Each of Australia’s border security domains presents unique threats and operating challenges. Whether searching for illicit drugs in Sydney’s mail centre, processing passenger arrivals at Melbourne’s international airport or inspecting shipping containers in Fremantle, the …
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced that more Royal Australian Navy vessels will be built at the Henderson shipyard south of Perth, and the plan appears to have bipartisan support. The 2016 defence white paper …
In ASPI’s Agenda for change 2019, I argued the case for reforming the Department of Home Affairs. Despite its many successes, the department’s establishment hasn’t been smooth and a significant number of budgetary, legislative and …
For over a century, Australian federal governments have periodically tussled with the question of what to do with, and at times how to defend, what they’ve long considered Australia’s underdeveloped and underpopulated north. The Australian …
Over the past four years, Australia’s border security framework has been subject to ongoing landmark overhauls. On 1 July 2015, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service …
This week, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released its much-anticipated report on synthetic drugs in East and Southeast Asia. For the most part, UNODC assessments tend to be rather conservative, which …
There’s been plenty of discussion lately about the challenges of onshore protection claims from people arriving in Australia by air. Last month, I wrote that air arrivals were Australia’s most pressing immigration border security issue. …
By the end of last week parliamentarians and sections of the media (see here and here) had all offered opinions on whether independent MP Kerryn Phelps’ medical evacuation bill would restart the people-smuggling trade to …
Over the last six years, the hopes of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru have been sacrificed by an Australian government policy designed to prevent broader loss of life and maintain the sovereignty of …
The human cost of illicit drug use in Australia—whether from heroin overdoses in the 1990s or, more recently, from methamphetamine (ice) and MDMA (the main ingredient in ecstasy)—makes the headlines because it personalises the issue. …
In terms of Australia’s first, and primary, strategic defence objective—‘to deter, deny and defeat any attempt by a hostile country or non-state actor to attack, threaten or coerce Australia’—it seems that Paul Dibb’s 1986 review …
Over recent years, the Asia–Pacific maritime security environment has become increasingly complex. Transnational serious and organised crime in the maritime domain (including illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; piracy; and trafficking of weapons, drugs and people), …
