Accountability and external reviews

On 13 April 1954, Prime Minister Robert Menzies established the Royal Commission on Espionage to inquire into and report on Soviet espionage in Australia.

The commission opened in Canberra on 17 May 1954. Over the next 10 months, it sat for 126 days and examined 119 witnesses, producing nearly 3,000 pages of transcripts. It also received over 500 exhibits, including the documents Vladimir Petrov handed to Australian authorities, which became known as 'the Petrov Papers'.

The final report was presented to the Governor-General on 22 August 1955 and to parliament on 14 September 1955. The commission found that:

• the Petrov Papers were authentic documents and the Petrovs were truthful witnesses
• the Soviet Embassy in Canberra had been used for espionage in Australia from its establishment in 1943 to its departure in 1954
• the only Australians who knowingly assisted Soviet espionage were communists.

The commissioners recommended that no-one be prosecuted as a result of their inquiries.

In 1974, then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announced a Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security (popularly known as the Hope Royal Commission) to complete a comprehensive inquiry into Australia’s national security agencies, including an examination of their history, administrative structures and functions.

Honourable Justice Robert Hope, then of the NSW Supreme Court and a former President of the Council for Civil Liberties, was appointed as the Commissioner. Justice Hope was provided with wide discretionary powers in the manner in which he could hold hearings and gather evidence from witnesses.

In his findings, Justice Hope articulated a number of key principles that still underpin the intelligence community today. In particular, Justice Hope recommended that:

• Australia should have its own independent and robust intelligence assessment and collection capabilities
• Intelligence assessment should be separate from policy formulation, and intelligence collection should be separate from intelligence assessment
• Human and signals intelligence capabilities should reside in different agencies
• An independent intelligence assessment agency — what would become the Office of National Assessments — should be established and enjoy statutory independence; in addition to assessing international developments of major importance to Australia, this agency should also review Australia's foreign intelligence priorities and activities
• ASIO's collection and assessment of security intelligence should be separate from law enforcement
• There should be appropriate Ministerial oversight of the intelligence community, and
  All intelligence activities should be conducted in accordance with Australian law.

In 1983, Prime Minister Hawke commissioned a new inquiry into the operations, conduct, performance, control and accountability of the Australian intelligence agencies. This second Hope Royal Commission would ensure that the recommendations of the first Hope Royal Commission of 1974‒77 had been implemented and were meeting the task of providing Australia with the security apparatus it needed.

The review supported the need for Australia’s intelligence agencies, justified investment in them, and acknowledged the benefits and limitations of the existing procedures and control measures. Significantly, the second Hope Royal Commission resulted in stronger measures to enhance the AIC's transparency and accountability. This included the establishment of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security in 1987, and the formation of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

In 1994, following allegations aired in an episode of Four Courners, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Gareth Evans, announced a judicial inquiry into the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). The Commission of Inquiry into the Australian Secret Intelligence Service was headed by The Honourable Gordon J Samuels AC QC and Mr Michael H Codd AC.

The Inquiry delivered a report of which 15 chapters were publicly released, in whole or in part. Investigating the Four Corners allegations, the Commission ruled that "the level of factual accuracy about operational matters was not high". The Commission also "discovered no evidence capable of supporting the conclusion that ASIS is operating out of control". The Inquiry also found that "in a number of respects, the control and accountability, and the internal organisation and management, of the Service could and should be improved" and provided recommendations for reform.

One of the report's key recommendations was to create a legislative basis for ASIS, as it only previously had only operated under a Ministerial directive. This recommendation led to the Intelligence Services Act (2001).

In 2004, an Inquiry into the Australian Intelligence Agencies, led by Philip Flood, was commissioned in line with a recommendation from an earlier Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD (PJCAAD) inquiry into intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The Flood Inquiry looked broadly at the work of the six agencies that constituted the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) at the time - ASIO, ASIS, DSD, the Defence Intelligence Organisation, the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation and the Office of National Assessments (ONA) (now Office of National Intelligence). In particular, the Flood Inquiry focused on:

• The effectiveness of oversight and accountability mechanisms
• The suitability of the division of effort among the agencies (and communication between them)
• The maintenance of contestability in intelligence assessments provided to government, and
• The adequacy of resourcing of intelligence agencies (in particular, ONA).

Flood's report did not recommend any significant changes to the AIC's structure, as established following the two Hope Royal Commissions. It did, however, present wide-ranging recommendations to improve the AIC's accountability and management. For ONA, this resulted in legislative changes that strengthened its coordination and evaluation responsibilities.

Additionally, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet was given new responsibilities to advise government on the AIC's performance, priorities and resources, and to conduct an annual review of ONA's performance.

The Flood inquiry also recommended that Australia's intelligence agencies undergo external review every five to seven years.

The 2011 Independent Review of the Intelligence Community, the first of the external reviews recommended by the Flood Inquiry, found that Australia's intelligence agencies were performing well following a period of significant growth in response to the security challenges of the 9/11 decade.

Its other findings included:

• The AIC played a vital role in keeping Australians safe and protecting Australia's security interests
• The investment in the intelligence community over the past decade had resulted in more capability and increased performance
• The AIC's basic structure remained appropriate, including the operational mandate of agencies, and
• Its recommendations focused on initiatives to maintain the performance of the community in a period of resource constraints, covering areas such as priority setting and mission integration; performance evaluation; support for innovation; and strategies for managing intelligence collection in the age of abundant information.

The 2017 Independent Intelligence Review was conducted by Mr Michael L'estrange AO, Mr Stephen Merchant PSM and supported by Sir Iain Lobban KCMG CB and published its report in July 2017. The review assessed Australia's intelligence arrangements and structures to determine whether they remained appropriate to meet the nation's future security requirements.

It found the complexity of the geostrategic environment, the pace of technological change and the broadening scope of security and intelligence challenges facing Australia mean its intelligence agencies were increasingly stretched and needed to be better integrated in their efforts to meet those challenges.

The review made 23 recommendations to government. This included legislatively expanding ONA to form a new agency — the Office of National Intelligence — with an enhanced coordination and evaluation remit. The review also recharacterised the intelligence community as a broader National Intelligence Community (NIC), comprising the six AIC agencies — ONI, ASD, AGO, ASIS, ASIO and DIO — as well as the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the intelligence functions of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) and the Department of Home Affairs.