Release of Strategic Insights – Policing our ocean domain: Establishing an Australian coast guard

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) today released a new report recommending Australia establish a coast guard. 

The report, written by Derek Woolner, calls for the establishment of a statutory authority, the Australian Coast Guard, out of the current Border Protection Command to be directly responsible to a Minister for the assessment of intelligence, planning and implementation of operations and future improvements to maritime border security. 

‘For almost four decades Australia has had great difficulty in deciding how to police the vast areas of sea to which it claims sovereign rights. There have been significant improvements in the last two years but there is nothing in place to make these permanent or to fully support approaches to getting further improvements’, said author Derek Woolner. 

Currently the authority of Border Protection Command rests on directives issued by the CEO of the Australian Customs Service and the Chief of the Defence Force. The reforms proposed in the report would replace the previous appointed committees created when failure occurs and put in their place a professional organisation able to anticipate problems and operate as Australia’s national maritime police. 

By developing a central organisation for civil maritime security, the Government would widen the options for developing the nation’s maritime expertise through personnel training, capacity available for maritime research, cooperation with regional coastguards and development of plans for the use of Coast Guard capabilities in time of conflict. 

‘Australia’s maritime security was not discussed at the 2020 Summit, yet the very next day Australia accepted sovereign rights over an additional 2.5 million square kilometres of ocean. This puts Australia up with the top maritime nations in the world. It is time that we acknowledged this with arrangements allowing us to control events that happen in our own maritime backyard’, says Woolner.