The Turnbull government is set to embark on a major independent review of the nation's intelligence agencies as Australia faces an unprecedented array of security challenges ranging from terrorism to the rise of China and cyber-spying.
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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's department has confirmed that it is putting in place arrangements for the first major intelligence review since 2011 and the third since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US, which prompted a reshaping of intelligence efforts in Australia and among its allies.
The review is expected to tackle the unprecedented need for the nation's six intelligence agencies to balance immediate security intelligence requirements to combat terrorism including "lone wolves" with longer-term considerations about geo-strategic changes flowing from the shift in power and wealth to the Indo-Pacific region.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which is setting up the review, told Fairfax Media: "We are working through a proposal for a periodic review and the details involved. It is expected that these considerations will take at least several weeks."
It will be headed by a senior retired intelligence official. Sources have raised the name of Allan Gyngell, who led the Office of National Assessments – the agency that collates intelligence into briefings for the prime minister and the national security committee of cabinet – from 2009 until 2013.
But other notable possibilities include former ASIO and ASIS head David Irvine and former ONA boss and Department of Foreign Affairs secretary Peter Varghese.
John Blaxland, an intelligence scholar whose third volume in the official history of ASIO is being released this week, said massive changes in technology, rising tensions between major powers and community expectations about security meant "it's harder than it used to be".
"The world has continued to change and, while we thought the Cold War was over and that old-school intelligence and security concerns were behind us, it seems that they're back. So the concerns about great power espionage are back.
"Then that's on top of the apparently growing concerns about self-generated jihadists … who have made established surveillance techniques far less effective than was the case when they were all less security conscious and less encrypted."
Dr Blaxland, a senior fellow at the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, said cybersecurity was a major organisational challenge because intelligence agencies needed to co-operate on capabilities that were usually top secret with a wide range of organisations including other government departments and critical industries.
"That's really problematic. It's very hard to do," he said.
He said the review would need to look at whether intelligence resources needed to be increased. But he stressed it should also look at oversight of the agencies, especially whether Federal Parliament should oversee intelligence operations as is the case in the US and Britain.
Currently the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security only looks at the agencies' budgets and administration, though operations are overseen by the independent Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.
Australia's intelligence community is made up of ASIO, ONA, foreign intelligence outfit ASIS, the Defence Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Geospatial Organisation and the Australian Signals Directorate.
Australia's international intelligence co-operation will also likely be scrutinised in the review.
The "five-eyes" arrangement in which Australia shares intelligence with the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand is considered by insiders more vital than ever with each country constrained by resources amid a growing workload.
Since 2001, Australia has also been co-operating much more deeply with a wide range of countries including in the Middle East, including with foreign agencies that were previously targets of our spies rather than partners.
Co-operation with regional democracies such as Japan and South Korea has also grown strongly in recent years.
Some believe Australia has invested too lightly in counter-intelligence – stopping foreign governments stealing our secrets – in the past.
China remains a challenge, particularly the opaque thinking and intentions of the Communist Party's leadership in Beijing.
Australia is regarded as having good co-operation and sharing arrangements between its own agencies, particularly compared with Europe and even the US.
The 2004 report by former diplomat Philip Flood focused on foreign intelligence agencies and came in the wake of mistakes in Australia and among allied nations, particularly the US, about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.
That was followed by a 2011 review by former Attorney-General's Department head Robert Cornall and academic Rufus Black.
Like its predecessors, the review will likely produce an unclassified report and a considerably longer classified version.
