Australia’s intelligence chief: Antisemitism has risen to ‘disturbing level’

Australia’s spy chief, Mike Burgess, said on Thursday he doesn’t rule out the threat posed by the Iranian regime to prominent Jewish figures Down Under.

The remark was made during a talk on broadcaster Neil Mitchell’s podcast, “Mitchell Unlimited.”

The director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation also spoke about the alarming spread of antisemitism in the country in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of Israel’s south.

“We still have antisemitism as a problem and that does concern me,” Burgess said.

“It’s got to a pretty high, disturbing level. It raised its ugly head after the 7th of October. It started with threatening, intimidating behavior and then, a year later, it transitioned to direct targeting of people, places of worship and businesses. And then we saw the death of 15 people. I reckon that’s a bad place for us to be,” the spy master said, referencing the Bondi Beach shooting attack on Dec. 14, 2025, carried out by an Islamic State-inspired father and son.

He addressed the failure of the government to curb the growing trend of antisemitism, saying, “Maybe I could have shouted more. Political leaders could have said ‘this is not right.’ … By all means be critical of the State of Israel but actually say, ‘But we’re not talking about Australians or people of Jewish faith.’”

PM Albanese visits Jewish school

Meanwhile on Friday morning, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited a Jewish school in Sydney to hear about the challenges that members of the Jewish community were going through.

“More than 90 students from Kesser Torah College were present when the Bondi terrorist attack took place,” Albanese summarized his visit on his Instagram account.

“On that horrific day, teachers’ and parents’ lives were taken and students were injured. Since then, the school has shown up for those carrying the ongoing trauma and grief,” he wrote.

“Hearing the stories from staff today was a reminder of both the depth of that loss and the extraordinary strength of this community,” he added.

The Australian prime minister accepted the college’s invitation “to see first-hand the needs of our school community,” Kesser Torah College wrote in a document published by the Australian Jewish Association, an organization self-described as dedicated to center-right Australian values.

The visit was conducted away from the media so that Albanese and Federal Minister for Education Jason Clare, who also arrived at the school, could allow the community to go about its “normal school day” and talk directly to Kesser Torah College’s leadership, the document read.

The visit was also publicized beforehand due to strict security requirements, it added.