Gareth Evans ,former Foreign Minister and the former ASIO head, Alan Wrigley, are likely not the only ones to be dubious about the value of much of the material collected by our security agencies. But most ministers are easily seduced.

The imperatives of modern commerce have bizarrely distorted the commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ possibly beyond what even He could have imagined. His anniversary has become a silly season when many forms of oddness manifest themselves, flit across the stage and then, mercifully, are heard no more. Its likely Jesus, His Father and the Holy Spirit are not amused.

In December 2023 Ms Danielle Cave, a director in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), stepped up to the plate with a lengthy newspaper article saying that The world is less stable and less predictable than it has been in generationswith the unsettling promise of more to come. Maybe but for the moment the 21st century looks tame compared with the first half of the 20th century.

Ms Cave asserts that Australia is a more influential player than it has ever been before in international affairs. While thats difficult to prove, the claim is dubious as Australia has diminished its independence by hitching itself more tightly to the American stagecoach.

There were times when a more independent minded Australia was reasonably influential, for example, in the establishment of the United Nations. Australian officials also threw their weight around, if not always successfully, at the negotiation of the Bretton Woods Agreement that set the base for the post-war world economy. And Australia played a critical role in helping to close down the Khmer Rouge and end the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. These days of heady influence are now well in the rear vision mirror, our contributions to the futile invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan notwithstanding.

Anyway moving on from her strategic ruminations Ms Cave casts her eye on a number of other countries and sees they have an office designated as National Security Adviser. She would like Australia to have one who is dedicated and autonomous, reports to the Prime Minister, who can speak publicly, travel extensively and convene gatherings and who can help set the tone of our strategic communications across all international security issues, among other things.

This suggestion would be more convincing if Ms Cave had favoured readers with a consideration of the different administrative arrangements in those countries that have National Security Advisers. The US is so markedly different as to rule it out as a benchmark and the administration of the UK has been so debauched by the Johnson-Truss-Sunak governments as to make it an unreliable model.

Closer to home Cave doesnt explain the implications of the arrangement she proposes for Australias security administration. She just tacks it on while complaining that heads of the relevant agencies dont speak publicly, dont have their own policy remit or voice, dont travel separately to the prime minister and dont put out joint statements. These claims have the disadvantage of not being true. Many of these officials speak publicly, their policy remits are often established by law, they do travel other than with the prime minister and they do put out joint statements. In his time as Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Mr Michael Pezzullo made about 50 public speeches which now, sadly, seem to have been scrubbed from the Departments website. Happily this slack is being taken up by another Michael, the head of the ASIO, Mr Burgess who seems to think that too much publicity is barely enough.

Whatever, Ms Cave wants a National Security Adviser to set the tone and lead policy making. But these are essentially what Ministers of the Crown are paid to do and they usually do not relish being upstaged by their advisers. It can be antithetical to our public administration for officials to be involved in political debate where shyness can often better promote public confidence in their competence.

A couple of months ago, the head of the Office of National Intelligence, Mr Andrew Shearer, said Who knew that Zelenskyy was going to turn out to be a Churchillian war leader or.that Ukraine was going to stand up and fight and fight and fight, as theyre still doing today? Its to be hoped thats a rhetorical question and not a reflection of Mr Shearers intelligence assessment.

Anyone with an ounce of historical nous would have suspected Ukraine, with a big military and a strong sense of national identity, would have fought back hard and would have been helped by its American and NATO allies, not to mention Australias burly Bushmaster infantry vehicles. Recorded history is full examples of mighty resistance to invasion and occupation and threats thereof which have turned otherwise unremarkable leaders into front rank heroes. Without the Second World War Churchills reputation would be far from what it is now.

What the well-informed might not have predicted was the extent of the success of the Ukrainian resistance and the stolid incompetence of the Russian military.

But to get back to the nub, why does Australia need National Security Adviser?

The powers of the Office of National Intelligence are broadly expressed. Intelligence and security are joined at the hip. And there are clear signs that the current head, Mr Shearer, is in there providing plenty of advice and not just collecting intelligence and assessing and reporting on it. In the lead up to the signing of the AUKUS deal, its reported he pitched the notion to senior US officials. He accompanied Albanese to the first Quad meeting minutes after he had been sworn in as Prime Minister. That is to say, there seems already to be a national security adviser in practice if not in designation.

Ms Cave might have done better if shed turned her inquiring mind to the overall intelligence and security machinery, that includes:

• The Office of National Intelligence (ONI).
• The agencies in the intelligence community led by the ONI - the Australian Signals Directorate, the ASIO, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation, the Defence Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Transaction Reporting and Analysis Centre and the Department of Home Affairs.
• The Department of Defence which has an Intelligence Group headed by a deputy secretary containing three of the organisations coordinated by the ONI plus two intelligence divisions. There is also a Strategy, Policy and Industry Group also headed by a deputy secretary and containing seven divisions.
• The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade much of whose work is suffused with national security and intelligence interests, has an International Security Division, a Defence and National Security Division and a Diplomatic Security Division.
• The Department of Home Affairs has a Cyber Security Coordinator Group, a Cyber and Infrastructure Security Group and a National Security and Resilience Group all headed by deputy secretaries and containing eight divisions.
• The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet which has an International Security Group headed by a deputy secretary in which there are five divisions.
• The Attorney-Generals Department which has a National Security and General Justice group headed by a deputy secretary and containing three divisions.
• And, bringing up the rear., the Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Much of this machinery has grown up in the last 20 years or expanded greatly in that time. For example, the ASIO now has several times the number of staff it had at the time the planes were driven into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

No doubt the overall machinery does much good work but whether the public is getting an adequate return on what is a massive investment is less certain. After all with it the country has ended up deciding, without any public justification that goes beyond platitudes, to spend hundreds of billions on attack nuclear submarines whose long delivery schedule may make Australia more strategically vulnerable in the medium term while, if the full complement turns up in 30 years time, the Navy will struggle to keep one or two of the boats in the water at any one time. So far as intelligence is concerned, former foreign minister Gareth Evans and the ASIO head, Alan Wrigley, are likely not the only ones to be dubious about the value of much of the material collected.

A couple of years ago a comprehensive review of the legal arrangements for national intelligence agencies concluded that there was no need to develop a common legal framework governing all or some of them. That does not mean, however, that there is not scope to improve the machinery and organisation of the national intelligence and security functions.

At a rough glance this apparatus looks very large and ever expanding, unwieldy, remarkably top heavy and possibly in need of a haircut. Perhaps unfairly it brings to mind Augustus de Morgans re-working of a Jonathan Swift verse:

Greater fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite em. And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum. And great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on. While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

An independent examination of the intelligence organisational machinery is warranted. Of course, it would be stoutly resisted from within and not be enthusiastically regarded by Ministers ever nervous that any hint of trimming in this area might cause public alarm and political risk but these factors are not relevant to the public interest.

If the government doesnt have the stomach to do anything, the ONI should keep a sharp eye out for whatever improvements it can recommend at the margins. Whatever is done or not done, Ms Caves suggestion for a national security adviser should not outlive the unnatural exuberance of the Christmas season.