We are coming up to the first anniversary of Prime Minister Albanese announcing an Independent Intelligence Review and we are yet to know the results of that review.

On 22 September 2023, he said that:

This Independent Review will make sure that our intelligence agencies are best positioned to serve the Australian national interest, respond to future capability and workforce challenges, and continue to protect our security, prosperity and values.

A fine sentiment, to be sure, but where’s the public report? The review, completed by Heather Smith and Richard Maude, has not been released. Nor has the government’s response to their recommendations. We know it was received ahead of the 30 June 2024 schedule, as confirmed to the media last month, yet there has been nothing but silence since.

Sure, this is not an automatic process. Government needs to consider the totality of the classified report and come to a position on the reviewers’ recommendations—at least in principle. While also, in consultation with agencies, agreeing to a suitably unclassified report version for public release. But the previous review, authored by Michael l’Estrange and Steve Merchant, was announced in November 2016 and released nine months later.

Furthermore, this review was always going to be a challenging task with many of the ‘go-to’ sweeping recommendations made by past reviews no longer on the table. For example, there’s already been historic recent investments in the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

Nor is there much appetite for big-picture structural moves given the changes of 2017–18, which created a host of new elements. Namely, the 10-agency National Intelligence Community itself, the Office of National Intelligence out of the Office of National Assessments and an independent ASD within the Defence portfolio, in addition to separate establishments of the Defence Intelligence Group and the Department of Home Affairs.

In these circumstances Smith and Maude’s recommendations can be expected to be more subtle and incremental. The likely smaller canvas lends itself to a lessened imperative for government action and response. But this would be a misjudgement given we are in a period of war, conflict and tension around the world, all supercharged by technological revolution.

Australia’s national intelligence capability is central to addressing our deteriorating strategic circumstances and there are significant developments buffeting the intelligence business. From quantum computing to hybrid warfare, the open-source revolution/evolution to social dislocation, and so on. The world changed significantly between the last review and this one.

In the last two months alone we’ve seen the terrorist alert level raised to probable, new foreign espionage arrests, allegations about foreign interference in Australia, announcement of a top-secret cloud computing initiative, change in ASD’s leadership and ASIO re-appointed as a permanent attendee at the National Security Committee of Cabinet after its unexplained removal prior to the review’s announcement. The pace of global change and its impact on Australia makes it important the review is released as soon as possible, and that Australians learn the government’s position and intentions.

Strategy documents and reviews are always at risk of being overtaken by significant, or a series of, events. But that’s usually after publication and during implementation. Prolonged delay here risks having the review out-of-date even before it is released. We’ve already seen not insignificant changes begin to occur within the NIC (absent an apparent connection to the review and its strategic roadmap), notably ASIO’s move back to the Attorney-General’s portfolio. Ad hoc changes threaten to strain the coherence of the vision that will have been laid out by the reviewers months ago, which have informed their recommendations.

The NIC needs a clear roadmap for the rest of the decade, to guide decision-making at the agency and community level. To leave the review on the shelf, either by deprioritising it or by declaring it too difficult, introduces unnecessary risks. While not impossible, the uncertainty of a review hanging over the NIC agencies makes proper long-term planning more difficult, at the very least.

Yes, one could imagine that ministers and officials are beavering away on the classified report’s implementation right now behind closed doors. I hope this is true, even if not otherwise apparent. Regardless, the public report should not be treated as an afterthought.

The public report will itself be a critical enabler of intelligence reform and transformation, given the reliance on the public for the NIC’s workforce recruitment and technology and industry partnerships, and through social licence. The latter becomes particularly important when addressing some of the thorny issues that we would expect to be in the report: new developments like AI, revamping the policy-intelligence interface and the use of intelligence to empower government decision-making more broadly, along with balancing strategic priorities internationally with persistent domestic threats must be dealt with promptly.

A public report is also central to holding government accountable for the implementation of recommendations. As I’ve pointed out separately, a full accounting for such implementation was not undertaken post-2017. It should be remedied this time around.

Additionally, an unclassified version of what is otherwise a necessarily very sensitive and restricted top-secret document is the best way of engaging not just with the public but with all the NIC’s staff, and officials across the broader bureaucracy. The implications of the review and its recommendations will apply much more broadly than just to a narrow coterie of NIC agency leaderships.

A checkup is always preferable to a postmortem. Now in its third iteration, Australia’s system of proactive independent intelligence reviews is invaluable and shouldn’t be undermined by avoidable delay. The Albanese government did well by instituting this latest review last year, but the job isn’t finished until the report and recommendations are made public. Then the hard work of implementation and accountability begins.