Asio chief says intelligence is ‘not here to be politicised’ after Dutton accuses Labor

The Asio chief has declared that his intelligence agency is "not here to be politicised", vowing to defend its independence after the leak of details of an alleged foreign interference plot.

Mike Burgess confirmed he held no concerns about any Labor candidates at the next federal election, and people should "definitely not" assume an Asio employee was responsible when news reports attributed information to "security sources".

"I take our reputation very seriously. Asio is not here to be politicised. It should not be," Burgess told a Senate estimates hearing on Monday night.

Without criticising anyone by name, Burgess said he did "recognise that there may be people who choose to misuse [information] - officials or members of parliament or ministers" and "any misuse is a matter for them to answer to, not myself".

He said he was able to "have very robust conversations with all elements of the political class" and with officials "to make it very clear what I think is appropriate and inappropriate".

"I can assure you I will continue to do that when things like this happen," Burgess said.

The Asio chief's forthright intervention comes days after the defence minister, Peter Dutton, ramped up the government's political attack on Labor by claiming the Chinese government had picked the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, "as their candidate".