Pan-Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir’s plan to hold a national conference in Sydney, premised on the message that Islam is the change “the world desperately needs”, has prompted concern from senior state and federal political figures.

Delivering the 2025 Lowy Lecture on Tuesday, the Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, said Australia had never faced “so many different threats” at once and stressed social cohesion was “under siege”.

The spy chief also compared tactics used by Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international pan-Islamist and Islamic fundamentalist political organisation, with those employed by neo-Nazis.

He said the religiously motivated organisation's “provocative ­behaviour, offensive rhetoric and insidious strategy” was “very similar” to that of the National Socialist Network.