DIRECTOR-GENERAL'S ADDRESS
ONA Senior Leadership Team
10 February 2006
It is good to be with you today. Thank you Peter for the invitation. I will make some brief comments on three areas:
ASIO growth and implications for the AIC;
ASIO/ONA relations; and
ONA product.
The Government's acceptance of recommendations following Allan Taylor's
Review of ASIO Resourcing
has given ASIO important certainty about our resource levels which will allow us to grow the Organisation in a planned and systematic way over the next five years.
That said, ASIO's projected growth to 1860 by 2010-11 presents some fairly obvious challenges.
It is important to see these in context.
I would note, for example, that the announcement by the Prime Minister and Attorney-General on 16 October 2005 did not signal the beginning of a major recruitment drive for ASIO.
Rather, it is the continuation of one which, in some respects, began in the late 1990s as ASIO prepared for the Sydney Olympic Games but which has been gaining momentum since 2001.
It is worth reflecting on some details:
From a low point of 536 staff in June 1998 we had grown to 605 by 30 June 2000.
By June 2001 we had dropped back to 584 staff.
Since June 2001 over 700 new people have joined ASIO. Indeed, over 400 have joined us since June 2003, of which 224 joined us in 2004-05 alone (the most staff ever recruited into ASIO in a financial year) taking us to just over 1000 staff.
This is the largest ASIO has ever been and around 20% larger than what we were at the height of the Cold War.
We are aiming to recruit around 250 staff a year for a net growth of around 170 staff each year for the next four financial years with the balance to take us to 1860 in 2010-11.
What this means is the demography, character and culture of ASIO is undergoing a fundamental transformation.
The average age of the Organisation is steadily reducing;
The proportion of women, including in senior officer and SES positions, is increasing;
Ethnic diversity is increasing;
Recruitment and training will remain a high priority;
Integrating and mentoring new staff will become increasingly challenging as 'old hands' become more thinly spread; and
Flexible and family friendly working arrangements will become even more common.
Against the background of such rapid and substantial growth, a critical focus for the ASIO leadership team is to harness the transformational energy and channel it effectively to ensure ASIO's physical growth, capability development and cultural evolution remains focused on the imperative which has prompted Government to allocate the significant additional resources.
As has been said publicly, the additional resources are designed to allow us to better address both known and unknown sources of terrorist threat to Australia.
The additional resources will allow us to respond appropriately to the continuing threat of espionage and other foreign interference into the lives of Australians.
To help maintain focus on the operational imperatives while simultaneously managing the significant challenges of growth, we have established a small implementation team.
The team will have a central role supporting the ASIO senior management group, with advice on prioritisation (for example in recruitment priorities) and with project management to ensure the many interdependencies of various projects associated with growth are well recognised and taken into account.
The team will track our progress against the implementation time table.
The team will focus on change management associated with the significant growth - the cultural change, the consequences for governance.
A starting point for development strategies for growth is our assessment - an assessment supported by comments from external reviewers of ASIO's performance (including Allan Taylor) - is that ASIO can be proud of the way in which we do our business, including how we:
manage risks;
measure performance;
adhere to legislative obligations;
work with others;
develop our staff; and
embrace technological change.
Of course there are areas where we can improve and continue to develop.
But as we grow the Organisation we will be conscious of preserving and developing the very good things that are part of ASIO's heritage and which have allowed the Organisation to perform well in the challenging, changing and increasingly complex environment we have experienced for at least the previous five years.
We are fortunate to have very high levels of commitment to the Organisation, a strong sense of purpose about the work we do, and goodwill amongst our staff.
Such attributes amongst staff are an essential element in having a strong and effective organisation well able to meet the complex and demanding challenges we continue to face.
When announcing the decision on ASIO resources, the Prime Minster made the point that the Government remains of the view that good intelligence is the best weapon to fight against terrorism.
That reinforces messages we have heard from the Prime Minister previously and it is why a significant proportion of the additional $5.6 billion the Government has committed to fund additional counter-terrorism initiatives since 9/11 has been allocated to the intelligence community.
That is to say, ASIO is continuing to grow at the same time as other members of the AIC. The inevitable consequence is that we are competing for staff - it is an ongoing challenge for us all to avoid negative aspects of that competition. We do, however, have opportunities presented by the general growth in the AIC:
We can work together to ensure that the intellectual and operational capabilities of our people are developed and applied creatively to the challenges we face now and in the future.
We can work to expand inter-agency contestability in producing intelligence and in making assessments and giving advice.
I have commented to ASIO staff that it is important we are prepared to be receptive to other perspectives and to critically test our assessments.
This is not something that needs to be intimidating and should part of the normal way of doing business in our context.
We need to continue to establish and maintain personal linkages at the working level which will form the basis for ongoing collaboration between the future leaders of our agencies.
We can recognise the combined impact of our growth and increased interaction with common partners (for example the law enforcement community and foreign liaison) and work together to develop those relationships efficiently to mutual advantage.
ASIO and ONA are already working together effectively on a number of levels.
That relationship is underpinned by us sharing accommodation - an arrangement that will continue.
ASIO and ONA share a range of interests, often looking at the same issues but from a different perspective.
This is particularly true of terrorism, which is both one of ASIO's core subjects for investigation and assessment, and a first order assessment topic for Government.
The relationship between ASIO and ONA is very positive and productive - indeed this can be attributed to good relationships between managers.
Similarly, there is regular discussion and consultation between ONA and ASIO analysts which has been of mutual benefit to the individuals concerned as well as the two agencies and ultimately our clients.
ONA also has staff seconded to the NTAC.
From my perspective, ONA product fills a different niche to ASIO product and some provides a useful counterpoint to ASIO's assessments.
Some ONA reporting provides a strategic framework in which ASIO's analysis and investigations can be placed in context.
Let me finish on this note.
The next few years will be a very interesting time for ASIO.
By 2010 the Organisation will look and feel quite different to the way it now appears but this will be as a result of carefully considered planning and staged implementation rather than ad hoc growth.
This transformation will take place in an environment of heightened threat to Australians here and abroad with an attack in Australia possible and further attacks overseas almost inevitable.
The importance of ASIO's relationships with the rest of the AIC, other Australian agencies and with our international partners will remain high and we must actively seek out new and better ways to work together for the common good and to best meet our responsibilities to the Government and the Australian community.