Home Affairs will target foreign interference, cybersecurity and climate change under a significant restructure flagged by the minister in charge.
Clare O’Neil has said her department has too narrow a focus on domestic security and changes need to be made to ensure Australia is prepared for the “most dangerous” geopolitical challenges it has faced since WWII.
Ms O’Neil said when former home affairs minister Peter Dutton established the department only five years ago, its focus was on policing Australia’s borders, such as dealing with boat arrivals and drug trafficking.
“It was created very much in the sort of context of the things that Peter Dutton stands for in politics,” Ms O’Neil said in a national security podcast hosted by The Australian National University professor Rory Medcalf.
“And I say that without any critique; it’s just who he is as a person.”
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says changes will be made to the department. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman
Ms O’Neil said border issues were significant but Home Affairs needed an overhaul to be able to deal with other emerging national security risks.
“The department will still focus on all the other things that it was doing before, because those are really important,” she said.
“But it’s really saying, let’s think about what domestic security means for us in this very, very difficult period that we are about to enter as a country.
“And my view is that Home Affairs does need to change quite a bit.”
Many of the changes led by Ms O’Neil and Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo will be overseen by two task forces which have been set up by the Albanese government to come up with new policies and legislation.
The national resilience task force aims to enhance Australia’s safeguards against “increasingly complex” national crises and will draw on what the country learned from Covid-19.
Among its priorities will be dealing with extreme weather and other risks posed by climate change as well as bolstering supply chains if trade routes become restricted like they were during the pandemic.
Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo will lead the changes with the minister. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage
The strengthening democracy task force, which was due to have expert advisers appointed to it early this year, will cover a range of issues including rebuilding Australians’ trust in government.
It will also focus on shoring up the commonwealth’s defences against foreign interference, which Ms O’Neil said was “relentless, egregious and happening in every community every day”.
“The size of the public discussion, and the government response isn’t anywhere near the size of the problem itself,” she said.
Ms O’Neil made similar comments in two speeches last month, labelling foreign interference and espionage the “biggest domestic threat” and revealing ASIO disrupted an Iranian government operation late last year.
She vowed to name and shame nations responsible for engaging in foreign interference campaigns in Australia after ASIO boss Mike Burgess warned the threat posed by foreign spies was at an all time high.
Mr Burgess also revealed the nation’s top spy agency had busted a “hive of spies” which had recruited proxies and agents before being deported in the past 12 months.
The restructuring of Home Affairs comes amid broader questions around the working culture and staff morale at the department.