High Priority Spending continues on National Security
by Ernie Davitt, National Affairs Editor, ASM
The Rudd Government has continued high-priority Federal spending across Australia’s national security agencies in its first national Budget, with a total of $5.3 billion allocated to the Attorney-General’s portfolio alone.
The latest Budget includes total allocations of: $1.39 billion to the Australian Federal Police; almost $1.48 billion to the Australian Customs Service; around $430 million to ASIO; nearly $98 million to the Australian Crime Commission; over $54 million to the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre; and almost $110 million to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, emphasised that a total of $460 million in additional funding would be allocated over five years for a range of initiatives including policing, critical infrastructure protection and disaster mitigation.
This included $191.9 million for the recruitment and training of an additional 500 Australian Federal Police officers over the next five years to help tackle domestic and transnational crime.
Other national security Budget highlights:
- communities around Australia will share $42.6 million over four years to help them become more resilient to man-made and natural threats and disasters;
- the AFP will get $47.0 million to help in capacity building and narcotic roles in Afghanistan and $13.7 million to help train members of the Iraqi Police Service;
- Emergency Management Australia’s Natural Disaster Mitigation Program will receive $19.2 million over the next year to help States, Territories and local councils prepare for disasters;
- the AFP will get $19 million to strengthen its hand against high-tech crime, including fraud and on-line child exploitation;
- Australia’s port security and border protection capabilities will get an extra $16 million over the next four years to increase container examination capacity at four key regional seaports. Customs port security measure will double examination capacity at four regional shipping ports – Launceston, Townsville, Newcastle and Darwin;
- Customs will also get $1.1m in 2008–09 to augment funding for border protection in northern waters, including 2,200 extra surveillance hours per annum in Australia’s northern approaches to maintain the deterrence of unauthorised arrivals from Papua New Guinea;
- as well as increased funding, ASIO’s average staffing level for 2008-09 is expected to rise by almost 200 to 1535.
But academics and commentators have been highly critical about the lack of information, focus and detail on (non-Defence) national security items in the Budget. It will probably take some weeks for a clearer picture emerges.
Professor Clive Williams of Macquarie University’s Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism (PICT) slammed the Rudd Government’s presentation of information in the Budget related to national security.
“Because of the way the budget is formulated, it is difficult to tell where the money is going in a holistic national security sense. This demonstrates once again the need for a coordinated and transparent national security budget,” he told ASM.
“As usual, Defence will get the lion’s share, with its budget set to top $20 billion - a three per cent real increase. This includes $5.1 million for an Asia-Pacific Centre for Civil-Military Cooperation in Queanbeyan.
“The AFP will also get more for national security-related categories, such as $21 million for international deployments and $19 million to combat high tech crime. But it is facing a cut of $10 million in the counter-terrorism area.
“Overseas aid is to rise to $3.7 billion, but DFAT will be disappointed with its budget allocation.”
Prof Williams said Macquarie University ran a national security budget exercise as part of its Masters program, with Masters students having to work out a budget for Defence, the intelligence community, AusAID and DFAT, and Home Affairs (which includes AG’s, Customs, Immigration, Border Protection etc).
“Students have to take account of the international security environment, threat factors, and how urgently strategic and community issues need to be addressed. Interestingly, students from both the university and government usually give about equal weighting to Defence and Home Affairs,” he said.
“Defence in fact currently receives about two thirds of the national security budget. This suggests a need for a major review of national security expenditure, taking into account the changing nature of the threat environment, to determine whether we should restructure the national security budget to get best value for our money.”
In commenting on the makeup of the Budget, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said one of the Government’s major objectives was to strengthen Australia’s national security. It is difficult to understand why the AFP’s counter-terrorism budget was cut in the face of comments like the following from Mr Rudd.
“Our Government is ever mindful of the national security challenges we face. The threat from terrorism is real,” he said.
“Australian citizens have been the victims of terrorist attacks. Our embassies overseas have been targeted. Terrorist groups continue to look for ways to attack.
“Groups such as al Qa’ida continue to mutate, regroup and present new threats. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is trying to re-establish its regime.
“We have had a terrible reminder in recent days that the Taliban are only too prepared to kill to further their aim.
“States like North Korea and Iran continue to pose a threat to stability in the region and around the world by seeking to develop nuclear weapons.”
Mr Rudd said that to meet traditional security threats in a changing world, Australia needed to work even more closely with key security partners.
“In a connected world, we also face a new range of threats to our national security,” he said.
“Threats like pandemics that spread across national borders quickly; a threat that requires us to build a robust regional capacity to respond.
“Threats like natural disasters that also need region-wide cooperation to respond to effectively.
“To meet this array of threats we need a comprehensive national security strategy.
We need to back this up with clear statements of our defence strategy, our foreign policy and our approach to domestic security threats.”