In 2024, Australian security relies on maintaining a resilient democracy and an underlying strong civil society as much as it does on secrecy to protect sensitive information from foreign or domestic threat actors. For two decades, our public discourse has focused on balancing national security and our freedoms, but that doesn’t need to be a perfect marriage. Our focus should just be on making it work.

The first review conducted by the new Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM) Jake Blight, Secrecy offences—Review of Part 5.6 of the Criminal Code Act 1995, provides important recommendations for improving our secrecy legislation and laying the foundations for a better relationship between the national intelligence community (NIC) and the media.

The relationship is not always amicable, as shown by the 2019 AFP raids on Annika Smethurst and the ABC, and last year’s reporting on former secretary of home affairs Mike Pezzullo’s proposal to reinstitute a system for issuing D-notices—official requests not to publish.

This is not a new problem. As argued by Melanie Brand in a paper for Australian Historical Studies, Australia’s D-notice system fell into disuse by 1982 as trust and mutual respect between the NIC and journalists eroded. New policies are needed to re-establish trust and reinforce our national security in a threat environment defined by foreign espionage, disinformation and limited public awareness. As Director-General of Security Mike Burgess put it in his 2024 annual threat assessment, ‘Australians need to know that the threat is real. The threat is now. And the threat is deeper and broader than you might think.’

Although national security announcements often grab headlines, Blight’s detailed 300-plus page review of Australia’s secrecy legislation (perhaps unsurprisingly) did not. Nevertheless, it vows a commitment to both national security and democratic freedoms and makes important recommendations to better protect journalistic freedoms.

Many of the INSLM’s recommendations should allay media concerns when reporting on matters of national security. Blight principally assesses whether Australia’s secrecy laws are proportionate, clear, and align with the rule of law. The report makes 15 recommendations, including: removing the classification system as an element of the offence (rec. 1); narrowing the scope of offences to sensitive information (recs. 3, 4); focusing expressly on the communication of sensitive information (recs. 7, 8); and better clarifying an existing legal defence that a reasonable belief in the public interest can be relied upon to avoid conviction when disclosing information, without introducing a general public-interest test (rec. 13).

More simply, Blight provides four general principles for secrecy offences by non-officials (such as journalists, NGOs and members of the public): offences should relate to the communication of information, focus on actual harms, apply only to serious harms and be narrower than offences for officials.

While the INSLM’s review is thorough and commendable, the government should not accept all its recommendations. The proposed change from ‘deemed harms’ to ‘actual harms’ is impracticable. ‘Actual harms’ might not be apparent for a long time (if ever), particularly where foreign intelligence services actively conceal the impact of leaks, or Australian agencies may highly classify ‘actual harms’ to maintain ongoing operational security. The current legislation focuses on risks to operations, capabilities, lives and national security, and creating a severe risk must still be an offence.

Blight also briefly touches upon the introduction of an Australian Defence Security Media Advisory (DSMA) notice system (otherwise known as a ‘D-notice’). As last year’s reporting indicated, and as Blight surmised, ‘there is not a level of trust that would enable a DSMA Notice System to work well in Australia.’

Instead, we need a unique Australian alternative: a consultive body to build a closer working relationship between the media and the national-security community. Policymakers should not be estranged from the fourth estate, particularly when our security environment calls for improved public awareness, discourse and democratic resilience. Experienced national security journalists already demonstrate the utility of collaboration, but an accessible engagement mechanism would further expand journalists’ access to the NIC, boost transparency and improve public perception.

The consultative body would provide journalists with the opportunity to voluntarily discuss received classified information directly with national security and intelligence officials. It should consist of representatives from each NIC agency, overseen by a representative from the Office of National Intelligence.

As opposed to a D-notice system, this body cannot become just a potential source of injunctions. Journalists and relevant NIC representatives could liaise on impending reporting across a range of national security matters, and the NIC representatives could advise of potential risks or provide backgrounding.

It would be incumbent on the NIC representatives to be persuasive, should they believe that reporting needs adjusting. Should this mechanism start to lead towards a series of injunctions journalists would simply—and quite understandably—stop engaging with it.

The NIC is increasingly engaging with journalism, led by Burgess’s annual threat assessment and media appearances. Failure to create a workable mechanism and build a closer relationship between the NIC and the media may come with real national security risks. As noted by former ASIS director-general Paul Symon, national security policy without social licence exposes Australia to disinformation attacks designed to divide and dislocate us.

In such an environment, necessary security policies could be spun into a controversial wedge by foreign actors, or misinterpreted by domestic actors, and ultimately diminish our national security.

A member of the Pacific family is in crisis, and how Australia responds next will shape its partnerships for years to come.

Following unrest among pro-independence Kanaks in New Caledonia, Australia needs to back the diplomatic intervention of other members of the Blue Pacific. And it should tell France, for France’s own good, to hold a replacement for a discredited referendum that overwhelmingly rejected independence in 2021.

Australia faces a choice between, on one hand, demonstrating its attentiveness and commitment to its Pacific family and, on the other, staying silent for the sake of preserving relations with France and hoping to offend no one.

Violence broke out in New Caledonia on 13 May as the French parliament was about to vote on a constitutional amendment that would have reshaped the electoral roll in the French overseas territory. Pro-independence Kanaks saw it as an attempt to water down their voting power. New Caledonian society remains tense, and violence threatens to erupt again.

Other Pacific island countries have put New Caledonia firmly on the agenda for an upcoming summit of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). Australia should step up and support the PIF in its calls for a visiting mission and a resolution to the crisis. It should also privately lobby Paris not to block such a visit.

A Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting that Japan held in mid-July became a perfect opportunity for Pacific leaders to discuss issues in person. The most pressing one was the evolving crisis in New Caledonia.

While their leaders were in Tokyo on 17 July, the members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group issued a statement declaring the referendum ‘illegitimate and null and void’, opposed the militarisation of New Caledonia and called for a series of international missions. The group is formed by Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the New Caledonian independence movement FLNKS.

Cook Islands prime minister and current PIF chair Mark Brown on the same day that the results of the referendum were ‘not really valid’ as a result of the boycott by the Kanak population due to COVID-19 and cultural mourning periods. Only 3.5 percent of voters supported independence, but turnout was very low. Then on 22 July the PIF said it would send representatives from Fiji, Tonga and Cook Islands to New Caledonia; they would report back to a PIF Summit to be held from 26 to 30 August.

With New Caledonia firmly on the Pacific agenda and momentum building into the PIF summit, those without a clear position are being pushed to declare one. Brown said: ‘New Caledonia is a PIF member, and we have a responsibility to take care of our family in a time of need.’

Australia’s response to the PIF’s calls to help a family member in need will shape perceptions of its true commitment to the region. Currently, Australia is increasingly isolated in its silence, as New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has joined Pacific partners in questioning the legitimacy of the independence referendum.

Despite France’s poor handling of the 2021 referendum, two held in 2018 and 2020, in which majorities rejected independence fairly narrowly, were viewed as free and fair. This should be reason for hope that France can act responsibly and negotiate a peaceful political settlement.

Yet France has not responded to requests for a mission by the PIF, preoccupied by the Paris Olympic games being held right now and by political wrangling that has followed an inconclusive snap election. If France fails to allow the PIF mission to New Caledonia before the PIF summit takes place, it wouldn’t be shocking to see a temporary change in status as a dialogue partner.

Australia should support the PIF in its calls for a resolution of the crisis and work to bring France around. If Australia doesn’t actively support the PIF, it too may find friends a little more hostile at the upcoming forum. Eight civilians and two gendarmes died in the in the first few weeks of the riots. Action must be taken to de-escalate the situation, promote understanding and dialogue and find a path forward.

There are concerns that an independent New Caledonia will face economic and political instability and that Australia will be burdened with the significant cost of being the primary supporter of a new, poor country. Another consideration is the potential influence and presence of China in any newly independent state in the region; that will remain a factor in long-term strategic planning.

France’s presence does contribute to upholding the region’s security, in many ways and France is a particularly important Western partner to Australia. But these issues are secondary to the immediate calls to address the current crisis, and Australia cannot let itself be driven by a fear of the region losing French support.

If Australia wants to back France, it should do so by encouraging France to negotiate. Ideally, France would agree to hold another referendum to account for the complaints about the previous one and use an electoral roll that, as far as possible, matches that of the third referendum. That, at least, would be a starting point.

Another referendum, even another ‘no’ result, would at least address the primary concern around the third referendum’s legitimacy. This would remove some immediate tension and require all parties to reassess their positions and focus on a fair political settlement. Another referendum would also make Australia’s choice easier: Canberra would endorse either the peaceful implementation of a ‘yes’ vote or the necessary political (re)negotiations that would follow another democratically endorsed ‘no’.

A definitive solution in New Caledonia is highly unlikely in the short term. If Australia is serious about its place in the Pacific family, it should be preparing for eventualities where France doesn’t contribute to the region in the ways which it currently does through development aid and security.

Even if the crisis in New Caledonia is resolved or de-escalates again to a slow burn, France’s position in the region is irreversibly stained. Local leaders will likely be more willing to push back against France’s influence and presence. Australia needs to put priority on its own relationship with the region and back the PIF. This means it is time for Australia to take a firmer stance on the New Caledonian issue and be ready to tackle the region’s security issues with less help from France.

Australia differs from most other countries whose governance is based on Western precepts, because the nations that are most central to our external focus have historical, ethnic and religious backgrounds different to our own.

Their level of economic development is in the main much lower than ours.  Most have been subjected to colonialism.

All  these factors colour their outlook and expectations.

This feature of our external environment presents Australia with two sets of tension as determinants of foreign policy—between interests and values, and between geography and history.

At bedrock, our national interests are defined by security interests—our safety, territory, society and way of life—and our economic interests or prosperity.

As for our values, there is no real doubt. They are Western. We don’t need to apologise for that. Indeed, as others have noted, there are things about Australia that Asia would like to emulate.

That said, some of our most tricky regional problems have derived from values-related issues. For example, over the years, the question of capital punishment of Australian citizens has caused ructions in our dealings with Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

While there is a wealth of debate about which carries more weight in international dealings—interests or values—both count.

The second major determinant of our external policy direction is the contest between our geography and history.

We understand our geography pretty well. But we look at it through the prism of our history. Australian external policy has historically placed greatest emphasis on close alliances with powerful like-minded friends. Our hallmark is being on the team.

As a country—not just as a government—we think like the team. Our focus is inevitably on the team itself: essentially the United States and others in the West; to some degree on Japan and India; and, on the opposition, China and Russia.

Our own region sees our place on the Western team not just as a vital aspect of Australian foreign policy—and let us agree it should be—but as its paramount feature, which is questionable.

We are also a nation that has crushes on others in our region—Indonesia, India, China—and then allows the romance to fade; and one that mounts mighty studies on our place in the region, then runs out of puff, or changes governments and doesn’t follow through.

You entitled to ask: ‘This is all well and good, but what are we supposed to do?’

First, and this is from a member of a profession supposed to worry about upsetting foreigners, we must not water down for overseas consumption, advocacy of our cardinal national values.

Indeed, we must make clear our aversion to conduct contrary to the norms that most of the world claims it espouses—essentially, those set out in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

This is  a different thing to allowing our Western political culture indiscriminately to impact our foreign policy discourse. For example, Paul Keating’s description in 1993 of Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad as a ‘recalcitrant’ or Tony Abbott’s reference to Australia’s $1billion gift to Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami when seeking to prevent the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Second, still on values, the shadow of our historical attitudes on race—both on aspects of immigration policy and treatment of indigenous Australians—continues to hover over us.

Particularly when you have form, episodes such as the One Nation saga, the Indian student crisis or the fate of the Voice, reverberate abroad. The colonial experience of most of our neighbours has left some neuralgic on questions of race. We need to get our own house in better order—and keep it that way.

Third, soft power—the ability to persuade and influence without coercion—is one determinant of international outcomes. However, soft power cannot be engendered by government fiat. And we cannot just tell the US and other Western countries to lift their game and behave better.

The deterioration in political mores in the US, and arguably elsewhere in the West, underlines that such Western soft power as still exists will not have the same positive impact in the current Western competition with China and Russia as it did in the Cold War.

Fourth, if, with the diminution of Western soft power, we want to maintain a global order even partly akin to the one that has prevailed over the past 80 years, we and others in the West must realise we are not cutting it with the Global South.

It is in the Global South that competition for global influence will be most pronounced. It is the West’s interest that it addresses the issues that hound the Global South—debt, climate, people movements and so on.

We have a part to play in that global context.

For a start, we could raise our official development assistance to 0.32 percent of gross national income, the average for member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, from our current level of less than 0.2 percent.

Fifth, we must focus not just more on the Global South but on our own region within it—and not just on those who share our worries about China, but on those who might not.

Australia started late as a serious regional actor, arguably after the fall of Singapore.

My cohort in the foreign service reported to those who had been present at its creation.

Australia engaged the region in a spirit of enquiry and zest and a sense that our destiny lay there.

The Colombo Plan contributed to the development of our neighbours. Our main universities were centres of excellence on the region. And crucially we dismantled the White Australia policy—opening the door to the multicultural country of today.

Despite this, our earlier sense that Australia’s destiny is in the region has dissipated. We must redress this.

This is about re-educating ourselves about the region. It is about all-of-nation heft.

We will always have to deal with a neighbourhood comprising systems different to our own.

In my lifetime we have come a long way. But we have a way to go—in educating ourselves, in economic engagement and the patient and persistent work of diplomacy. We must keep our own house is in order. We must do better—a lot better.

Australia should work more closely with Pacific Islanders and Australia’s Pasifika diaspora to refresh our development assistance in the region, help build stronger and better-connected communities, protect victims of gender-based violence, and create real change on the ground.

Pacific islanders and members of the Pasifika diaspora bring culturally specific knowledge and approaches that are crucial to achieving success. Government should capitalise on these connections and increase support to programs and initiatives led by Pasifika people. In doing so it may also need to embrace new approaches to development efforts, such as integrating community-based sports programs as a culturally relevant way to connect with in-region communities, promote development outcomes, and score quick wins.

The utility of this approach can be seen in Papua New Guinea. In 2024, PNG is at a pivotal point grappling with the aftermath of social upheaval, economic instability and the intricacies of international relations. On 10 January, PNG suffered severe riots sparked by a bureaucratic blunder but rooted in deeper communal disquiet. That resulted in at least 22 deaths and an estimated 1 billion kina ($400 million) in damage.

Australia is PNG’s traditional development aid partner, committing $637.4 million in 2024–25. But our aid hasn’t always resulted in change on the ground. There’s room for improvement, particularly in tackling family violence and violence against women – which is severe and widespread across PNG.

Complex contributing factors for this violence include poor economic conditions, youth disengagement and a lack of community and social infrastructure. It’s also affected by its colonial history, disruption of cultural norms and consequent breakdown of social structures, customs and rituals. There’s evidence that PNG women today are more marginalised than in traditional social structures, which afforded both sexes leadership positions. Historically, resource exploitation has further exacerbated social dislocation and inequality.

Understanding those and other cultural factors is important for those seeking to address gender-based violence in PNG. There’s a pressing need to restore communities and social bonds and to address deep-rooted social issues. That will be best achieved by Papua New Guineans who understand local contexts, backgrounds and beliefs and who can more readily relate with target groups. Australia’s support will remain important, but we’ll better achieve our objectives by working as prominent auxiliaries with local people.

Sports-based approaches promise a popular and indirect method to strengthen communities, improve education and health outcomes and protect against gender-based violence. The Team Up program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, focused on assisting development through sport, operates across six Pacific countries and has repeatedly demonstrated the success of this approach. Team Up supports access to sport as well as in-region workshops on recognising and combating gender-based violence and providing access to leadership.

The department is updating its Sports Diplomacy to 2030 strategy. The original strategy laid the foundations for an approach that better engages Pacific island countries, including building linkages with Australia’s neighbours and strengthening communities in the Indo-Pacific.

The Grass Skirts Project, an NGO based in Port Moresby, and its Gymbox initiative provide a strong example of the type of community organisations and initiatives that Australian overseas development aid should prioritise and expand. Its executive team works across PNG and northern Australia.

The Grass Skirts Project leverages sports to drive social change, promote health and foster gender equality in PNG. Launched in 2019, it operates a combined gym and community hub, also called ‘Gymbox’, using a repurposed yellow 20ft shipping container in Hanubada, Port Moresby.

In addition to functioning as a gym, Gymbox provides community health and dietary information sessions and works to address the critical issues of youth unemployment and male violence against women. Done right, sport is a potent and cost-effective catalyst for societal transformation and gender equality.

The Grass Skirts Project also successfully ran the 10 Million Strong Leadership program focused on youth intervention to address violence in communities. A novel merger of new research and best practices with a culturally specific context, the program was developed in conjunction with Shannon Spriggs Murdoch and Joshua Jasper from the University of Texas Sports and Social Justice Center. It was co-designed with community people to address gender-based violence.

Australian development aid for initiatives such as Gymbox can be simple and straightforward, increasing the resources and networks available to successful initiatives to expand their impact. This approach would support local community figures and social organisations and allow Australian aid funding to create change while supporting influential local community figures. Social organisations and NGOs can further integrate with schools, churches and other institutions to facilitate a range of educational and community objectives.

As the Australian government looks to work with Papua New Guineans and our Pasifika diaspora, it should also look to northern Australia. Due to its proximity, northern Australia has significant economic, institutional and social linkages with the region and large Pasifika diaspora communities, particularly in Cairns and far north Queensland.

Australia is deepening its engagement with PNG and the Pacific while heading towards a golden sporting era, including the Rugby World Cup 2027 and the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games. Translating those events into regional influence should be high on our agenda, but we will increase and extend that impact if we go beyond athletics and work closely with communities and support gender equality in the Pacific.

This is no time to be thinking of jumping from the plan to build nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) with Britain and into a doubtful alternative of constructing US Virginia-class boats in Australia.

Doing so would be to move from a plan with definite but understood risk to one that would have risks that haven’t been examined. Moreover, Britain’s commitment to developing the SSN-AUKUS design and building submarines of the class should not be doubted.

James Curran’s ‘Questioning AUKUS’ series in The Australian Financial Review launches a broadside against the $368 billion project amid claims that the ambitious plan ‘is a mess and risks leaving Australia with no submarine capability’. It reviews domestic construction of Virginias as a Plan B.

But the series of articles fails to present a catastrophic failing of the Optimal Pathway, the course of action which we’re following and which was identified as best by the three AUKUS countries.

There is risk, but managing risk is a key element of any complicated defence project and has been acknowledged upfront by the current and former governments, alongside Defence.

Two points in the Australian Financial Review series warrant immediate challenge. The first is the characterisation of the United Kingdom’s ability to support AUKUS and the second is the proposal of the so-called Plan B.

AUKUS is a critical project for the UK, and Australia needs the UK’s support for it to succeed. Curran is right to highlight the stresses on the UK submarine industrial base, and UK officials have consistently highlighted that the production of the country’s replacement ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) is its priority, followed by AUKUS.

Currently, the UK operates four SSBNs commissioned during the 1990s. These submarines are critical to its defence strategy, as they are the sole arm of its strategic nuclear deterrent.

The UK’s ageing Vanguard-class submarines are being replaced by four Dreadnought-class vessels. The construction of three of the four is under way, and the first is expected to be operational in the early 2030s. Despite Curran’s assertion that the delivery timeframe has not been updated in six years and might have slipped, the 2022–23 UK Ministry of Defence annual report lists the Dreadnought program as on track for delivery in the early 2030s.

As much as the replacement of its nuclear deterrent is rightly the top priority for the UK, the AUKUS SSN is also crucial to the British nuclear strategy. To have a submarine-based nuclear deterrent capability, you need SSNs to protect it.

Not only is the UK’s AUKUS SSN, given its SSBN protection role, at the core of the country’s defence strategy, but also the partnership with the UK and Australia will alleviate some of the pressures on the British submarine industrial base. The significance here is that the UK is a deeply invested party to AUKUS Pillar 1, because that part of AUKUS is also at the core of the British defence strategy.

It is tempting to jump to the counterargument that there is nothing in this for Australia, and that it is being used to prop up the submarine industrial base of the UK. Not true. The UK is essential to Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines for several reasons.

The UK was critical in convincing the US to allow the technology to be transferred, and its remains a critical balance to any changing US political whims. A bilateral arrangement for the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines is more easily abandoned than a trilateral one that includes an invested partner such as the UK. And let’s not forget that the UK’s nuclear deterrent is also a critical part of NATO’s deterrence strategy. The UK’s involvement in AUKUS complicates any potential future exit strategy by the US. Think of it as insurance.

Curran’s investigation series appears to promote a nuclear-powered submarine pathway Plan B. The point that is ignored in the platforming of a Plan B is that the Plan B carries with it greater risk than the Optimal Pathway. The Optimal Pathway has involved heavy consultation and has been agreed upon at the highest levels of government and defence in all three AUKUS partners. Its endorsement by all three partners is an important risk-reduction measure in itself.

The so-called Plan B, which relies on Australia being supported to build the United States’ close-hold Virginia class submarines in Australia within the next decade is untested and—based on Australia’s difficult journey of attempting to obtain a licence to produce US missiles under its Guided Weapons Enterprise—is simply unlikely to gain agreement and support in the near to medium term.

More importantly, although the Optimal Pathway is complex and hence unlikely to run exactly to plan, there is no evidence to date of a catastrophic failing of the pathway, nor the development of a level of extreme risk that cannot be managed.

That is not to say this won’t manifest in future. None of us has a crystal ball, but there is no such indication to date. Without a catastrophic failure of an element of the Optimal Pathway or the generation of an unmanageable risk level, any knee-jerk reaction of Australia to change the pathway within two years of its announcement would disastrously undermine confidence in its commitment to AUKUS Pillar 1 and probably drive its AUKUS partners to question its ability to support the ambitious project.

It is simply nonsensical to abandon without a reason or catalyst an agreed plan with known risk that is being treated and instead go for a plan that so far has not gone through a consultation process and would have significant risk.

Debate on AUKUS is important. Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines will not go exactly to plan; you simply cannot predict the next 34 years. But right now, the risk is known, it appears that it is being managed, and all three partners have demonstrated their commitment to the process.

The measure of success here is not whether the Optimal Pathway hits every milestone exactly on time; rather, it is whether, 10 years from now, Australia is operating a nuclear-powered submarine capability. At present, there is no strong reason to believe this won’t be the case.