- Posted March 04, 2026
- Director-General Speeches
Wednesday 4 March, 2026
Tēnā koutou katoa
Thank you for the opportunity to address you today.
Almost three months on from the horrific terrorist attack on Bondi Beach on 14 December, our thoughts very much remain with Jewish communities on both sides of the Tasman.
At the NZSIS, we immediately stood up an operation to understand how the Bondi attack might impact the New Zealand threat environment. We also provided support as required to our Australian and New Zealand Police colleagues
That operation ran right through the summer break and we continue to receive relevant intelligence.
The NZSIS is also monitoring the unfolding situation in Iran and the potential impact on our local threat environment. We do not see any change to the current threat profile, although it’s still early days.
The Bondi attack has unfortunately resonated with violent extremists from across the ideological spectrum.
Faith-based violent extremist organisations like ISIS and Al Qaeda paid close attention. So too did identity-based violent extremists who freely promote vile antisemitic and Islamophobic narratives. The Bondi attack also helped to feed and motivate anti-immigration narratives that are used by some politically-motivated violent extremists.
Another concerning dimension was the use of AI to falsify and proliferate online content about the attack.
We were all shocked and appalled by the senseless attack at Bondi, but unfortunately, I was not completely surprised.
This is the type of low capability, without warning attack the NZSIS frequently warns could happen here. It could come from violent extremists from across the ideological spectrum.
The Combined Threat Assessment Group, inside NZSIS, has recently updated the descriptors used for the National Terrorism Threat Level to better reflect the nature of our threat environment.
A terrorist attack remains a realistic possibility in New Zealand. That is now reflected on the scale as POSSIBLE rather than LOW as this level was previously described. Using the term POSSIBLE is intended to focus minds on the need to be prepared.
Both antisemitism and islamophobia are diseases we see running through the violent extremist environment in New Zealand, often alongside other dark motivations. New Zealanders should be alert that it is possible someone with extreme antisemitic or Islamophobic views may develop the intent and capability to conduct an attack.
Faith-based and ethnic communities feel this threat deeply and are increasingly concerned with the level of hate they face. I heard these concerns first hand in my own engagement with the Jewish and Muslim communities in just the month before the attack at Bondi.
While my agency and the Police are very focused on detecting violent extremists, we are not all seeing and all knowing, and nor should we be in a democracy like ours. New Zealanders are just as likely to see concerning behaviour as we are. The right thing to do is to report that behaviour to us or the Police.
The broader domestic threat environment also presents a range of challenges, including foreign interference, espionage and insiders within organisations who wittingly or unwittingly can harm our national security.
The NZSIS is intensifying efforts to promote a stronger security mindset across a broad range of sectors in our society, including through our annual security threat environment report.
New Zealand’s relationships and our innovation, our location in the South Pacific, and our close proximity to Antarctica all make New Zealand geostrategically significant. This has been positive for New Zealand’s international reputation and our economic prosperity. But that geostrategic significance also brings with it some downstream threats to our national security.
There continues to be a number of states that conduct foreign interference and espionage against New Zealand. This is not benign activity. Such actors have a voracious appetite for covert influence and non-public information that they can leverage to gain an advantage over us or our partners.
For example, increasingly, we see influential New Zealanders or people with access to privileged information being targeted by foreign intelligence services through deceptive online recruitment.
Certain states also want us to line-up with their talking points and ensure our communities and civil society don’t speak out of turn. Deception, coercion and corruption are frequently used to further their goals in ways that are contrary to our national interest. The fact we now have criminal offences for such activities reinforces that foreign interference and espionage is unacceptable in New Zealand.
The NZSIS continues to have success disrupting foreign interference and espionage activities, but what we see may just be the tip of the iceberg.
As always, prevention will be the best defence and there is much that organisations and communities can do to manage the risk. We have some excellent advice and guidance but leaders of organisations, businesses and communities also need to take steps to protect their people, their critical information, and their assets.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the extraordinary professionalism and dedication shown by the people of the NZSIS each and every day.
Prime Minister, Minister Collins – you both have had the opportunity over the past year to see up close the impressive work they do.
Thank you. We are now happy to answer your questions.