Methamphetamine: Focusing Australia’s National Ice Strategy on the problem, not the symptoms

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In this report, law enforcement isn’t focused on arrests, prosecutions, custodial offences or seizures, as none of those will have a guaranteed impact on the problem. The focus is on means to reduce the availability of drugs, the disruption of user behaviour and the integration of education and health initiatives.

The report argues that the National Ice Strategy should consider three key points:

  1. Integration. Drug strategies have a better chance of being successful when each of its initiatives are integrated into a strategically focussed harm reduction strategy.
  2. Innovation. Education, health and enforcement stakeholder should be free from the limitations of wholly quantitative performance measures.
  3. Disruption. Initiatives to tackle the ice problem should be focussed towards the disruption of problems rather than the treatment of symptoms of the problem.

Security through aid: countering violent extremism and terrorism with Australia’s aid program

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The paper argues that countering violent extremism (CVE) and terrorism are international security and development issues. Australia’s foreign aid should be used to strengthen resilience to violent extremist ideologies. Improving governance in weak states can help to deny terrorists the easy recruiting grounds of lawless communities.

The ASPI report argues that there are  several ways to better leverage our foreign aid program to counter terrorism and violent extremism.

  1. Where a clear need has been identified, implement direct CVE aid programs
  2. Apply a CVE and counter-terrorism ‘filter’ to our aid programs
  3. Develop targeted reporting on CVE aid programs
  4. Use InnovationXchange to explore avenues for implementing CVE into the aid strategy
  5. Share information on CVE and aid
  6. Lead the debate to modernise official development assistance (ODA) reporting

Creative tension: Parliament and national security

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This paper argues that enhancing parliament’s role in national security will reinforce Executive accountability, improve the quality of public debate over national security and serve to strengthen the foundations of Australia’s parliamentary democracy.

There are several measures that would materially improve parliament’s role in the conduct of national security: 

  • enhance respect for parliament as the forum for consideration of national security issues by utilising the parliament’s existing procedures to more fully consider issues of foreign affairs, defence, intelligence and border security
  • develop parliamentarians’ education in national security by providing a new members’ orientation program focussed on national security
  • examine parliament’s exercise of war powers 
  • encourage parliamentary diplomacy 
  • a material improvement in parliament’s role demands more attention to increasing the human and financial resources available to key national security committees
  • undertake an examination of national security committee mandates, particularly in intelligence oversight

No exit: Next steps to help promote South Pacific peace and prosperity

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As Australia focuses on its global interests in a changing and challenging international environment, there’s a danger that we’ll lose sight of important constants of history and geography.

We don’t have an either/or choice to focus on near or distant security imperatives. While the Australian Government’s decision to lift defence funding will help with this, cutting aid to help offset that boost may prove counterproductive.

We also need to further improve the quality of our aid and regional diplomacy, as well as the hard and soft aspects of our security engagement.

This paper suggests some useful first steps for doing so.

Australia, Indonesia and the prisoner’s dilemma

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The bilateral relationship between Australia and Indonesia has long been a fraught one. The latest tussle, over the imminent execution of two Australian prisoners in Indonesia, prompted a series of posts on ASPI’s blog, The Strategist, framing the broader relationship in the context of the Prisoner’s Dilemma model from game theory.

Six contributors explored the issues at stake, with ASPI’s Executive Director, Peter Jennings both initiating the discussion and rounding it up. We present here the combined posts in the hope that they will further the national discussion about the future of our relationship with our large northern neighbour.

Whatever differences our contributors might have with each other, they would surely agree that the relationship is one of special significance for both Canberra and Jakarta.

Transport Fuels from Australia’s Gas Resources

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The transport sector in Australia depends heavily on imported oil-based fuels. With this comes the ever-present risk of oil supply shortages. But Australia is gas-rich and oil-poor, so it makes practical sense to assess how our own gas resources can be used to produce these fuels.

Natural gas can be used directly as a fuel, blended with diesel in modified diesel engines, and converted into a conventional liquid fuel – all at a modest cost. This book, written by Australia’s leading experts in the field, demonstrates how using natural gas as a transport fuel could increase our fuel self-sufficiency to 50–70 per cent by 2030. And with three-quarters of our freight being moved by road, it’s clear that these developments will have major benefits for Australian transport efficiency.

Order a copy from New South Books. 

Working as one: A road map to disaster resilience for Australia

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Natural disasters cause widespread disruption, costing the Australian economy $6.3 billion per year, and those costs are projected to rise incrementally to $23 billion by 2050.

With more frequent natural disasters with greater consequences, Australian communities need the ability to prepare and plan for them, absorb and recover from them, and adapt more successfully to their effects.

Enhancing Australian resilience will allow us to better anticipate disasters and assist in planning to reduce losses, rather than just waiting for the next king hit and paying for it afterwards.

This report offers a roadmap for enhancing Australia’s disaster resilience, building on the 2011 National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. It includes a snapshot of relevant issues and current resilience efforts in Australia, outlining key challenges and opportunities.

The report sets out 11 recommendations to help guide Australia towards increasing national resilience, from individuals and local communities through to state and federal agencies.

Towards inclusion: language use in the Department of Defence

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Knowing more about a particular culture explains why an organisation is like it is, and why people behave and talk the way they do.

One important factor that perpetuates behaviours and makes change difficult is the use of language within the Defence organisation. Simply put, to change the way people behave, sometimes you have to change the way they talk.

This special report summarises a research project sponsored by the Secretary of Defence Fellowship program titled ‘Battling with words: a study of language, diversity and social inclusion in the Australian Department of Defence’.

Cyber maturity in the Asia-Pacific Region 2014

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To make considered, evidence-based cyber policy judgements in the Asia-Pacific there’s a need for better tools to assess the existing ‘cyber maturity’ of nations in the region.

Over the past twelve months the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre has developed a Maturity Metric which provides an assessment of the regional cyber landscape. This measurement encompasses an evaluation of whole-of-government policy and legislative structures, military organisation, business and digital economic strength and levels of cyber social awareness.

This information is distilled into an accessible format, using metrics to provide a snapshot by which government, business, and the public alike can garner an understanding of the cyber profile of regional actors.

Taking wing: time to decide on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

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The government is about to make a decision on whether to spend between $8 and 10 billion of taxpayer’s money on the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It’s also an important call because it will cement the F-35 as the main instrument of Australian air-power for decades into the future.

The F-35 has a troubled past—management issues and the enormous complexity of the project have caused significant cost and schedule overruns. But now it seems to be on track to come into service with the RAAF in 2020, and to be a very capable aircraft.

The other option is a further purchase of less-advanced Super Hornets, which would come with a marginally lower price tag. But that choice would come at a cost to Canberra’s relationship with Washington as we pulled out of the US-run program, and provide less capability in a region replete with rapid military modernisation.