CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA
An Independent Intelligence Review has found Australia’s National Intelligence Community is highly capable and performing well.
The Australian Government announced the Review in September 2023 in a bid to ensure its intelligence agencies were best positioned to continue to serve the Australian national interest.
The unclassified report of the 2024 review, which was led by Dr Heather Smith PSM and Richard Maude, was released on Friday.
It recommends investing in further capability to ensure the intelligence community maintains its high performance across a range of fronts, including economic security, crisis warning and preparedness, and open source intelligence.
“I welcome this review. Our hard working intelligence agencies are crucial in safeguarding Australia’s national security, and we have full confidence in their capacity,” said Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.
“We will continue to invest in capability to ensure Australia’s intelligence community can deal with emerging threats and challenges.
“I would like to thank Dr Smith and Mr Maude for their work on this review, which will ensure our intelligence community continues to protect our national interest.”
The Australian Government is set to invest $44.6 million over four years from 2025-26 in the Office of National Intelligence to support initial implementation of key priorities identified in the response to the Review.
The 2024 Independent Intelligence Review found significant progress had been made since the last Independent Intelligence Review in 2017. This progress includes establishing the National Intelligence Community and creating the Office of National Intelligence to lead and coordinate the community.
Consistent with the approach to past independent intelligence reviews under successive Governments, details about the proposed approach to specific recommendations will remain classified.
Independent reviews of Australia’s intelligence community have been commissioned periodically since 2004 to ensure Australia can effectively meet and respond to future challenges.
The unclassified report can be found on the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s website.
