A terror attack in Australia is likely within a year and the threat from “savvy” right-wing extremists is rapidly growing, the nation’s top counter-terror chief warns.

Australia Secret Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) secretary Mike Burgess told a parliamentary inquiry on Thursday that the threat from right-wing terrorists had exploded over the past three years.

Mr Burgess said ASIO had “credible intelligence” terror groups and lone wolves had capability to commit attacks, and the terror threat remained at probable.

“On that basis, we assess that there is likely to be a terrorist attack sometime in the next 12 months … That’s what probable means,” he said.

Mr Burgess said although the biggest concern remained Sunni extremist groups, particularly Islamic State, the threat from nationalist and racist groups was escalating rapidly.

“It’s the extent of what we’re seeing that’s the difference: more people interested in it, more activity,” he said.

Right-wing extremism now accounted for 40 per cent of ASIO’s onshore counter-terrorism workload, rising from 16 per cent just three years ago, he revealed.

“More often than not they are young, well educated, articulate and middle class and not easily identified,” Mr Burgess said.

“These violent extremists are acutely security conscious and adapt their security posture to avoid attention.

“They focus on online forums and chat rooms. They’re savvy when it comes to operating with the limits of what is legal and discuss ways to beat the system in what they say and do.”

Mr Burgess agreed that unlike more-structured Islamist extremist groups, more fluid structures were a “deliberate feature” of racist groups.

Lone actors and small cells posed the greatest concern regardless of the ideology underpinning them, Mr Burgess said.

text by Finn McHugh news.com.au

And while Islamist extremism was “very much a capital city problem”, right-wing extremism was spread across the country, including in regional areas.

That posed problems for counter-terror operations, but Mr Burgess was “confident” the intelligence apparatus was adapting.

In 2019, a right-wing Australian terrorist murdered 51 Muslim worshippers and injured another 49 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

He referenced various right-wing extremists in his manifesto, including the “lone-wolf” Norwegian terrorist who killed 77 people in 2012.

But Mr Burgess rejected calls for powers to prescribe individuals or their manifestos.

“(That) might draw attention to them, then others get inspired by the mere fact of that action,” he said.

Mr Burgess confirmed he was aware of Australians who wanted to travel overseas to train with nationalist paramilitary groups.

The warnings come just months after nearly 40 white supremacists gathered in Victoria’s Grampians National Park, burning crosses and chanting white power slogans.