Election plot disrupted, Asio chief reveals – then vows to counter foreign meddling

Mike Burgess outside Asio’s headquarters in Canberra on Wednesday. He said spies had ‘detected and disrupted a foreign interference plot in the lead-up to an election in Australia’. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

A top Australian intelligence chief has vowed to counter any attempts by other countries to interfere in the upcoming federal election after revealing a “recent” meddling plot had been disrupted.

The head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, on Wednesday night issued a plea to Australians not to allow the fear of foreign interference to “stoke community division” – otherwise it would have “the same corrosive impact on our democracy as foreign interference itself”.