In a stirring address delivered during the 2025 Lowy Lecture on Tuesday evening, the speaker highlighted an unprecedented scale of threats facing Australia. “Australia has never faced so many different threats, at scale, at once,” he remarked, setting a grave tone for the discourse.

He expressed deep concern over the nation’s social cohesion, describing it as “under siege, under threat, under attack.” The warning painted a vivid picture of a community whose unity is being tested like never before. “Our social fabric is fraying – fraying in ways we have never experienced before,” he continued, emphasizing the severity of the situation. “This is not an accident,” he clarified, pointing to deliberate efforts to disrupt the harmony.

Further elaborating on the issue, he cautioned that “cunning nation states” are actively seeking to exploit and intensify tensions. By “fanning the flames” initiated by disgruntled individuals and extremist factions, these external forces are contributing to the erosion of Australia’s much-cherished social fabric.

“This is not an accident.”

Burgess warned “cunning nation states” were trying to “fan the flames” started by aggrieved individuals and extremist groups.

Iran’s sponsorship of high-profile anti-Semitic attacks earlier this year was the most egregious example but not the only one.

He said ASIO agents had uncovered links between pro-Russian influencers in Australia pushing extreme online narratives justifying the invasion of Ukraine and an “offshore media organisation that almost certainly receives direction from Russian intelligence”.

“These state-sanctioned trolls are more than propaganda puppets,” he said.

“They want to turn hot-button issues into burning issues, tipping disagreement into division and division into violence.”

Burgess worried the foreign interference would cross the line from reckless to something more serious, saying there was a “realistic possibility” a foreign government would “attempt to assassinate a perceived dissident in Australia”.

“This threat is real,” he said.

“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.”

Closer to home, Burgess said the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network had exploited the March for Australia rallies to boost its profile.

“At its core, the National Socialist Network is anti-immigrant, anti-Indigenous, anti-gay, anti-Jew, anti-Islam and anti-anything that does not fit its white Anglo-centric world view,” Burgess said.

“Its version of social cohesion is monochrome and mono-cultural.

“Even if the organisation does not engage in terrorism, I remain deeply concerned by its hateful, divisive rhetoric and increasingly violent propaganda, and the growing likelihood these things will prompt spontaneous violence, particularly in response to perceived provocation.”

He also warned of a “notable uptick in intentionally disruptive and damaging tactics by anti-Israel activists”, while noting these acts were not so centrally controlled or even motivated by the same goals. 

Amid all of these threats was the impact of the internet and social media in incubating and accelerating disaffection, misinformation and reinforcement, with AI a looming threat of exacerbating the risks.

“You will not be surprised to know I am deeply concerned about the potential for AI to take online radicalisation and disinformation to entirely new levels,” Burgess said.

Despite all this, Burgess left the lecture on a hopeful note, arguing Australia was better placed than many other Western democracies to meet the coming challenges.