During the recent Senate Estimates, I questioned Mr Burgess, Director-General of ASIO, about the scale and nature of extremist threats in Australia. I cited figures of 200 potential terrorists and 18,000 people on threat-related watchlists.
Mr Burgess clarified that while “tens of thousands” have been investigated since 2001, not all remain active threats. He stated that the vast majority of individuals investigated since 2001 fall under religiously motivated violent extremism. However, he noted growth in other sectors, specifically – nationalist and racist violent extremists; extreme left-wing groups (anarchists and revolutionists) and broad “issue-motivated” extremists.
Mr Burgess declined to say whether the majority of persons under investigation were Islamist extremists.
— Senate Estimates | February 2026
Transcript
CHAIR: Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: In terms of root cause analysis, you’ve reassured me already. Thank you for your statement. I have a few questions. Is it true that there are approximately 200 would-be terrorists living in Australia? Is it true that there are over 18,000 people on the threat related watch list?
Mr Burgess: What I can say publicly is we have a number of people we have subject to investigations, including a number of people in our priority counterterrorism caseload who obviously get the priority. There are tens of thousands of people who have come to our attention and are no longer being investigated by us. That does not mean tens of thousands of people are potential terrorists, but they’re people we have investigated.
Senator ROBERTS: Is it true that the majority of these are Islamic sympathisers?
Mr Burgess: The vast majority of people we’ve investigated since 2001 have come from a religiously motivated violent extremism cohort. But of course we have seen growth in broader issue motivated violent extremists, including nationalists and racist violent extremists and people with a range of other grievances, including on the extreme left, anarchists and revolutionists, which is something recently that we’re getting involved in. The mix is spread.
Senator ROBERTS: Will ASIO take direct action in the future on strong suspicion of threat even if the action runs the risk of being branded racist or the result of profiling religion or whatever? It seems to be a matter of life and death.
Mr Burgess: If it’s a matter of life and death, we and the police will be on it. We’ll be doing that together with the police. If it’s an immediate threat to life, you need the police to go through the front door, not the security service. We always investigate threats to security, and that’s what we’re investigating. We’re not racially profiling or doing anything else. We’re looking at people who hold certain ideological views that think politically motivated violence or promotion of communal violence is something that supports them or in their remit. We will act accordingly with the full force of our law. Everything we do and everything we must do has to be legal and proportionate to the threat before us.
Senator ROBERTS: Will you label them at the risk of being called names?
Mr Burgess: It depends what you mean by ‘label’. We assign ideology—
Senator ROBERTS: Identify their background.
Mr Burgess: Religiously motivated violent extremists, Sunni violent extremists, Neo-Nazis, nationalist and racist violent extremists—we call them what we need to to explain their ideology and motivation.
Senator ROBERTS: One last challenge for you, and a very difficult one. Could you teach the minister about root cause analysis, please?
Mr Burgess: That’s a matter for the minister, if he’s interested. He probably has a very busy day job.
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