A foreign intelligence service plotted to lure an Australian human rights activist offshore so that they could be "disposed of", the country's top spy revealed, as he promised to use Australia's "arsenal of weapons" to crush such schemes.
Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess released details of two instances in which foreign regimes planned to physically harm Australian residents, in his annual threat assessment on Tuesday evening.
The intelligence agency quashed both attempts, made by two different countries in the last year, Mr Burgess said.
"In each case, the target was considered a critic of the foreign regime," he said.
"In one case, the intelligence service started monitoring a human rights activist and plotted to lure the target offshore, where the individual could be - quote - 'disposed of'."
"In another, a lackey was dispatched to locate specific dissidents and - quote - 'deal with them'," Mr Burgess said.
The ASIO director-general did not say which countries initiated the plots but highlighted them as examples of what foreign interference "can become if left unchecked".
"This is foreign interference at its most brutal," he said.
"It is unacceptable and untenable.
"It is an assault on our sovereignty, an affront to our freedoms."
The ASIO boss said he did not comment on operational matters but that the agency had "zero tolerance for this despicable behaviour".
"We have an arsenal of weapons to deal with foreign interference and we will use it - and did use it in the cases I've outlined," he said.
"Our resolve more than matches the perpetrators' aggression."
The revelations come after Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neill last week revealed ASIO had defeated an Iranian plot targeting an Iranian-Australian and their family on Australian soil.
The plot included monitoring the home of a critic of the Iranian regime and researching the person and their family, Ms O'Neill said in a speech at the Australian National University last Tuesday.
Ms O'Neill said Australia would call out "egregious acts" of foreign interference where it was in the national interest.
"It's time to bring foreign interference out of the shadows and into the light," she said.
"As minister for home affairs, there is something direct and practical I can do to help equip Australians to fight this problem - to talk as openly as I can about foreign interference in Australia."
The minister also said that ASIO and Home Affairs would develop a new program to support people at risk of being targeted for foreign interference.
