Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has thanked police after a bomb scare prompted the evacuation of his home, as fresh details link the alarming threat to an upcoming tour by a Chinese dance and music group.

Albanese returned to The Lodge in Canberra about 9pm on Tuesday after he was moved to a secure location three hours earlier while police searched his official residence.

He posted a picture of his caboodle Toto to Instagram on Wednesday, accompanied by the song Break My Stride by Matthew Wilder.

“Toto on alert but all good,” Albanese wrote in the caption.

“Thanks to AFP for your ongoing work and professionalism and to people who sent kind messages of care and support.”

The threat sparked a significant operation by Australian Federal Police, who said a thorough search of the property was undertaken and nothing suspicious was found.

Although no official details about the nature of the threat have been released, New York-based Chinese dance and music company Shen Yun Performing Arts has said it was sent a warning claiming  that “large quantities of nitroglycerin explosives” had been placed around The Lodge.

The threat, written in Mandarin, said the Lodge would be “blown into ruins” and “blood will flow like a river” if Shen Yun’s planned upcoming performances in Australia went ahead.

The group passed the threat on to the AFP.

The Epoch Times has reported that local presenters for the group’s tour had also received emails threatening the personal safety of Albanese “and all other Australian high officials”.

Shen Yun, which is banned from China, is linked to the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Its website states that many of its artists have “escaped ongoing persecution” in China, and claims that ever since it was founded “the Chinese regime and its agents have tried to stop us performing” – including by having people send prank bomb threats to its venues.

A spokeswoman for the Falun Dafa Association said while Shen Yun regularly received threats, the emails were an escalation.

“Recent reports of a death threat directed at Australia’s prime minister highlight the dangerous trajectory of (Chinese Communist Party)-linked intimidation tactics,” the spokeswoman said.

The Lodge bomb scare was the latest in a series of threats against MPs, as the AFP confirmed 950 incidents were investigated in 2024/25.

The number of threats made against MPs in 2024/25 was 63 per cent higher than the previous four financial years combined.

 

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Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said she could not divulge more details about the threat against Albanese but said it was “very troubling”.

“Our point of view, and the Prime Minister’s been saying for months, we need to take the temperature down,” she told ABC TV on Wednesday.

The Labor frontbencher said she couldn’t remember a time when an incident like this had occurred and suggested the “online world” had inflamed political tensions.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said in a post on X he was grateful Albanese was safe and condemned threats against politicians as “utterly abhorrent”.

Nationals leader David Littleproud urged people to be civil when engaging in political debate.

“I get everyone’s got to have a cause these days … but there’s a forum in which you can do that without perpetrating hate and violence against any of the elected officials,” he told Sky News.

Police responded to threat at the Prime Minister’s Canberra residence. Photo: AAP

The Lodge, located in Deakin near Parliament House, is the official residence of the Prime Minister.

It is one of two prime ministerial residences, the second being Kirribilli House in Sydney.

Albanese chose the 1920s-built, 40-room mansion on four hectares as his wedding venue when he tied the knot with Jodie Haydon in November.

The heavily fortified property is fitted with cameras, biometric security scanners, high boundary walls, shatterproof windows and a safe room.

The AFP set up a national security investigations team in October 2025 to target people “causing high levels of harm to Australia’s social cohesion, including the targeting of federal parliamentarians”.

AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett revealed 21 people had been charged nationwide since she established the team.

–with AAP