Aussies debate creation of DHS-like super-department

Published 15 November 2007

Kevin Rudd, leader of Australia’s opposition Labor Party, has proposed the creation of a DHS-like agency to coordinate responses to terrorism and natural disasters; critics say that the current, decentralized Australian first-response system is better

Australia, facing severe natural disasters, a wave of illegal immigrants from Asia, and close proximity to al Qaeda cells in Indonesia and Malaysia, has been more focused on homeland security than many other countries. There are now calls there for the creation of an agency or department similar to the U.S. DHS. Some analysts believe this is not the way to go. Joshua Frydenberg, a former senior adviser to Prime Minister John Howard, is one of them. He writes in the Age that a proposal to create an Australian DHS — a proposal put forth by Kevin Rudd, the leader of the federal Australian Labor Party and leader of the opposition in the Australian parliament — is misguided and harmful. Creating Australia’s own department of homeland security, writes Frydenberg, would “dismantle one of the most effective national security systems in the world.” Frydenberg argues that Australia’s current system works. Each of the thirteen distinct organizations that Labor proposes to bring under the umbrella of its new department, including ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) and the Australian Federal Police and customs, have adapted well to the post-9/11 environment. The organizations are now subject to unprecedented public and political scrutiny. They have also received more than $10 billion of funding, broad legislative powers under the Criminal Code, and a new-found capacity for international co-operation through a suite of bilateral agreements. They conduct regular inter-agency exercises and have systems in place to co-ordinate their response to incidents at a ministerial, inter-governmental and private-sector level. “Agency heads are on the public record praising the level of co-operation within the existing system, with then ASIO director-general Dennis Richardson testifying to the Senate in February 2004 that ‘the connectivity between Australian border agencies is probably the best in the world’.”

Frydenberg writes that relative to the level of co-operation and coherence of the Australian homeland security system, “the American homeland security system is at best a work in progress, and at worst a dismal failure.” He cites a report to Congress by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which assessed DHS’s performance in fourteen key mission and management areas since the department’s creation four years ago. The department rated poorly overall, with limited or modest progress in more than half of the key areas including border security, emergency preparedness and science and technology applications. “Even a former senior official of the department is speaking out about the need for reform. Its first director-general, Clark Ervin, has published widely on what he contends is the bureaucracy’s failure to plug security holes, such as the department not making a credible list of the nation’s critical infrastructure.” Frydenberg writes that it was DHS’s failed emergency response to Katrina that will be forever etched in the American public’s mind. “The sight of thousands of helpless families waiting weeks for outside help was a low point in the Bush presidency.” In Australia, while somewhat on a different scale, state and federal emergency management authorities responded quickly and co-operatively to the devastation left by Cyclone Larry.

Critcis say that the concern is that Labor is planning not only to adopt a flawed American model, not yet followed in Britain or Canada, but is adding another element of risk by combining a law-enforcement agency, the AFP, with an intelligence agency, ASIO, within the one department. The functions, powers, and the culture of these two agencies are quite distinct and they should remain separate to protect their independence and authority. “Even the Americans, despite the problems with their agency, never sought to combine their law-enforcement agency, the FBI, with their intelligence agency, the CIA, in one department.”