Planet A

Climate change is intensifying the massive bushfire sweeping across the Northern Territory’s Barkly region. The fire, which started last Friday and has torn through two million hectares, is one of many burning in the territory.

It is predicted that a massive area of the NT will burn during this year’s fire season which is projected to be one of the territory’s worst since 2011. The fire season has also begun in New South Wales and Queensland, with El Niño and climate change likely to exacerbate the expected hot and dry weather and the frequency of bushfires.

The Barkly fires come in the wake of the climate-induced wildfires in the Northern Hemisphere. In recent months, wildfires have blazed in North America, western Europe and the Mediterranean with research revealing that August’s Maui blaze in Hawaii was one of the deadliest US wildfires in over 100 years.

Democracy watch

In Iran, sporadic protests marking the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini persist despite a crackdown by security forces. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman died in custody after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for not adhering to mandatory dress codes. Her death sparked widespread political unrest with some of the most substantial protests against clerical rule in four decades. Iran’s foreign ministry dismissed Western support for women’s rights as ‘double standards and lies’ and said the West did not understand Islamic laws.

Human rights groups said Masha’s father, Amjad, was briefly held by the Iranian revolutionary guard and warned not to commemorate his daughter’s death. That blocked a planned vigil at her gravesite. The Iranian state news agency, IRNA, denied this claim and later said security forces had foiled an attempt to assassinate Amjad. Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network has reported that family members of other people killed during the protests sparked by Masha’s death have also been arrested or threatened.

Information operations

With Japan’s release of treated water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, Beijing’s state-backed disinformation and fake news campaigns are stoking anger and fear in China’s populace. A UK-based data analysis firm revealed a coordinated disinformation campaign by the Chinese government and state media as far back as January. This campaign has strategically aimed at sowing doubt about the scientific basis of the wastewater discharge, intensifying public anger since its initiation on 24 August.

Within controlled Chinese information channels, the term ‘nuclear-contaminated wastewater’ has been consistently used to align with Beijing and state media’s attempts to discredit Japan’s water treatment process. China has also run paid ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram in different countries and languages. They say Japan and its partners prioritise geopolitical interests over ethics, international norms and science. Japan faces the challenge of conveying complex scientific information to calm an emotionally-charged issue.

Follow the money

Military ties between Pyongyang and Moscow have strengthened after a rare foreign visit by Kim Jong-un to key military and technology sites in Russia’s far east. While no arms deals were made public, Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin reportedly negotiated the possible exchange of North Korean artillery and ammunition for Russian food and advanced submarine and ballistic technologies.

North Korea has stockpiled an estimated 10,000 artillery pieces and tens of millions of shells in calibres that could be used by Russia in its war on Ukraine. The US State Department has warned that it will impose new sanctions if North Korea supplies Russia with military hardware.

The increased engagement marks a broader shift in North Korean diplomacy. Rather than negotiate directly with Washington, Kim Jong-un has taken decisive steps toward closer alignment with Russia and China against the US in a move that could seriously undermine US-led deterrence efforts in the Indo-Pacific region.

Terror byte

The United Kingdom last week officially proscribed Russia’s Wagner Group as a terrorist organisation. The order makes belonging to the mercenary group or supporting it a criminal offence with a potential jail sentence of 14 years alongside or in place of a fine. Punishable offences including arranging meetings to further Wagner’s activities, expressing support for its aims, and displaying Wagner’s logo.

Wagner has played a prominent role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since it began in February 2022. The UK home secretary stated that the organisation ‘has acted as a military tool of Vladimir Putin’s Russia overseas’ and ‘has been involved in looting, torture and barbarous murders’. Aside from Ukraine, the organisation has been active in conflicts in Syria, Central African Republic, Sudan and Libya.

The Wagner Group is the 79th organisation to be added to the UK’s terrorist list, joining the likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

When Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong visited Dili last month, one of the projects she highlighted was the Timor-Leste South Submarine Cable.

This is a positive contribution to Timor-Leste’s digital infrastructure. However, to fully realise the social and economic benefits of digital approaches, Timor-Leste will need to undergo an inclusive digital transformation. This will mean implementing clear policies on privacy, security and interoperability, developing digital skills equitably across the population, building cybersecurity awareness, and promoting user-centric and inclusive design.

A recent report from the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue discussed the need for Australia to play a wider role in this process so that Timor-Leste can reap the benefits of digital transformation while building resilience against its risks.

Technological change is one of the most critical issues facing Timor-Leste. Its strategic plan for digital development aims to ‘achieve a society where all can create and share value and contribute to the Digital Age and development of a digital economy’. It has an inclusive vision for a fully digitalised economy that enables younger generations to compete in the global market of work and development opportunities and provides better access to government services for vulnerable people.

Australia’s immediate focus is on linking Timor-Leste to the North-West Cable System that runs from Darwin to Port Hedland in Western Australia. Following Australia’s successful role in delivering the Coral Sea Cable System—the 4,700-kilometre cable linking Australia, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands—the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific (AIFFP) is helping finance a similar project in Timor-Leste.

Working closely with Timor-Leste’s government on what will be the first undersea cable into the country, the AIFFP is investing $1.5 million in exploring design and route options and technical requirements to ensure the cable meets the country’s needs.

Linking Timor-Leste to the undersea cable system is an important initial step in achieving robust and reliable connectivity infrastructure there. However, just one cable and one telecommunications provider won’t ensure equitable access to digital tools and resources. Australia can also help Timor-Leste’s digital transformation provide the widest possible benefit by supporting healthy competition that drives cheaper access and recommending regulations that protect the end user.

The World Bank predicts that improved internet connectivity supported by Australia in comparable countries—Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands—could contribute US$5 billion to the Pacific economy and create close to 300,000 new jobs by 2040 through remote access to opportunities in business, education and health.

Greater support for Timor-Leste would build on work like the Australia-funded Liga Inan (‘connecting mothers’) program, which strengthens relationships between mothers and midwives through mobile phones. More than 130,000 pregnant women are participating, and the likelihood of their children being born with a skilled birth attendant present has doubled.

As well as investing in infrastructure and encouraging competition, Australia should support digital capability building and invest in digital literacy—both in the media and general public—and English-language education.

Some analysts have raised the concern that China could capitalise on the cable as a pipeline for Chinese state media into Timor-Leste—a possibility that highlights the importance of digital literacy and a robust media.

A strong media is crucial to democracy, and Timor-Leste has a vibrant media landscape that’s among the freest in the region. The Australian government should support Timor-Leste’s media so that it can keep putting the public interest first. Australia can help build media capacity to cover important issues such as social inclusion, gender equity, health, financial literacy, misinformation and disinformation.

This would build on work Australia’s ABC has already begun. In March, it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Timor-Leste public broadcaster RTTL. ABC International will work with RTTL to help it establish a news service for its new English-language channel, share content from ABC newsrooms and work with RTTL staff to build up their skills. Other activities include establishing a network of Pacific journalists with a local correspondent based in Dili, the syndication of ABC content to local media providers, and a capacity-building program planned to help Timor-Leste media associations train and upskill journalists.

Pacific geopolitics and concerns about Chinese influence have shone a brighter light on Timor-Leste and its importance to regional stability, but seeing Timor-Leste as a pawn in a larger power game isn’t in its interest or Australia’s. Australia supporting Timor-Leste’s digital transformation is an investment in Timor-Leste’s strength and that of the whole Pacific—it is valuable for its own sake. It should be considered by leaders with only that goal in mind.

Last week, the government reaffirmed that the executive decides when Australia goes to war. The government also outlined plans to strengthen oversight mechanisms, including through a new joint statutory committee on defence (JSCD) and a requirement for government to support parliamentary debate by providing timely updates after the dispatch of the Australian Defence Force.

Importantly, parliament will not have a veto over the deployment of the ADF to a war or warlike situation. Any decision to deploy the ADF into an armed conflict remains the responsibility of the National Security Committee of cabinet, led by the prime minister. The government will codify these practices in a statement to be posted on the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet website. As outlined by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles, ‘The Government’s response rightly affirms that this remains a decision for the Executive, but that it is important that Parliament has effective mechanisms to examine and debate such decisions.’

With a war raging in Europe and tensions rising in the Indo-Pacific, the government’s provision of certainty on the executive’s powers and strengthening of oversight is timely. It is more important than ever to explain to the Australian people why the ADF is necessary and how it is working to protect the nation’s core interests and values.

The government’s response concluded the inquiry into international armed conflict decision-making, which was referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (JSCFADT) by Marles in September last year. The government broadly agreed with the recommendations of the committee’s main report published in March by Labor and Coalition members.

Changes in technology and to strategic circumstances mean periodic examinations of decision-making powers, in addition to holistic evaluations such as the defence strategic review and the reviews every five to seven years of the intelligence community, are important whether they confirm the status quo or result in a dramatic overhaul.

In this case, the inquiry confirmed the ongoing relevance of the war powers process. The committee cited our ASPI submission, in which we expressed ‘significant concerns’ about parliamentary authority being required prior to military deployments due to the potential for delayed response times, inappropriate signalling of Australia’s intentions to adversaries and increased operational security risks to the ADF. The committee’s report also drew on ASPI senior fellow Graeme Dobell’s recommendations to codify conventions for the government to update parliament about the reasons for, and progress of, military operations.

The government’s proposals strike the right balance between democratic accountability and the strategic realities confronting Australia. These realities were laid out starkly in the 2023 defence strategic review, which reiterated that adversaries may attack or coerce Australia without warning, including through channels other than invasion. As we noted in our submission, deterrence rests on Australia’s allies and adversaries believing that the government can and will respond promptly and resolutely to threats, which would be in doubt if the executive’s prerogative was diluted.

This outcome won’t satisfy the long-term campaigners for a parliamentary veto over ADF deployments. The Greens will be upset, but not surprised, that the government rejected the additional proposals in their dissenting report, which had sought amendments to the Defence Act to limit executive war powers and force the disclosure of government legal advice.

However, the Greens aside, the government’s approach has bipartisan support. Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie has welcomed plans for a new defence committee and requested early consultation on the draft legislation. Hastie and the JSCFADT favour a body with the same capacity to undertake classified hearings and receive sensitive intelligence and other national security advice as the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS). The government has cautioned that further work is necessary to determine the scope and powers of the JSCD, particularly to deconflict with existing committees like the PJCIS.

Getting the shape of the new defence committee right will be difficult.

It’s ironic that the PJCIS is being held up as an example when its future shape is unclear. Government amendments included in the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill, passed by the parliament earlier this month, expand the committee’s membership, potentially allowing for inclusion of crossbenchers in a committee that has been composed solely of government and opposition members. This move prompted the first-ever dissenting report from a PJCIS inquiry. The government needs to proceed with care if bipartisanship and the Goldilocks point between democratic accountability and national security are to be maintained.

In our view, the PJCIS is seen as an exemplar of parliamentary oversight because of its current structure, its substantive work in private hearings, and the trust between its membership and the national security and intelligence community. Unnecessary disruption of this mutual trust could turn appropriate oversight into political point scoring, which risks committees duplicating the adversarial Senate estimates process. The same principles should be applied to the design of the JSCD.

Beyond membership, it’s also necessary to consider what the shift towards national defence outlined in the 2023 defence strategic review means for the JSCD’s bureaucratic scope. Just as national defence is not solely the purview of the defence organisation, the JSCD may need to draw on expertise from defence industry and a range of agencies involved in national preparedness and resilience, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Home Affairs.

Managing the burden on government officials is also essential. Canberra is already operating close to full stretch. During times of heightened organisational effort—as we saw after the 11 September 2001 terror attacks and the rise of Islamic State, and will see again—the tempo of parliamentary engagements can interfere with operations. An unclear division between the PJCIS, the JSCD and the rump of the JSCFADT could exacerbate the problem, increasing demands for briefings from those working at the intersection of national security and national defence.

The difficulty of setting up a JSCD with a broad remit and secrecy provisions must not obscure the clear and urgent need for this mechanism. In the past decade, the confluence of national security threats from terrorism to foreign interference has highlighted the benefits of the PJCIS maintaining its focus on the national security and intelligence community and relevant national security legislation, which collectively keep Australians safe. However, there’s no mechanism equivalent to the PJCIS that allows for full and frank dialogue between the parliament and the broad community of institutions engaged in national defence.

Fundamentally, an appropriate degree of secrecy such as these committees provide is necessary to protect our democracy and ensure accountability. In the cyber- and AI-enabled world in which we now live, seemingly innocuous snippets of publicly disclosed information, from budget details to workforce headcounts, could be pieced together for military targeting and other strategic effects (the so-called mosaic effect). Secrecy also underpins the operational security of the ADF and intelligence agencies, which includes the ability to deceive, or at least not signpost our intentions to, those seeking to do us harm. And we don’t have time to sit on our hands: implementing AUKUS and the defence strategic review will be painstaking and expensive, and our strategic competitors will work tirelessly to glean intelligence and spread disinformation.

Public trust demands that our politicians have the information required to scrutinise government and ensure value for money. A new joint statutory committee can help achieve that, but it is only one part of the puzzle. National defence requires a whole-of-nation appreciation of the threats we face and the resilience we must build to deter aggressors and safeguard our values, sovereignty and democratic institutions. That cannot be achieved solely behind closed doors.

To build the social licence for national defence, the government must fearlessly expose coercive, aggressive and threatening conduct no matter the source, whether it’s Beijing, Moscow or others. The government must explain to the public the nature of the threats, what it is doing to meet those threats, and who is really at fault when Beijing or a similar regime tests our national resolve again by hitting us with trade sanctions and other tools of coercion.

The proposals put forward by the government for clarifying war powers complement the move towards national defence fit for our time. Throughout the wars of choice of recent decades, life in Australia went on as normal as our women and men in uniform fought for our interests overseas. But as we grapple with the increasing possibility of war in our region and the certainty of increasing coercion against our nation, we must recall what former generations knew: deterring and, if necessary, winning wars is a test of national, not just military, will, preparedness and strength.

Expecting parliament to spend more time debating decisions to deploy the ADF into armed conflict, without stymying the executive prerogative to do so, is a step in the right direction.

The second anniversary of the unveiling of AUKUS is fast approaching. Most coverage of AUKUS has focused on its first pillar, which will see Australia join the ‘nuclear club’ by receiving 11 nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines (SSNs). But less attention has been devoted to the information-sharing, industry ties and advanced technologies that make up AUKUS Pillar 2.

Pillar 2 technologies will include undersea robotics, quantum computing, advanced cybersecurity and electronic warfare capabilities, hypersonic weapons and mechanisms for defending against hypersonic weapons.

Although Australia’s defence industry has been generally optimistic about AUKUS, higher education institutions have expressed concern about how Australia will build the skills these technologies require. Some experts suggest that nearly 200 PhD-qualified experts will be needed to support the SSNs alone. The Pillar 2 list of technologies will likely require a similar number, given that Australia lacks the sovereign capability to design and develop almost all of them.

Australia doesn’t have a robust pipeline of candidates ready to study Pillar 2 technologies. It probably can’t even supply enough graduates to support Pillar 1. So where will Australia find these students? Most likely from overseas.

But that reliance comes with risks. Australia’s University Foreign Interference Taskforce has guidelines to counter foreign interference in higher education. Universities are advised to conduct due-diligence assessments ‘on partners and personnel’ as well as assess ‘the potential use and risk of technology and/or research’. But neither universities nor researchers have the resources and expertise to properly vet future students for risks to national security.

On top of that, those with information relevant to decision-making when undertaking this kind of vetting—such as in intelligence and law enforcement—are often bound by strict secrecy laws and don’t inform universities of risks, because doing so could compromise ongoing security or intelligence investigations.

This can lead to bizarre standoffs, like the case of doctoral student Li Jianjun. In 2020, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation cancelled his student visa for association with an alleged Chinese plot to influence the New South Wales parliament through upper-house member Shaoquett Moselmane. Western Sydney University (from which Li had graduated) supplied a character reference for his appeal against the cancellation but wasn’t aware of the WeChat messages that allegedly formed the basis for his visa cancellation.

While universities could request that a wider range of students obtain government security clearances, that would create challenges. Visa delays for security checks have already led to many students abandoning Australia in favour of the US or EU. Defence is struggling to process clearances quickly, and earlier this year it was stripped of responsibility for conducting the highest level of clearances—known as ‘positive vetting’—which was transferred to ASIO.

A program exists to accredit information technology systems to handle defence-sensitive information outside Defence’s infrastructure—the Defence Industry Security Program. The program is important for safeguarding data in institutions like universities and also provides a pathway to obtaining security clearances for staff and students. But for institutions as large and diverse as universities, it also creates a major administrative burden.

Other risks around student research also need managing. Universities will soon start to receive access to classified information under the AUKUS agreement, which may allow malicious actors to take advantage of lax cybersecurity. Opposition Home Affairs spokesman James Paterson has argued that teaching sensitive cybersecurity techniques to foreign nationals is contrary to Australia’s interests. Research students may also require resources for their research—such as critical minerals or semiconductors—that require rationing across Australia’s defence technology sector.

Existing mitigation measures are complex, unwieldy and limited by a lack of resources, expertise and time. For instance, universities must comply with Australian export rules when dealing with items with a potential military use. While there’s strong coordination between those issuing licences and universities in applying these controls, the list of controlled items and associated rules are complex and the system isn’t fit for purpose in dealing with novel technologies, such as those listed in the AUKUS agreement.

The publication of information and research about certain dual-use and military technologies requires government licensing under the Defence Trade Controls Act, but the scheme usually relies on self-reporting and self-assessment of projects. If a research project contains US military technology—which is one focus of AUKUS—the additional US control requirements are particularly onerous and come with the possibility of US criminal sanction if breached. As it stands, these rules significantly burden those researching this type of technology.

National security risks also need to be balanced with encouraging innovation. According to a 2020 report, Australian universities contribute up to 87% of the country’s ‘discovery’ or basic research and 45% of applied research—which ASPI has described as ‘an essential and complementary element and force multiplier to our sovereign defence industry and capability edge’.

Restricting this type of research may do more harm than good.

There also should not be interference with academic freedom by subjecting research to a requirement for agency review or preventing publication. Academics must be allowed to explore and advocate new ideas, including unpopular ones, without fear of losing their jobs. Limiting who academics can work with has costs, too. It would damage the institutional autonomy of universities. After all, the imposition of security credentials and embedding of military staff in universities are things we criticise Australia’s autocratic adversaries for.

Finally, it’s important to avoid discrimination. If universities can’t undertake evidence-based screenings, nationality can easily become an unfair proxy for risk. In the US, a recent Supreme Court judgement overturned affirmative action, holding that it is lawful to discriminate in university admissions if there’s a national security requirement to do so. Extrapolating this kind of thinking to prevent foreign interference in universities could result in overly prescriptive and biased outcomes.

AUKUS is about more than just submarines. It’s a program designed to accelerate Australia’s technological development. That is likely to pose major challenges to this country, which doesn’t have sufficient robustness in its national security laws and policies to properly deal with them. Those laws and policies need to be updated to accommodate AUKUS, with appropriate deference to the principles of fairness and non-discrimination. They need to protect the academic freedom that makes sourcing the future AUKUS workforce from Australian universities so desirable in the first place. Without a comprehensive strategy for this, Australia will be far from be ready when its new submarines are due to hit the water.