Transcript

Is Australia doing enough to make intelligence useful for policymakers, parliamentarians, and cabinet ministers? 

How can Australia build an intelligence workforce with a diverse range of skills, interests and backgrounds, and reflective of our society?  

How should Australia balance its intelligence independence with alliance integration? 

In this episode Chris Taylor and Miah Hammond-Errey join Rory Medcalf to delve into the 2024 Independent Intelligence Review, discussing the role of intelligence in an uncertain world, the relationship between intelligence and policy, and the impact of technology on intelligence. 

(This transcript is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies.)

Chris Taylor

Workforce is the principal capability challenge for Australian intelligence. It's the principal constraint on capability development at the moment.

Miah Hammond-Errey

Doesn't matter how great your people are, it doesn't matter how great or exquisite your capabilities are, that you've prioritized the right threats, that you've got incredible intelligence. If it doesn't get to the decision maker in a way that they can use it at the right time, in the right place, it's completely redundant.

National Security Podcast

You're listening to the National Security Podcast, the show that brings you expert analysis, insights and opinion on the national security challenges facing Australia and the Indo-Pacific produced by the ANU National Security College.

Rory Medcalf

Welcome to the National Security Podcast. I'm Rory Medcalf, head of the ANU National Security College. Today's podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people and I pay my respects to their elders, past and present. Our topic this week is perhaps not a headline-grabber in the Australian election campaign that's currently underway, but it is vitally important to the present and future security of Australia, and that is intelligence: the role of intelligence in this country and, in particular, the recommendations, the review that's just come out from independent reviewers, Richard Maude and Dr. Heather Smith. Australia released an independent intelligence review just a few weeks ago now into the effectiveness and really the future of our intelligence community. It didn't attract a huge amount of attention at the time, but it's of enduring importance to our national security. So today I'm joined by two leading commentators, analysts and practitioners in national security who are experts on intelligence: Chris Taylor and Dr. Miah Hammond-Errey for a discussion on Australia's recently released Independent Intelligence Review. To introduce our guests properly, Chris, you're the head of the Statecraft and Intelligence Program at ASPI, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and an experienced Australian national security official on leave at present from the Australian Government. Welcome to the program.

Chris Taylor

Thank you, Rory.

Rory Medcalf

And welcome to you Miah, the founding CEO of StratFutures, host of the Technology and Security podcast. Thanks for sharing your talent on our podcast. But of course, building on a career in federal government in Australia, in Europe, in Asia, among other things awarded an operations medal for intelligence leadership. And of course, you hold an academic affiliation as adjunct associate professor at Deakin University. So welcome to you too.

Miah Hammond-Errey

Thanks for having me. It's a real pleasure to join you both.

Rory Medcalf

So, let's kick off and Miah, I'll go to you first. This intelligence review released recently and I know after quite an extensive delay, but thank goodness it's now out there in the light of day. What were your expectations and were they met?

Miah Hammond-Errey

Yeah, I mean, as you said, it did have quite a delay between the end of the review being provided to Government and then being publicly released. The outline of the strategic environment that Australia finds itself in would have had to be updated somewhat since the original review. But it is clear that the reviewers did consider a number of possible trajectories in that review in terms of where the strategic environment for Australia was going. And so, my highlights, if you will, were the recommendation focus on the intelligence and policy interface, which is profoundly important, it's significant, but underappreciated. I also think the focus on strategic warning is vital and obviously aligns with defence strategic capabilities. The focus on technology, as a technologist, that was, of course, the area that I flipped to first.

And while technology isn't exactly the star of this review, there are some really important measures there for incremental and hopefully in the future rapid adoption. And I think finally, finally the area of oversight, which there were quite a number of recommendations in the oversight sphere, which match the increase of the insulin to full time and so on. So, it was a very large review, 67 recommendations, nearly 200 pages. It covered a lot of ground. I hope we'll get into that a little bit further. But yeah, I think there is actually quite a lot to like and like any review, a few missed opportunities.

Rory Medcalf

And for the benefit of our listeners who are not Australian security practitioners or Australian intelligence experts, there is something quite distinct about the Australian Intelligence Community and the way that Government has approached this over many years now. I think reviews like this are a very impressive instrument of transparency that has developed over, I guess, some pretty difficult phases in our intelligence history going back at least to the Iraq war, but perhaps earlier. Chris, you were a polite but firm advocate for the release of this review. And I think that the clarity of that message seems to have helped government realise that it was time to get this thing out there. But what were your big takeaways?

Chris Taylor

So, as you mentioned, I was a firm advocate of the release of the report, a public version of the report, because as you say, this is a, it's a unique Australian mechanism for taking a suitable checkup of the Australian intelligence community. It represents a way of working that moved on from the classic post-intelligence failure, post-mortem, towards something that I think is much healthier, much more proactive and much more useful for both the public and for Government. So, to see it be released, to be now part of that tradition of these reports that to a certain extent stretches back to Flood in 2004. Flood in 2004 was a classic post-mortem after Iraq, WMD, after Bali 1 and the Solomon Islands. But we then had Cornell Black in 2011 and then very much the seminal, the Strange Merchant Review of 2017.

Rory Medcalf

 Well, I talk about these like they're sort of fine vintage wine.

Chris Taylor

And I think they go underappreciated. They've laid the groundwork, I think, for the strategic vision for where the National Intelligence Community is going. And that kind of leads me to kind of my principal takeaway.  And it was a theme of my representations to the reviewers when they were doing their, when they were taking evidence and testimony, was that while there is still much to do in terms of capability building, integration within the national intelligence community, the really big challenge and one that I think that the review has suitably identified and highlighted is the need to integrate the national intelligence community and its capabilities into the Australian Government more broadly; to be able to use intelligence as a means of empowering Government decision making in terms of decision advantage, in terms of the tools that are available to Australia to both advance and protect its national interest. To me, that was the really important part about it – a recognition that there's very much work to do in that space, and that it kind of requires – it's a two-way street. It requires changes and adaptation by the community and by the agency leaderships within the community. But it also requires adaptation by government, by policy departments and agencies and by ministers so that we can get the very best out of the machine that has been built over the course of the last quarter century.

Rory Medcalf

And I think again, for the benefit of listeners who perhaps don't know the Australian national security community, as well as a few of us on the program, the reviewers, Richard Maude and Heather Smith, both very distinguished Australian former policymakers, but also very senior intelligence leaders, both of whom I think are very understated analytical minds. They have very acute insights, but they choose their words very carefully in the way that they transmit those. And it is interesting if we go back to the beginning of the review, which does begin with a framing of the strategic environment and presumably, at least in an earlier draft was produced last year, early to mid-last year. And I don't know, in fact, whether it received a bit of a touch-up once we realized that a Trump administration was going to add further strategic shock to the world. But it was prescient nonetheless. And I think that for those of us who bemoan the lack of a national security strategy or a national security statement from the Australian Government, in other words, a very clear leveling with the public of the very difficult strategic circumstances Australia now faces, this report is actually something of a substitute. I think it was very stark about the geopolitical and security challenges ahead for the nation and how we're going to have to use the limited resources we have to much greater effect. Now, of course, the resources of the National Intelligence Community in Australia are actually quite substantial. I think 9,000 personnel approximately and a multi-billion dollar budget. But even so, they're enormously stretched. Miah, what did you take of the strategic outlook that this began with?

Miah Hammond-Errey

Yeah, like you, felt like it was actually one of the highlights of the review and the review’s credibility. You know, there had always been some consternation that both reviewers were formerly ONI or ONA and thus had a tendency to centralise functions and that was a concern. The approach with such, as you said, prescient forecast both on where we find ourselves now, but with the allowance of the strategic shocks that are likely to continue to come, I think really shows a great insight both into Australia's strategic circumstances and also setting us up for a situation where many of the things that have traditionally not been intelligence-only functions are more prevalent, a part of discussion in society. So, to give you examples of those, obviously things like mis- and disinformation, social trust in government and legitimacy, they're conversations that are starting to resonate with general Australians, which, you know, for wonks is quite a surprise. You know, going to some of those those recommendations, as you say, in terms of some of the highlights for me in that intelligence policy discussion were really things like a requirement for the intelligence community to better communicate its return on investment for Government. You know, whether that was by conducting evaluations or, you know, improving its consideration of public release or declassification. So, I think they thought very deeply and were quite considered about a number of the recommendations. And I actually think in a very apt sense for an intelligence review, this Review will be considered later as a real quiet achiever. There are actually many incremental adjustments or, you know, recalibrations, which seem minor, but actually taken consecutively could have a really profound impact on the relationship between the intelligence community and the policymakers who use it. And just before we kind of launch off there, I would say I've written elsewhere, but it is underappreciated that relationship. And one of the reasons for that is that doesn't matter how great your people are, it doesn't matter how great or exquisite your capabilities are, that you've prioritized the right threats, that you've got incredible intelligence. If it doesn't get to the decision maker in a way that they can use it at the right time, in the right place, it's completely redundant. And so, this focus on that relationship, I think is really, really significant.

Rory Medcalf

Chris, I'll be interested in your take on that. But also I want to plant a flag for both of you to come back to the alliance dimensions of all of this a bit later in the conversation, because something that perhaps wasn't foreshadowed in the review even last year was the sort of uncertainties about the alliance, certainly that we're seeing from the Canadians or the Europeans and whether that might translate into the Australia-US relationship. But let's just park that for a moment. On the policy-intelligence nexus, on that question of making intelligence useful for policymakers and helping all of the policy departments and agencies of the Australian Government actually engage with that intelligence product that often people go to enormous trouble and sometimes significant risk to develop and obtain. How do you think we're doing and where do you think we'll go from here?

Chris Taylor

So, I think we have work to do. I spent lot of time recently thinking about what it means to have a very different kind of intelligence consumer today. It shocks me a little bit in my dotage to suddenly realize that there are ministers of the Crown who are in their 30s and early 40s.

Rory Medcalf

Firstly, the cricket team is younger than you and then one day the Ministers are and then you know that you're in your prime.

Chris Taylor

I know, it’s worrying. But one of those aspects is realizing that those, and not just Ministers, but senior officials have different kinds of information consumption preferences and patterns than those who existed 30 years ago. And there's been a temptation I think, not temptation, maybe just kind of default on the part of intelligence agencies, not just in Australia, but overseas too, towards making very incremental changes to the intelligence product and insights they produce. So classically, we don't produce things on pieces of paper anymore, although sometimes we do, but we do produce electronic pieces of paper. The idea of generating insights in ways that are consumed by people in their normal lives, if I can put it that way, but also the fact that ministers and senior officials have a wide variety of information sources that they're receiving, and those are attuned to their preferences, attuned to their needs, there needs to be significantly more work done to hone the kind of work that is coming out of and the product that is coming out of the National Intelligence Community. Rory Medcalf

We'll stay with the policy intelligence interface for a moment and then move on to a number of other issues. I think we've already flagged innovation and technology. We want to talk about workforce. I want to come back to the alliance issue, obviously the oversight issue as well that Miah has already mentioned. But still on policy, Australia has had a very pure, if I could say, distinction between intelligence and policy for decades now. There were a number of distinctions that were made as far back as the 1970s when we took some cold hard looks at our intelligence community and tried to make a kind of a world's best practice. One of those was, of course, the distinction between domestic and foreign intelligence environments, but the other was very much the policy-intelligence distinction. But of course, that’s always been a little bit more blurry in practice and in theory.

Rory Medcalf

Speaking of politics and policy, I think something that I really found exciting in the Review is the recommendation to be very proactive with intelligence literacy for policymakers, for parliamentarians, for cabinet ministers. Is this going to happen, do think?

Miah Hammond-Errey

Well, I mean, I absolutely want to give your own program a plug here, Rory, because you have been teaching the national security module. It's something I've long advocated for expanding. So higher levels of intelligence literacy for politicians, elected officials, but also for Australians is really, really important. Where we find ourselves now, the circumstances are becoming more dire, not less. And we need Australians and our elected officials, especially as they come from different fields and don't perhaps follow the norms that we've always expected, and as Chris said, trending a little younger than all of us, I think it's really important that we share those foundations, those distinctions, the role of intelligence and also the special source that it can offer. And I think that's best done, in my opinion, through a combination of NIC and academic institutions. I note the review suggested many of the recommendations to be done for ONI and ASIO together. I'd also love to see more of the kind of work you're doing.

Rory Medcalf

And look, there is enormous scope for, I think, the broader academic and think tank community to contribute to this literacy. I think the work that you're referring to includes the work we try to do at the National Security College with parliamentary briefings, for example. But of course, there's only so far that we can go in a very unclassified domain. But I will take that nonetheless as a nice little bit of feedback. Look, let's move to technology and innovation. And Miah, I know that this is a pet subject of yours. In fact, I think your own writings on this were cited in the report, in the Review itself, your own submission. How comfortable are you with the, I guess, the ambition and the foresight on the innovation and tech side or what could they have done better?

Miah Hammond-Errey

Yeah, so look, it was very gratifying. But I do think one of the challenges with technology is that you can always do more. And it always feels like things are moving really quickly. The Review dealt with the threats and the opportunities and the  potential change and impacts of technology, both the actual technologies and the power relationships that they're changing globally. It dealt with them very well, you know, particularly in the first section, you know, they were very well expressed. I think overall, most of those recommendations, you know, represented really, really important and welcome first steps. So, there was acknowledgement that robust data is the basis of good intelligence. And so, things like developing a top-secret transition cloud strategy, improving data interoperability, data cataloguing efforts and so on. These are really foundational and important measures. I think they're great steps. The AI recommendations were quite sensibly focused on governance principles, frameworks,

taking senior officer responsibility, which is really important, and NIC's senior officer training across risks, governance requirements of AI for intelligence. These are really important because they weren't prescriptive measures. And what I think it will do is create, if implemented well, if accepted by government and well implemented, I think it's going to create a cohort of senior leaders in the NIC who understand the risks and opportunities of AI for intelligence. That's going to be essential for the future. I mean, we can debate whether those risk settings, given the strategic circumstances they outlined, whether they're high enough, whether we might need to maybe adapt those more quickly. And they do address that. They do say, we think that adaptation will happen rapidly in conflict, which I agree with. So, look, overall, I think most of the recommendations in the technology space were really positive and welcome steps. You highlighted innovation there, whilst I don't think it was a huge section in the review, they did recommend that the government scope the establishment of a national security focused technology investment fund. I think that's incredibly welcome and balances the narrowing of the joint capability fund, which has been led by ONI and has had some mixed results.

Rory Medcalf

Yeah, and I guess what about the sense of urgency though, Miah? I mean, did you feel that there could have been a sharper sense of urgency?

 

Miah Hammond-Errey

I don't actually think that there are fundamental issues that they haven't addressed. I do agree that some of those settings could have been a little bit quicker. But I don't think it's problematic. I think there's enough direction there given to the community to go forth and actually make some of those things happen. And I think in the operational space, that's happening really clearly. I think at the operational level, people are embracing technology, they are trying to bring it in and use it for specific and legal purposes. But it's very difficult if you're centralizing functions for all of those functions to be led quickly by non-operational agencies.

Rory Medcalf

Chris, what do you think?

Chris Taylor

When you mentioned that lack of urgency to me.

Rory Medcalf

It's the sense of urgency. I'm not saying that there isn't within the community, I’m sure there is.

Chris Taylor

I think it is relevant. I mean, I take the point about particularly in the AI space. But to me, the perspective consequences of AI for the full gamut of intelligence functions for all of the ints means that all the recommendations in there are welcome. Me mentioned, for example, being able to build that cohort of leaders who are conversant and understand these issues. That's tremendously important, including outside of what might have been seen as like the technical intelligence agencies. But I actually think it needs to go a bit further. In fact, a bit of a plug, ASPI is going to be releasing its “agenda for change”, its traditional report in the lead up to the federal election in the coming weeks. And in my contribution to that, one of the things that I recommend there, is actually some form of standing AI task force that sounds a bit oxymoronic, a standing task force, but nevertheless, a mechanism to bring these issues to the forefront of everyday thinking within the leadership of the NIC, but also in the interaction with Government too. To my mind, just the potential consequences of AI as a tool for offensive espionage directed against Australia, which will be this kind of industrial-scale change in the way we think about disinformation and the way we think about attempts to cultivate and recruit Australians for espionage. That's so significant that that deserves that kind of thinking space and decision space in front of government for, frankly, the foreseeable future for the next couple of years.

Miah Hammond-Errey

Chris, I 100 % agree with you on that. I would not classify disinformation as technology. So, on the disinformation/misinformation piece, I absolutely agree. I think, you know, the review suggested that the expertise is becoming essential. Like, it's essential.

Rory Medcalf

The review also made some interesting comments on an idea that colleagues here at the National Security College have been promoting over the years, which is to establish a separate standalone open source intelligence agency. In other words, in recognition that so much of the innovation in knowledge and technologies that can be used for intelligence purposes is actually happening in the private sector and is not necessarily classified. Advantage often now accrues to whichever side in the intelligence game can be faster to draw meaning out of that massive data and capability rather than the one who necessarily holds the exquisite capabilities. The review didn't, if you like, conclude on the side of saying, let's go and set up a whole new agency. It said that a lot of very good open-source analysis is now taking place within the Australian Intelligence Community, but let's park this idea for the next review. What are your thoughts?

Chris Taylor

Well, first, think they should have given Ben a shout out. Ben Scott from the National Security College, who put that idea forward. In fact, with such clarity that me as a septic about a standalone OSINT agency, I was almost convinced. In fact, I think I was momentarily convinced. In terms of the approach taken by the review to open-source intelligence to OSINT, there is a certain sense of kicking the can down the road. There is a certain sense in which the recommendations are about future action and say, vote of confidence, but certainly kind of a tick in the box of the current decentralised arrangements. So having the arrangement whereby ONI is effectively a centre of excellence within the NIC, but this idea that you will have open-source capabilities across agencies, I'm not sure that quite grapples with the potential value or utility of OSINT to the community and to government more broadly. Whether or not that ultimately structurally involves some kind of alternative institution – I don't know. But I don't think it engaged with the same degree of depth that maybe the topic deserved in that space.

Rory Medcalf

Can we turn to people. We've talked already about building a cohort that is AI literate. Good luck with that. But I think it's absolutely the right track. We've talked also about. I’m going to the start again. Let's turn to people. We've talked a little about building a cohort that is AI literate, or at least able to engage with and keep ahead of the artificial intelligence debate. We've talked about changing expectations of new generations of policymakers about the way they want to engage with intelligence. What about the workforce itself in the intelligence community? What about the way in which the report grapples with that question that we need a workforce with the skills, with the motivation that is reflective of the diversity of Australian society? Miah, how did we do?

Miah Hammond-Errey

Yeah, look, I mean, I was naturally focused on the AI and technology kind of side of that. I think there was a little bit of a missed opportunity here.

Particularly in some of the things that are fundamental for expanding different kinds of workforces. So, for increasing cognitive diversity, but particularly location diversity. So, I think that the focus on digital infrastructure, whether that's secure spaces integrated for either policy, defence and intelligence agencies, or even just intelligence-specific, the technical and physical secure spaces in a broader number of jurisdictions with flexibility for different kinds of users, I think is fundamental to this. The expertise, if you're talking particularly in the tech space, is not based in Canberra. And when you're talking about a function that you can't match on salary, you have to match on other things. And some of those things are going to be work-life balance, you know, purpose, mission. There's lots of different things. Plenty of people still want to work in the NIC. You know, and that's an important feature. The fact that it is still a desirable apparatus to work in is important. From a technical perspective, I was disappointed not to see that make a large priority. Noting there have been some movements, Red Spice has made definite inroads to that, but I would really like to see whilst they're exorbitantly expensive, investing in these multi-user integrated spaces.

Rory Medcalf

Chris?

Chris Taylor

Workforce is the principal capability challenge for Australian intelligence. It's the principal constraint on capability development at the moment. Miah is exactly right to talk about that kind of drawing in diversity, in the broadest sense in Australia. And part of that is, people won't apply for jobs if they have no idea what it is that you do. And this leads into a much broader conversation about how Government should be communicating about national security and about the National Intelligence Community and its functions to Australians more broadly. We're in a situation in which, at the moment, there is a certain degree to which there is a kind of self-replication within Canberra, I think of the national intelligence workforce. If one looks at kind of the greater candour and the greater transparency about what intelligence does within the Australian government, I think that has been significantly achieved over the course of the last 20 years. It's got more to go. But one of the, I won't say a downside, but one of the features of that is – you get a lot more people applying for jobs within the national intelligence community from other parts of the Australian government.

And there's a certain degree of just kind of cannibalisation between agencies. There's a need to generate a larger pie of that workforce. And that means going out into the suburbs and regional centres and explaining what on earth Australian intelligence does for Australia. And I think it's part of a broader theme over the course of the last quarter century that I think has happened slowly, but purposefully to understand that if governments, for example, whether that's at a level of officialdom or as Ministers, do not talk about what national security and more particularly about what national intelligence does, other people will fill that vacuum. Other people who are uninformed or engaged in mis- or disinformation, they will fill that vacuum. You need to be upfront. And this is not just in the work, in a way, it's not just in the workforce space.

Just as you need to be able to communicate why it is, what you do and why it is that people should come and join you when it comes to future recruits, it's the same when it comes to industry cooperation and collaboration. So, all the kind of technology we're talking about and the importance of having a sovereign Australian technology sector is a big feature of the review and its recommendations. A big part of that is about agencies in the community being able to communicate their requirements in terms of technology to technology firms, to technologists, in order to be able to have a productive dialogue and get the results that they actually want. All this feeds into this idea of a purposeful transparency. It's never going to be complete, obviously, in terms of what the intelligence community does, but a purposeful transparency is actually a really powerful tool in terms of solving a number of these capability challenges.

Rory Medcalf

I guess, to be fair on the review, there is a pretty substantial list of recommendations on people and skills, including a focus on the clearance process, the very rigorous vetting process to join the intelligence community that's often been seen as quite discouraging. Miah, did you draw something from that?

Miah Hammond-Errey

Yeah, look, I guess I kind of take a little bit of a step back and say a lot of the things that we're touching on here, for me, come back to why the intelligence-policy nexus is actually so important. So, you know, we were talking a little earlier about OSINT capabilities. And one of the challenges is that anyone now has such an incredible access and broad access to information. And so, when we're talking about OSINT capabilities, one of the things that we're also managing in that discussion is how elected officials actually use intelligence and make sense of it.

And when you're talking about the workforce, coming back to the level to which the national intelligence communities work is communicated is also a political decision. So it actually starts to look like this focus on improving that intelligence-policy relationship has a lot more foresight now as we develop some of these challenges.

But particularly in conflict because that's when these capabilities really come to the forefront. The vetting issue seems to reappear every four years and seems to be kind of addressed with some similar level of gusto and then, you know, virtually disappears from conversation. So, I'm not sure, you know, if there's a whole bunch of work going on in the background that's not clear, but that does seem to be a repeated and ongoing issue.

Rory Medcalf

Yeah, I think there is reform that's going on behind the scenes on vetting. Chris?

Chris Taylor

Yeah. So, I think in a way the vetting picture is kind of a microcosm of one of the interesting features of the intelligence community now, which is the idea of contest. So, this recognition and it's in the, very much expressed in the review, this idea that we are already engaged in a contest with adversaries and competitors that people are targeting,  as Mike Burgess has talked about in a number of his annual threat assessments of Australia as a target for espionage and for interference. And then we come to the point of vetting. Vetting is like an expression of that because you've got these two, this kind of push-pull.

Rory Medcalf

Because people are potentially susceptible to insider threat or manipulation.

Chris Taylor

That’s right. We want to have a robust vetted personnel vetting system so that you're able to be defensively capable in terms of that contest. But on the other hand, if you don't have the people that you need, you won't be as adept to that contest.

Rory Medcalf

If you vet too hard, you lose your talent.

Chris Taylor

That's right. So, it's a balance to be drawn there. And as you mentioned, Rory, there are important reforms happening in this place, in this space, I should say. The work of the TSPA, within now within ASIO.

Rory Medcalf

So, TSPA, that's top secret privilege access.

Chris Taylor

Right. That is correct. Yes. That's the, the function now within, now within ASIO that will be taking responsibility for all of the positive vetting clearances or hitherto called positive vetting, there'll be privileged access in the future, positive vetting clearances within the Australian system. And this is a good, I think this is a good thing.

Rory Medcalf

In theory it will speed things up. In theory it will allow people to be mobile.

Chris Taylor

In theory, will speed things up. In theory, it will make it more robust than the previous decentralised system. I don't envy. ASIO in undertaking that work, it's enormously difficult and there is, as you say, a lot that rides on it because going back to that point, people are the fundamental capability challenge for the NIC and for its expansion and transformation that's taking place under a number of different programs of reform that have been funded by successive governments over the last five years.

Rory Medcalf

We're running short on time and there's one or two themes I'd love us to touch on before we wrap up this conversation and encourage our listeners to read and devour the entire review. I did want to touch briefly on oversight and accountability. Now that is not a trivial theme. It again attracted a very long list of recommendations in the review. Would either of you like to sort of jump in on where you saw, if you like, the greatest progress on this front in the review.

Miah Hammond-Errey

For me, oversight was a really impressive part. I mean, as I said, I focus very much on the technology. And so, to see recommendations, for example, that there were technology advisors that have clearance to provide advice to intelligence oversight bodies, I think is an excellent step. I would add, I would expand that and make a forum for technology and intelligence advisors for the intelligence community broadly, including the oversight bodies and elected officials. I think I just don't think there's enough people that have that expertise that we can start making multiple mini forums. I think that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor or INSLM undertake a review of the context of the NIC use of AI is a really important step and would hopefully then inform that legislative and policy change which we might need to undertake very rapidly should circumstances change. And I think the INSLM's ability to undertake own motion reviews is a really great addition.

Chris Taylor

So, I’d mention two things that really struck me that I think are positive. One is a recognition within the Review about the continuing need for, if there's one piece of legislative reform that needs to take place within the Australian system is regarding electronic surveillance. So, there's been a long-term push to be able to have a single piece of legislation that covers off on all of the application of electronic surveillance, that would deal with the fact that a number of the important acts in this space, not least the ASIO Act, were originally drafted in the 1970s, don't correspond to the way that communications technology works today. There's ongoing work in relation to this, but hopefully this review is giving more power to those people who are engaged in that work's arm, so that they're able to be able to carry that forward, because that is one single missing piece. The other one's a more practical piece, a more practical recommendation. And a pleasingly one that was, I think, drawn from my submission, which was regarding the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. And it sounds like a really small thing, but I think it's actually incredibly important for making the PJCIS's work sustainable as well as robust. And that is in providing dedicated personal staff to the chair and the deputy chair of the committee. At present, the members of the committee, alongside the very hardworking and very effective Secretariat of the committee, they're essentially the ones doing all the work. That's really different from the way the parliamentary committees work outside of the PJCIS structure, where MPs and Senators’ staffers do much of the work in that space. What this hopefully does will give people with the requisite clearances the opportunity to work for the chair and the deputy chair. I think the suggestion from the review is that they might be drawn by secondment or some other means from within existing Government institutions to be able to assist those members in their work. I think that's going to be enormously important. We've seen the PJCIS under a huge amount of stress and frankly overwork of late. I think this will do significant work in improving their ability to be able to cope with that workload that's been placed upon them.

Rory Medcalf

I want to wrap up the conversation on two fairly stark and confronting themes. One, of course, the risk of crisis and conflict, the fact that we're operating in a world now where there are already strategic conflicts taking place: open warfare in Europe, armed conflict also in the Middle East, and the frightening possibility of major conflict in our own Indo-Pacific region. And of course, the point of intelligence is to give your country decision advantage, ideally in forestalling conflict, but in waging conflict if it occurs. And the second related theme, of course, is the alliance with the United States, which was perhaps in more certain shape a year ago when this review was well underway than it is today with the Trump administration. I think those two themes are connected.

Miah, I'll go to you on either or both of those themes. How do you see this review?

Miah Hammond-Errey

Yeah, so I mean, I think my kind of key takeaway is that I think overall the review and the recommendations are really well considered. They are sensible improvements to an already world-class intelligence capability and enterprise. And as you've alluded to, the real test is how will they hold up in conflict? I don't think that was answered conclusively in the Review, not that they could. But I think there's definitely some space there for increasing many of the preparedness options and relationships and some there were some recommendations in that space. But I do think I do think that sense of urgency for where we find ourselves now, that needs to increase a little. Although I do see and through my interviews of many intelligence leaders globally, there is a real sense, and we can see this in Ukraine, that intelligence capabilities adapt very, very rapidly in conflict and in crisis. And so, it is also important to set ourselves up with the best possible systems we can in the circumstances we're in and then be able to rapidly pivot to deal with whatever's coming down the line, because the situation we find ourselves in now in terms of strategic shocks that are happening in terms of our global order, in terms of uncertainty in trade, in terms of that convergence of technology impact and power change, there is no clear trajectory that we are heading in one direction. And right now, we have a complete vacuum of global leadership. And so, we have no one directing that collaborative non-transactional intelligence alliance that we may have previously had. And I think that places us in quite uncertain space. We need intelligence now more than ever.

Rory Medcalf

Be prepared for a whole array of trouble. Chris, preparedness for conflict and the alliance question, because of course we rely very heavily on the alliance and intelligence as well.

Chris Taylor

We do. So, addressing that alliance element, and I've written a little bit about that recently in terms of the kind of question is – so what? What can we do given the kind of circumstances that we find ourselves in, where we have been the beneficiaries of a really valuable, mutually valuable intelligence alliance over the course of the last 80 years? And not only have we benefited from it, but all the parties to that have benefited from it, including the United States. What I think I've written about a little bit lately is that we shouldn't be complacent about that. There's a temptation to say that because it has been of benefit to everyone, it is demonstrably beneficial to those countries, that by extension then rationally, it must continue as it is unchanged because why would anybody want to change those arrangements? I think the lesson of the moment is reliance on that kind of A plus B equals C is not a safe thing to do. That one should be making proactive decisions in this space. And one of those to my mind, and something that I have recommended, is an investment in sovereign capability. And in fact, I actually think, and again, this is again something that will be highlighted in my Agenda for Change essay, is we actually do require, beyond what the review has done, effectively a kind of sovereignty audit of existing intelligence capabilities. Just so that we know and we're assured about the particular nature of those capabilities in future disordered circumstances. And by making sovereign investments, you're doing two things. One, you're actually contributing more to the Alliance. So, this is the valuable thing that by becoming more capable in that regard, you're actually making a more valuable contribution and demonstrating value. But also, we are ensuring that we're in a better place if, as I say, circumstances become even more disordered than they currently are. That leads us to that point about preparedness for conflict. And I was really pleased to see the review engaging with this as a really serious topic. In the past, a number of intelligence agency leaders have talked about the way that intelligence has assisted with Australian military operations over the course of the last quarter century.

I think, that's really important, but also what we might anticipate as crisis and conflict in the future is going to look very little like that in almost every aspect, both on the defence side and on the intelligence side. And so, more attention, more focus, more thinking about resilience, thinking about preparedness in that space, thinking about what it means to work for civilian organizations that might be at war is really important. And if you'll indulge me, we've talked a lot about how, how the reviews recommendations are valuable and their insights have been, you know, forthright and appropriate. This isn't so much a knock on the Review itself, but one thing that I was disappointed to note that wasn't taken up by the Government in relation to the Review and was essentially a recommendation of my submission from ASPI was to actually be public about the implementation of these recommendations.

So, when I had the chance to write in the lead up to this review about the kind of lessons learned from 2017, one of the most important was: it was terribly difficult to work out what on earth had actually happened in relation to the recommendations from 2017. In part because some of them still haven't been implemented. One of the unfortunate things about the calling of the federal election meant that actually changes to the PJCIS that were before the House Representatives for two years now are now defunct and will have to be taken up by another Parliament. They were a recommendation of the 2017 review! So, it was disappointing to see that in the PM's media statement that accompanied the release of the review, there was a slightly bromide sort of reference to, not going to talk about publicly about implementation. I think that's, I think that's a missed opportunity. You don't have to talk about the details and the sensitive details of implementation, but being able to give some kind of public accounting, whether that's directly or through say the Parliamentary Joint Committee would have been, would be valuable because it actually does impose a degree of discipline on the community and actually taking up these kind of recommendations or dealing with them in a suitably definitive fashion.

Rory Medcalf

On that note, think we should pause. There's so much ground to cover here. 67 recommendations. A really useful and informative review of a very sensitive topic. The future of Australia's intelligence community. Thanks and respect to the authors, Heather Smith and Richard Maude for taking on such a challenging subject. It's great that Government commissioned this and in time released it. But thank you to our guests.

On the program today to Chris Taylor and Miah Hammond-Errey, thank you for joining us on the National Security Podcast.

Chris Taylor

Thank you Rory.

Miah Hammond-Errey

Thanks for having us.