Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1
Under Section 29 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001 (the Act),
the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has an
obligation to review the administration and expenditure of ASIO, ASIS, DSD,
DIGO, ONA and DIO, including their annual financial statements.
1.2
This is the report of the Committee of the 43rd Parliament’s
Review of Administration and Expenditure No. 10 – Australian Intelligence
Agencies.
1.3
Submissions were sought from each of the six intelligence and security
agencies, from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) and from the
Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) (see Appendix A).
1.4
The submissions from ANAO and the six intelligence agencies were all
classified Confidential, Restricted or Secret and are therefore not available
to the public. As has been its practice for previous reviews, ASIO provided the
Committee with both a classified and an unclassified submission. The
unclassified version is available on the Committee’s website.
1.5
The Committee also received a submission from the ANAO and from the
IGIS. The IGIS’ submission was made available on the Committee’s website. More
comment in relation to the ANAO is contained in Chapter 3 on Expenditure.
1.6
The Committee is grateful to ASIO for providing an unclassified
submission and the Defence intelligence agencies for providing unclassified
paragraphs within their classified submissions. This has been very helpful in
the writing of this report. It means, however, that ASIO and the Defence intelligence
agencies are mentioned quite often in the subsequent chapters of this report
while the other agencies are generally not referred to by name. This should not
be taken to imply that the inquiry focused primarily on ASIO or the Defence intelligence
agencies or that they were scrutinised more than other agencies. It merely
reflects the amount of unclassified information on which the Committee was able
to draw and incorporate directly into its report to support its findings.
1.7
In November 2011, the Committee wrote to the agencies seeking
submissions and outlining the issues it would like to see addressed.
1.8
On 23 March 2012 the Committee held a private hearing at which ASIO,
ASIS, DSD, DIGO, ONA and DIO appeared before the Committee. The Committee
appreciates the commitment of time each agency made to this process (see
Appendix B).