Regular readers of The Strategist might note that I’ve been absent from its pages for a while. That’s because I’ve been focusing on a new initiative, ASPI-Education. We’ve started ASPI-Ed for two reasons. First, because …
Obtaining criminal intelligence (CrimInt) from overseas sources, and then disseminating selected assessments, are increasingly important activities for our law enforcement agencies. This importance doesn’t stand alone: it’s driven by Australia’s exposure to the global economic …
This piece is drawn from Agenda for Change 2016: strategic choices for the next government. Australia’s law enforcement and border security operating environment is becoming increasingly complex and is evolving rapidly. For the strategic leaders …
The 2016 Federal Budget did two important things to promote law enforcement in Australia, but it hasn’t arrested the long-term decline in the resources applied by the Commonwealth to countering organised crime. The additional protection …
There’s a new taskforce in town, and this time, the effort aimed at reducing welfare fraud. While some claim that pursuing welfare fraud demonises women and requires significant resources to reclaim insignificant amounts, it’s still …
The Beat Unions call for stronger national systems to fight crime Australia’s police unions have banded together to reiterate their call for all branches of government to deliver stronger national systems to fight crime. In …
Buried deep in the news about a tax bill of close to $6 million being served on three Victorian ‘racing identities’ was an even more important story: the Commonwealth, state and territory governments are close …
The link between crime and terrorism was discussed during a seminar at the National Security Summit that we attended recently. The link has attracted broad attention overseas (such as here), but only limited discussion in …
A new report from ASPI’s Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement Program raises questions about the harms caused to Australian interests through serious and organised crime. Those harms extend to individuals and the community, businesses and …
The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) report Organised crime in Australia 2015 is derived from criminal intelligence, but it’s more useful to understand it as persuasive communication. In my recent post, I highlighted a similar report …
The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has just released their 2015 serious and organised crime risk assessment. With a few exceptions, you could be reading its Australian counterpart, which was released last month by the …
The Government has announced an overall increase of $1.2bn over the next four years in national security spending. This new money comes in addition to the $1bn counter-terrorism and Iraq operations funding announced last year—and …