- The Strategist - https://www.aspistrategist.org.au -
Oz intelligence review: Home Affairs
Posted By Graeme Dobell on September 11, 2017 @ 06:00
The Turnbull Government will undertake the most significant reform of Australia’s national intelligence and domestic security arrangements in more than 40 years. The reforms will restructure and strengthen Australia’s Intelligence Community, establish a Home Affairs portfolio and enhance the Attorney-General’s oversight of Australia’s intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies. Australia faces an increasingly complex security environment, evolving threats from terrorism and organised crime, and the development of new and emerging technologies, including encryption.
The Government has exercised its right to arrange portfolios in ways that it thinks best. It matters little to the effective operation of Australia's highly professional intelligence and law enforcement community whether they answer to an Attorney-General or a Minister for Home Affairs. We would expect them to perform equally well for both ... The real practical significance of the reforms lies not in the Turnbull Government's new portfolio arrangements but in its acceptance of the 23 major recommendations of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review, conducted by Michael L’Estrange and Stephen Merchant. This comprehensive and incisive report ... objectively identifies areas where a well-performing community can do even better.
The most important point to make about the government’s proposed Home Affairs portfolio is that these new arrangements can be made to work. They will not harm our counterterrorism performance and could improve Australia’s underwhelming efforts to protect against foreign interference and strengthen the security of critical infrastructure. But … it’s surprising that so little groundwork had been done to justify the need for change or to say how it was going to be done.
I’m fairly agnostic in respect of that. I think it’s difficult to criticise. Equally, I think it’s difficult to proclaim it as some great advance forward. ASIO and the AFP have been in the one portfolio for well over 20 years [Attorney-General’s] so you’re not doing anything new in respect of ASIO and the AFP working more closely together [in Home Affairs].
While decisions on the [intelligence] review are sound, the Prime Minister’s statements (and those of some of his ministers) on the Home Affairs proposal are rich in cliché, wishful thinking and ignorance. Such shortcomings could be excused if the proposal was meritorious; it is not. Sensible machinery of government principles are offended, the stench of politics and empire building is abroad, there is no revised Administrative Arrangements Order and, notwithstanding the avowed urgency of security and terror risks, the new show will not come into effect for about a year.
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URL to article: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/oz-intelligence-review-home-affairs/
[1] 2017 Independent Intelligence Review: https://www.pmc.gov.au/national-security/2017-independent-intelligence-review
[2] joint announcement: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2017-07-18/strong-and-secure-australia
[3] Home Affairs: http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1718/Quick_Guides/HomeAffairs
[4] rumble in the Canberra jungle: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/new-beast-home-canberras-jungle/
[5] David Irvine: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australian-intelligence-reforms-ain-t-broke-can-still-be-improved
[6] Peter Jennings: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/good-not-good-policymaking/
[7] Dennis Richardson: http://www.themandarin.com.au/81668-department-of-home-affairs-gets-a-lukewarm-reception/
[8] Paddy Gourley: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/the-folly-of-the-coalitions-home-affairs-super-ministry-shakeup-20170727-gxjmjs.html