The government’s once-in-40-years reform of domestic security arrangements with the new Department of Home Affairs provides a rare opportunity for policymakers to question assumptions about policing and law enforcement. Let’s start with the differences between the …
Deep in our Australian collective psyche is a fundamental belief that we’re ‘the lucky country’. You can’t blame us because even our national anthem says ‘our land abounds in nature’s gifts, of beauty rich and …
Last week, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Andrew Colvin told a Senate Estimates committee that his 6,500-strong organisation faced a ‘supply and demand challenge’. The commissioner described a force experiencing greater demand for its services …
For over a decade, both of our major political parties, in the face of uncertain times, have been going forth ‘getting tough on security’. It would seem that General Melchett, Stephen Fry’s character from …
The Turnbull government argues that Australia’s national security conditions have experienced fundamental changes. These changes have been driven by the resurgence of old threats (espionage and terrorism), non-traditional national security threats (transnational organised crime) and …
In December 2017, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released its latest report on opium production in Myanmar and, at face value, the news was good. Since 2015, the area of cultivated …
For outsiders, even governments, e-diasporas are a new and much-needed channel for communication with migrant groups and their nations of origin. E-diasporas present risks and opportunities for migration management, workforce planning, diplomacy, political engagement and …
Early on 2 September 2015, 16 Syrian refugees on a remote Turkish beach hopped onto a small boat built for eight passengers. Each had paid a people smuggler around US$6,000 for passage from Turkey to …
The 23rd ASEAN Transport Ministers meeting on 12 October ended on a high note with the signing of an agreement on cross-border transport of passengers by road vehicles. The pact makes it easier to facilitate …
Earlier this week, the minister for justice, Michael Keenan, formally released the Commonwealth Law Enforcement International Engagement Methamphetamine Disruption Strategy. The Australian Federal Police (AFP)–led strategy is meant to provide ‘the framework for the Australian …
I’d like to thank Rolando Ochoa for his response to, and overarching support for, my recent research report on Mexican organised crime (MOC) in Australia and the ASEAN region. Before responding to Ochoa’s specific comments, …
Last month in The Strategist, Mark Gilchrist put down a wager that computers will ‘be unable to provide any greater certainty than a team of well-trained and experienced analysts who understand the true difficulty of …
