remained the security agency's principal concern, but Mr Burgess said the threat of right-wing extremism in Australia was "real and growing". He revealed an Australian earlier this year was stopped from leaving the country to fight with an extreme right wing group on a foreign battlefield after authorities received a tip-off from ASIO. "In suburbs around Australia, small cells regularly meet to salute Nazi flags, inspect weapons, train in combat and share their hateful ideology," Mr Burgess said. He said online forums, including the white supremacist group The Base, were attracting international memberships from Australians, sharing extremist right wing ideologies and encouraging acts of extreme violence. "We expect such groups will remain an enduring threat, making more use of online propaganda to spread their messages of hate," Mr Burgess said.

"While we would expect any right wing extremist inspired attack in Australia to be low capability, i.e. a knife, gun or vehicle attack, more sophisticated attacks are possible. And we also need to be mindful of state-sponsored terrorism as states seek to use terrorism to further their goals." Loading Mr Burgess also spoke about the importance of the encryption laws that passed in late 2018, saying they have been used to protect Australians from serious harm. Acknowledging a perception that his organisation has been seen in the past as operating in the "shadows", Mr Burgess said he wanted to be "as open and frank with you as I can about what we do and why we do it". "I want to be clear that the ASIO I have the privilege to lead is not a secret organisation operating as a law unto itself, conducting shadowy business around the margins of our democracy and our law," he said.