 Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Lowy Institute's headquarters at 31 Blyth Street for this special event marking the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, or ASIS. I'm Michael Fully Love, the Director of the Institute. Let me start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which the Institute stands, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present. We have many distinguished guests with us today, including Paul Simon, the Director-General of ASIS, and a former DG, Rex Stevenson, Andrew Shearer, the Director-General of the Office of National Intelligence, Mike Burgess, the Director-General of Security, Lieutenant-General Gavin Reynolds, Chief of Defence Intelligence, Michael Fealancy of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, and Christopher Jessup, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. We have with us the High Commissioners of the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, Vicky Tradel, Mark Glauser and Dame Annette King, and the Consul-General of the United States, Christine Elder. We have a board member of the Lowy Institute, Jim Spiegelman, and we also have a distinguished visitor from London, Richard Moore, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, as it's popularly known. Welcome, C. And welcome to you all. When you're having a birthday party, Paul, it's important that you get the guest list right, and I think we've done pretty well on that front. Let me also take the opportunity to say hello to other less friendly foreign intelligence services who may be listening in on our conversation with interest. I hope you have something. I hope you learn something. Ladies and gentlemen, ASIS is Australia's most secretive intelligence agency, but this is a public event. So let me also welcome members of the media who are with us today. There are cameras at the back of the room, not hidden cameras, Paul, to record your remarks today and our conversation later. Ladies and gentlemen, when Paul asked me last year if the Institute was interested in hosting this event, I was delighted to agree. First because of the respect that I have for him and his service, but also because intelligence has made a spectacular comeback in recent years, in the public imagination, as an arm of statecraft and as a topic of study for institutions such as the Lowey Institute. From Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth Spymaster to while Bill Donovan and the OSS in the Second World War, down through the Cold War, intelligence has always played an important role in the decisions of governments. 20 years ago, during the debate over the regrettable invasion of Iraq, the accuracy and indeed the utility of intelligence became a highly contested issue. Today, intelligence is roaring back, but in a markedly different way. The Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance used to be the love that dare not speak its name. Now you hear that term all the time and that grouping is increasingly prominent in policy terms as well as in the secret world. In February, Russia invaded its neighbour Ukraine in clear violation of the key principle of the international system. Now over the past few years, President Putin has seemed to live rent free in our collective heads. I recall the allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election in the United States and in the Brexit referendum and suggestions that President Trump was an asset of the Russian intelligence services. But over the past few months, the tables have been turned on Mr. Putin as Western intelligence services have exposed his intentions, closed off his options and aided his enemies. I was just in Washington, D.C. and I detected a quiet sense of satisfaction that the United States and its allies have to date played their cards well in supporting the brave Ukrainian forces, including with intelligence. Although, of course, there is no sense that we have anything ahead of us except a long and grim conflict. Taking these steps to declassify and share this intelligence was not without risk, of course, and one can only imagine the discussions that took place at Langley and Voxel Cross and elsewhere about the trade-offs involved in using intelligence in this way. So intelligence has rarely been more important to international affairs than it is today. And in this context, the Institute is very pleased to host this event marking the 70th anniversary of ASIS and to have its DG Paul Simon speak to us today. I should say that Paul and I set the date for this event before we had any inkling of the federal election date. So thank you, Paul, for keeping this rendezvous even after the election was called. Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Simon is the 12th Director-General of ASIS, having served in that post since December 2017. Prior to this and to his time in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Paul had a long career in the Australian Army. He retired as a major-general, having served in a number of senior posts and in East Timor, Solomon Islands and the Middle East. In 2007, Paul was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia. The Director-General will make some remarks now, and then I'll come back on stage to have a conversation with him. Paul, the lectern is yours. Well, thank you, Michael. And like you, I wish to begin by acknowledging the custodians of where we are, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and pay my respects to their Elders' past, present and emerging. It's not lost on me that we in ASIS celebrate a very slender 70 years of being this week, which is a mere ripple in the March of Time for our First Nations peoples. I'd like to thank you, Michael. I'd like to thank the Board of the Lowy Institute and the Lowy family for today's event. Let me pay tribute to just a few of the many special guests who have done this, but I should double down on your tributes. I wish to welcome the high commissioners from the UK, Canada and New Zealand and the US Consul-General. Richard Moore, Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service, one of our closest and most enduring partners. With our shared history since our inception. Thank you for being here. I was here in Sydney on Friday. The sky was blue. I was here when you arrived yesterday. It was raining. Thank you for bringing the glorious weather with you. The Honourable Dr Christopher Jessup, QC, Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. Elizabeth Stone, the daughter of and Professor Jonathan Stone, the husband of the late Margaret Stone, former Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. Senator James Patterson, my fellow intelligence chief, Sandra Shearer, Director-General of National Intelligence, Mike Burgess, Director-General of Security, Lieutenant-General Gavin Reynolds, Chief of Defence Intelligence, and Mike Filan, CEO of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. As we acknowledge 70 years of the service today, it is especially poignant that we recognise the great many remarkable Australians that have contributed and shaped ASUS over this time. Former Director-General Rex Stevenson joins me in the audience. And today, I dedicate my speech to the memory of our former Director-General David Irvine, AO. I also wish to recognise former Director-General Stuart Frye, who is currently very unwell in hospital. Our well wishes to Stuart. Finally, let me also acknowledge the presence of my two deputies, Fabio Maloney and Catherine Byrne. Amid speculation, urges and prompts, I tried not to begin this speech with a spy trope, a James Bond reference, nor even a George Smiley witticism. Ten years ago, my predecessor, Nick Warner, orchestrated a sniffly nose, starting his 60th anniversary speech with the spy who came in with a cold line. For my part, ten years later, at 70 years, a different approach is needed. I'm simply here to tinker with some espionage concepts, to tailor a speech to this audience, and to stand before you as a modern embodiment of a soldier and spy. The speech will be more akin to a glance at the inner workings of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service rather than a forensic stare. We'll use peripheral vision. You may, as an audience, need to occasionally read between the lines. Nevertheless, let me begin with a true story, a story about a signature moment in the career of one of my officers. Such stories are rarely heard beyond those who've lived them. It's my hope that this will give you a bit more than a glance of Aces' mission and some of the quiet achievers who carry out that mission. In late August last year, at 2 a.m. Cub All Time, I received a secure message from one of my officers. Let's call her Jane, who was quietly enmeshed in the chaos at Cub All's International Airport. Jane's message to me was short. The team are well, tired yet committed, while there are still friends to Australia outside the wire. The end is in sight, and while some of the scenes are horrific, the joy of getting people to safety is sustaining us. Jane's particular role was to provide point-to-point secure encrypted communications from me and other officers in Canberra to other countries in the Middle East and to the small team we had quietly inserted into Afghanistan. Over an exhausting week, Jane had worked alongside other Australian agencies to pull off the largest ever emergency airlift in Australia's history. Over 4,100 people bought to safety from one of the most dangerous places in the world. Our friends in CIA and MI6 gave us tremendous support too. Jane and the ACES team were some of the last coalition officers to leave Afghanistan. They left only after those for whom ACES had direct responsibility were safe and in a third country. We had followed through with our pact to our sources that we will do everything we can to protect their identities and to care for their safety and welfare. Jane's flight out of Kabul brought to a close one more chapter in ACES's history. Once again, all of this kept secret at the time. My response to Jane was even shorter than her message to me. Good work, get some sleep. We are an agency of few words in a crisis, committed to difficult missions and concern for the welfare of our people. In some, we don't just work on the front line, we work beyond it. The story highlights the fact that we contribute uniquely to whole-of-government efforts in pursuit of Australia's interests. Sitting behind that, we publish critical secret intelligence reports which need to be sent to the right people at the right time. In the Afghanistan context, that meant making sure that no time was lost warning people of danger. Indeed, our work did save lives. ACES demonstrated agility, innovation and sheer tenacity throughout the operation, which brings me to a further dimension of that story. It shows that foreign intelligence work is a serious business that demands fine judgement, steadfast nerves, and an ability to cope with extreme pressure. Put simply, for ACES, people, not machines, generate our greatest impact. The events in Afghanistan reflect some future challenges for ACES, being that the world is shifting beneath our feet, sometimes faster than we can dance. To continue our success into the future, ACES must be able to predict changes and address them before they become a problem. We must stay one step ahead. Today, I'm going to address these themes, our mission, our people, our challenges by taking a look at where we've come from, where we are today, and where we need to be tomorrow. The past, the present and the future seems an appropriate structure for any 70th anniversary speech. ACES was created on 13 May 1952. Prime Minister Menzies gave my predecessor, Alfred Deakin-Brooks, unprecedented licence to build a team of quiet achievers to act in Australia's interests. Our founding mission was to obtain and distribute secret intelligence on foreign powers and to conduct special operations as may be required. A special operation was broadly described as one that uses clandestine methods, normally unacknowledgable, affording no proof of the instigation or even connivance of the government. ACES's charter, signed by Menzies and framed in my office, makes it clear that efficiency and secrecy should be central to our organisation. At the time, Menzies went so far as to articulate that not even the Prime Minister should know the identity of our sources or the case officers who run them. R.G. Casey, the Foreign Minister at the time, said, A lot of these things seem to be rather mysterious, but in fact they are not. It's just a matter of helping the goodies and not helping the baddies. Friends, while much has changed over the last 70 years, I wish to assure you that in my nearly five years as Director-General, ACES, we're still essentially helping the goodies and unhelping the baddies. 70 years later, we have a more nuanced view of the world. Just as our alliances are still important to us, the last few months have underlined the fact that our adversaries are very real and they do much of their work in the shadows. While our diplomatic colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and other government departments work to progress Australia's interests by light, ACES metaphorically works with and in the shadows. We do not and we will not cede this domain to our adversaries. Over 70 years, ACES has become adept at working in this metaphorical darkness. We lift up stones and peer behind corners to discover the capabilities and intent of those who would wish to diminish Australia's interests in pursuit of their own. We operate without home ground advantage against adversaries who are willing to do whatever it takes, spend whatever it takes to harm Australia's interests. I've seen the truth of it. Our adversaries are spying on us in Australia and abroad and worse, they are seeking to weaken our institutions and bend our values. I honestly believe it is our values as an open democratic rule of law nation that sets us apart. I stand here in front of you today as a transparent reflection of those values. ACES should remain low profile, but we should not have no profile. Without Australians having a broader understanding of ACES, we won't be able to succeed in the mission entrusted to us since 1952. Practically, this means calibrated engagement with Australians about their secret intelligence service. It means renewing ACES's social licence with the public and assuring them that what we do is bounded by Australian law and is further bounded by the admixture of propriety, values and interests. At its heart, ACES conducts business that is synonymous with risk. We're built for this purpose. Not only in terms of our people, the way in which we train them, our processes and capabilities, but also in terms of the rigorous oversight we receive. These are some of the foundations that have kept our organisation united in purpose and undaunted by new horizons over the past 70 years. This brings me to the present. How to characterise ACES today? Over many years, I've met many truly impressive Australians and I'm comfortable telling you that many of the most dedicated, intelligent and loyal Australians you could ever meet are ACES officers. With me and my deputy director-general excluded, the law protects the identity of ACES officers. But because today is special, I'll tell you who they might be. They might be one of your family members, one of your neighbours, your classmates or former colleagues. They might be someone you know, but don't know completely. Depending on the city in the day, there might be just the person next to you on the train or indeed next to you in this audience. I can also tell you that somewhere in the world, right now, there is an ACES officer taking enormous risks, albeit deeply considered, and mitigated as far as possible to protect your rights and interests as an Australian. Right now, I know, somewhere out there, maybe far from the comforts we are enjoying here in Blystreet, ACES officers are working on strange streets in bustling cafes or hidden from plain view. Right now, they are using their training and expert experience to extract secrets that the Australian government needs to know and then quietly, carefully and covertly sending these secrets home. Again and again, Australian foreign and defence policy has been informed by our access to such secrets, sometimes just in the nick of time. Right now, for every one of these officers in the field, I have other specialists back in headquarters working to conceive, facilitate, protect and process our operations. They are making sure our work is bound by Australian law, proper, ethical, valued and always in the national interest. My officers and their families are not doing these things without sacrifice. There is excitement in our work without doubt, but it comes at a cost. Right now, there will be ACES officers feeling the heaviness of the burden they accepted in a career where they must not discuss their work, even to those nearest and dearest. And there are sharper burdens as well. ACES' staff welfare officers have fielded more than a few calls from worried partners. ACES has backup plans for our backup plans. We work hard to ensure things almost always work out okay. Unlike many organisations, it's when things don't work out okay that ACES truly bonds. Intelligence is a team pursuit. The team lifts and falls on the character, resilience and credibility of its members. Those who thrive in ACES tend to care more about those beside them than impressing those above them. It's in these conversations with officers where you hear raw emotions, the passion and that which motivates action. These characteristics I see in abundance in ACES. But let me share with you an uncomfortable truth. In the next decade, the work of these officers will become more complex and challenging. As we move forward, ACES will need more officers with more diverse skills and backgrounds supported by more integrated capabilities. We're going to need to recruit and work with even more vigour and urgency than at any other point in our 70-year history. We need scale, agility and contemporary solutions to meet the new problems we will confront. This brings me to the future. What will ACES' identity and purpose be going forward? What are the most telling features of the future espionage environment? How should ACES conduct espionage beyond the safety of our shores? Why would a young person today want to join ACES next year, in 2030 or beyond? I've given considerable thought to these questions. I'm happy to share with you some of the observations that I have. Contained within them are some salutary warnings. First, high-quality intelligence is in very high demand. The need for effective national intelligence, particularly the synthesis of quality collection and quality assessment, has never been more acute. The world is experiencing more than just a realignment in power. The global rules-based order is being manipulated and subverted. The future will likely be less advantageous to Australia than that we once knew. The world within which Australians seek prosperity, safety and sovereignty is marked by contest. In a difficult world, diplomacy remains vital. And in parallel, Australia must actively use intelligence to protect and advance its interests prudently and determinately. Intelligence with its ability to be covert, deniable and discreet can provide government with a suite of options to reduce strategic surprise and further national objectives abroad. Within the lawful bounds of its duties and in tandem with diplomacy. In an increasingly complex strategic environment, this suite of options must necessarily grow to confront the threats we face. ASUS is ready for this. ASUS benefits from espionage opportunities that emerge from the suppressed dissent within authoritarian states. When leaders abolish fixed political terms, for example, they become responsible and accountable for everything, including the disillusionment that emerges from within. This provides us an edge. We notice that in closed societies, top officials will always reinforce leaders' biases and assumptions. That, after all, is the safest career path for them. Speaking truth to power is an enduring strength of our system. Another observation, though, is that at the same time as our operating environment has become more competitive and volatile, it has also become increasingly difficult to conduct human intelligence work. While it remains a core component of statecraft, it must adapt to meet the extraordinary challenges arising from the interaction of a complex strategic environment, intensified counterintelligence efforts, and emergent and emerging technologies. For a service like my own, there is a near existential dimension to technology risk. The analog systems and processes which spies of the past took for granted have been relegated to history, and we now live in a fundamentally digital era where our covert activities are increasingly discoverable. In this technological sandbox, authoritarian regimes are having a heyday. Those so inclined are harnessing the booming IT economy to develop myriad forms of surveillance and are using them for a range of ends, including public control and counterespionage. We cannot avoid or fight this wave of digital transformation. We must drop in on the wave, and we must ride it. Specifically, humid operators need to turn the tables by mastering technology to meet a range of functions and requirements. Technologies from biotechnology, nanotechnology, quantum computing will not only be challenges, but also keys to ACCESS's success. My next observation goes to the challenge of ensuring intelligence reporting effectively informs policymaking, including where that policy is being made outside of classified systems. Policymakers have access to an extraordinary array of sources on which to base their assessments, develop options and implement decisions. It's a crowded space for policymakers who still only have the same number of hours in their working day. Human intelligence will need to provide the gems that reveal the heart of key issues and problems, and to do this with increasing speed in fit for purpose formats. The private sector is increasingly capable of providing relevant intelligence to customers. Within government, we need to differentiate our offerings and evolve to incorporate aspects of the commercial intelligence market into our business model. In this environment, ACCESS must be more forward-leaning in engaging Australian businesses and industry as we seek to work together to dissect and solve many of the challenges I'm outlining today. My final observation is that the greatest challenge but with the greatest perspective reward is for intelligence agencies to maximise the human capital of our people and the collective strength of our partnerships. Problem-solving lies at the heart of the intelligence profession. As such, all ACCESS officers must have a problem-solving mindset, one that uses imagination and curiosity, invention and discovery to understand and describe a problem in a way that allows it to be solved. Intelligence professionals need to be constant innovators, seeking new ways of work to improve both offense and defence. We won't always get it right, but that is in the nature of an agency for which every activity has its own unique attributes. This is also why a diverse workforce is so important to ACCESS. For example, from different backgrounds approach different problems in different ways and we must harness this diversity. Of course, the golden rule to problem-solving is to avoid going it alone. In that context, our alliances, of which Australia has many, create dramatic strength in numbers. The Five Eyes Alliance in particular is unparalleled. If you want to measure just how valuable these alliances are, you only need to consider how much our adversaries resent them. Close societies engineer their own trust deficit, treating others as transactional, rather than as genuine partners. Wolf Warriors misjudged the intelligence of citizens around the globe. In that regard, I'm reminded of a quote from Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, who said, no matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you're playing a solo game, you'll always lose to a team. Friends, I started this speech with a true story about the work of ACES officers in Afghanistan as Kabul fell. I've also shared with you some of the core work we conduct on a daily basis, namely extracting secrets that the Australian government needs to know. Now, to close the speech, I'd like to share one last glimpse of what I've seen ACES do during my time as Director-General. I've seen ACES officers support other Australian government agencies in their efforts to secure the release of Australian hostages. I have seen ACES officers provide unwavering support to the Defence mission in various conflict zones around the world. There, they worked tirelessly to obtain intelligence to protect the lives of civilians and military personnel. I've seen ACES officers help disrupt terrorist attacks that saved the lives of civilians, including Australians putting themselves in harm's way to do so. I've seen our officers obtain exquisite intelligence that gives government insight on the most pressing national security issues and saves government considerable expenditure. I've seen our officers disrupt unsafe maritime ventures, saving the lives of men, women and children who were risking their lives at sea. I have seen ACES officers obtain access in the most denied of locations, behind the lines at night, if you will. And I've seen ACES officers staring down the hardest of targets without blinking. All of these experiences of which I'm privileged to share in form a part of the story of where the service is today. And I'm truly proud of the work we have done. But as always, there's more to be done. And ACES must now adopt considered and comprehensive transformation. Foreign intelligence services need to modernise and ACES is no exception. If they fall behind adversaries, they will at worst generate, rather than mitigate, national risk. Transformation will ensure ACES remains fit for purpose and will be best able to support government and Australia's interests. It's vital we remain sharp, integrated and able to generate significant advantage and impact amidst increasing uncertainty. Recognising that we are a sharp tool, not a broad brush, ACES must be selective and discerning in its objectives to continue making a unique contribution to government. Through effective prioritisation, we must ultimately end up doing select priority tasks exceptionally well. Friends, the challenge is great, the risk is real, the threat is growing. I start my days, I start some days in my job apprehensive about what the future has in store for ACES, but I finish every day more invigorated than apprehensive. I'm surrounded each day by exceptional officers of Australia's Secret Intelligence Service. Our people operate where others do not, will not or cannot. They achieve what others think to be impossible. My officers are professional, capable and accountable individuals who typify resilience, tenacity and above all else, service. Every day I am reminded that Australia's current and future quiet achievers will be up for the tasks that await us now and into the future. Thank you. Paul, thank you for those interesting and wide-ranging remarks. You quoted your predecessor Nick Warner at the 60th anniversary which I think was also at the Institute when he made the joke that he was the spy who came in with a cold, of course in a global pandemic that joke wouldn't go so well so thank you for not thinking a cold today. Given the poor weather we've had I think of you as the spy who came in from the rain. Thank you. I want to ask you some questions first of all about your work and the work that your officers do but secondly about the world that you and your officers confront. Let me start with the anecdote that you began with of Jane in Kabul. You said in your remarks that ASIS works not just on the front line but beyond it. Tell us a little bit in human terms what it's like for your officers to be working beyond the front line. What stresses does that impose? How do they remain resilient? And in particular tell us a bit about the relationship that they have with their sources and their agents. You mentioned the promise that ASIS makes to always look after its sources and agents. Tell us a bit about that. Thank you Michael. Well you mentioned Jane. I want to start with Jane and there are Jane's and James if you will for this conversation. I have this image of Jane just to perhaps amplify the story that I gave dressed almost sort of head to toe in sort of black catmandu type gear and she'd shimmied up the wall at Kabul airport and she's adjusting the satellite dish up on the roof of the airport. And you know, those types of images remind you of what I was talking about in this speech. It's the resilience, it's the determination to achieve an outcome under very, very trying circumstances. Jane, you know, is a technical officer and so to do justice to your question I just need to highlight some of the sets of people that we have. The James and the James that we have in ASIS because as you say some will be meeting with agents. But I want to just briefly talk about a couple of other James and James. There's a set of them who are data scientists, data engineers, targeters who are getting volumes of data sets and they are triaging that data to make some calculations about who are the type of people that we should be meeting with. If ever there was an image of our workers sort of just sidling up to people at cocktail parties and trying to recruit them, it's just not the way we do it. We have these individuals, these James and James who are working through all this data to understand who exactly we should be seeking to develop a relationship with. There are also James and James who are technical people who will be sitting in a laboratory right now working on circuit boards or developing capabilities that allow us to be able to communicate with agents, be able to provide the right type of systems that we want, capabilities that we want to be able to track assets, track capabilities and the like. And then, as you highlight, there are those individuals who have undertaken a huge amount of training to fundamentally ingress safely from a conversation that is so central to our business, the trust that develops between two individuals. The agent that we're dealing with is motivated to work with us. They're not coerced, they're motivated to work with us. There can be a range of reasons why they might be motivated to work with us. But one thing they absolutely want is this compact that I talked about, this understanding and certainty that we will do everything within our power to protect their identity and ensure that they too can ingress and egress from a meeting safely and securely. They are taking significant risks. My case officers are taking significant risks. And I would say that before every meeting, while it sounds just like an everyday event, like the planning the detail of the planning not only of the officer who's going to meet with the agent but the data scientists, the data engineers the targetters, the reports officers, the technical officers, all come together as one team. So we very much see ourselves as one team and sure, there will always be that moment in time where two people are meeting, where we're doing everything within our power to make sure that any cultural or linguistic misunderstanding is reduced to the lowest possible level. But it's in a safe place, ingress and egress is safe. That's the nature of the work that we do. You mentioned so where does the resilience come? I think in some respects because it is a one team effort there are so many people involved there is a lot of camaraderie that goes with the nature of the business there's a lot of I would say red teaming of those meetings so these are not meetings that happen rapidly or by chance, unless the circumstances lend themselves to immediacy. A lot of the meetings that we undertake with agents are very well planned, red teamed, checked by others, questions asked about have you thought about this, have you thought about that planned in great detail and it all though seeks to achieve the ultimate outcome which is that a meeting is successful someone has answered questions that we have asked directed or controlled them to answer the questions for us, these are not random questions, these are questions that the community wants answered and we leave that meeting with those answers tucked away. How do your officers get those agents to provide those answers if you don't coerce them? Why do they give you that information? There are a range of motivations I talked about in the speech the fact that in closed societies I think what's going to happen, let me put it this way in the future is that increasingly officials individuals unhappy with the trajectory of closed societies are willing to speak up are willing to take risks. Andrew and I were in in India three weeks ago and I was reflecting on the diversity and the colour of the ancient culture which is India and the extent to which that diversity is so rich and so alive and yet in China we have an ancient culture but there's an enforced monoculture there's a monoculture that's being enforced we don't yet know exactly how that will play out but what we're seeing is more and more signs of officials individuals interested in a relationship that's not coercion that is very real concern about their culture the lack of diversity in their culture and the direction that they're heading in Let me zoom out to Canberra tell us a bit about the edge that foreign intelligence gives to Australian policy makers and I want to ask you not just about intelligence that Australian agencies collect but also that comes through the Five Eyes Network you talked about the strength in numbers that Five Eyes provides for those who are not policy makers give them some tangible sense of the extra colour that can help them to understand the world I think that I mean there are so many both commercial and government mechanisms these days when we talk about what the capability of countries are there are many ways there are a lot more ways to be able to reveal the capabilities of countries these days the intentions though the intent of countries the intentions of leaders the courage that in our own national interest our political leaders our policy makers they need some context around the calculations that are being made around intent now the only way you can get really to understand intentions of leaders is either if there's ill discipline in the way that they communicate and there's been signs of that in what we've seen in the media the current conflict in the Ukraine then that is clearly provides an advantage but the significant human services working in parallel are a very powerful capability because sometimes there are situations where leaders are very disciplined in the way they use their communications their systems and the like so human is designed to provide access to the intentions of leaders and really that is the sort of edge that I'm talking about it's not the material that you will see in the open domain it's something special for which we have to work very very hard to find out that information you said in your remarks that your operations are bound by Australian law proper ethical, valued and always in the national interest has had its controversies in the past for example in East Timor and elsewhere how do you factor legal and ethical questions into the planning for your operations in a number of ways we have a separate area whose responsibility is to test with our activities and our operations I talked before about red teaming so this idea of in this governance area of asking questions around propriety and legality and testing the activities so they are sort of separate and objectively testing every activity that we do we have ethics councillors inside the service so people who you can say I'd like to discuss this this particular activity or this particular issue the sort of concerns that you have one of the lessons we have learnt and it's been a very important component of the way we do activities and operations in 2022 is that if an officer finds themselves involved in an activity or an operation where they have any personal concerns this is all about people's own realities but if they have any personal concerns about propriety or legality and they want to put their hand up and say I would prefer to opt out of this activity or operation I have given them an undertaking that there will be no career detriment to doing so so that's about as much as I can do at the end of the day we present options to government and government can direct us but it is true that an officer at no career detriment can put their hand up and say I'm not comfortable now that doesn't happen it hasn't happened it doesn't happen in great numbers it happens occasionally occasionally it will trigger then a conversation with an ethics councillor they just talk through the issues and indeed there have been people that have opted back in as they've teased it out so we have those sort of mechanisms in place you said in your remarks the following that I thought was quite a striking statement you said the global rules based order is being manipulated and subverted the future will likely be less advantageous to Australia than that we once knew can you expand on that a bit please can I ask you if Stan Grant's in the audience at all can you front up at all there's a line in Stan's book Writers on Writers which really sort of caught my eye and caused me to put that passage in he talks about democracy bends towards tyranny and it's in his book on Thomas Cannelly and it's a very troubling statement democracy bends towards tyranny I see I see signs of that I think that but I think that there are very real obligations and responsibilities we have in the intelligence community to make sure that democracy remains what we've been gifted and what I do see not so much in Australia but I see in our region the extent to which the democratic systems in our new region can be manipulated political leaders can be subverted can be directed and controlled can take advantage of largesse that is being shout upon them so we've got a very our job really is to help government know and understand exactly what is going on and as as people are denying are responding to activities of not I won't say coercion but manipulation then it's important that we reveal for our government that they know and understand exactly what is happening in that area You didn't mention a country there that you were thinking of like a lot of Australian officials you've had a deep engagement with Solomon Islands both in your days as a military officer with the Ramsey intervention and then up to recent weeks tell us a bit about the capacity of Pacific Island countries to pursue their own interest in an era of great power competition when they're constantly bumping up against these giant nations Episode briefly my own experience with Solomon Islands in 2003 was there with the initial deployment into the Solomon Islands a week before that deployment I saw for Nick Warner and Ben McDevitt from the Federal Police called upon Sir Alan Kamikaza who was the Prime Minister at the time and we talked Sir Alan Kamikaza through the nature of the deployment that we were going to undertake we explained to him that in the first 100 days it was our hope that we would pull all weapons out of society because society was a wash with weapons it's a matriarchal society and the mothers and the children in the Solomon Islands feared for their own safety domestic family violence was at a very high level the police force was corrupt and we were determined in that first 100 days to clean out both the weapons and the corruption out of the police force Sir Alan Kamikaza on this I think in the way that the region and Australia likes to do these things provide the briefing explain our approach and and it transpired of course that Sir Alan Kamikaza said I'm very happy with that please on that basis proceed fast forward to the last 12 months there's a very different dynamic at play many of the same characteristics are still there it's a fragile society it's a matriarchal society I think there are a lot of concerns in the Solomon Islands about the path of trajectory that they're taking but they know what they know what bad looked like in 2003 there are pressures there are offers that are causing very real concerns and it was I'd have to say disappointing that last year and I know this is playing out in the media but when Australia in late November looked to respond to a request from the Solomon Islands Government it was very concerning to wonder what else was going on at play here because the response was typically Australian particularly regional in its nature a number of us in the room remember the Solomon Islands Government asking on the afternoon I think it was the 24th of November for help we remember our Prime Minister calling an urgent National Security Committee of Cabinet we remember our Prime Minister saying we will give the Government whatever they want we remember that that afternoon we left with police and military that the next day two C17s worth of troops and police went and HMAS I think it was Adelaide began its forage as well for me the approach that we took in that very rapid period of time typified the way that we look to support the Solomon Islands and it's not that I see other countries in the way other countries are considering the type of support they wish to give to the Solomon Islands what I saw was that when the Prime Minister gave the green light to help the Solomon Islands our soldiers and police had to do three things they had to say farewell to their families because they didn't know how long they were going to be away and zip up their bags they had to pack the ships and the planes but the most important thing was that from the most senior officer down to the most senior soldier the orders went down sort of saying now no one steps onto the Solomon Islands without understanding this that it's their sovereignty they have asked for this support they are asking they are laying down the sort of missions and the tasks that are being that we're being asked to provide security for we are respecting their sovereignty they are calling the shots for me that's what good looks like and I will do you know the intelligence community will do everything it can to make sure that you know the region our government and that we help in ensuring information intelligence the Solomon Islands in any way that they can it's their call but in any way that we can to have them know and understand that what is going on at the moment is a big deal it's a big deal for Australia it's a big deal for the region and I think for the mothers and many of the citizens of Solomon Islands it's a very big deal too so we're very seized by this and we'll keep working very hard to make sure that we do the best thing that we can for the people of the Solomon Islands alright let me move the focus from the South West Pacific to Europe I mentioned in my introduction the forward-leaning way I guess that Washington and London have used in particular have used intelligence to strengthen the position of Ukraine and also to box Mr Putin in they've shared intelligence with Kyiv they talked a bit about that in the last couple of days and they've shared intelligence with the world so as an intelligence professional can you tell us a bit about the way intelligence has been declassified and deployed over the course of this conflict what are the trade-offs it must be many occasions when you have gems of information that you would love to share but of course there are downsides to that too so talk us through it in general and your observations on how intelligence is playing a role in the Ukraine conflict I mean firstly I think that the declassification of intelligence in this most recent conflict has been both breathtaking and incredibly impressive and I think we all will take lessons of how the prudent declassification of intelligence has helped governments it's given governments and public the sort of the bandwidth the time to process what is going on and and in the case of the Ukraine and Russia it's allowed governments again the time to think about what type of sanctions what type of aid whether it be lethal or non-lethal aid they can provide we sometimes forget that some of the intelligence that we get in the Five Eyes provides our governments that exquisite intelligence that gives them an information advantage and time to process to think about sanctions the provision of aid and we sometimes forget that there's a lot of governments there's a lot of countries out there that don't have the same time and we might be disappointed that they don't sort of respond with the same alacrity I think what we've seen in this last six months is governments stepping up because they have been given this opportunity their publics have been given more information about what's in play here and it has given them time to sort of set a public narrative around how to respond what type of aid to provide what sort of sanctions regime but as you rightly say it's a trade-off and I think at the end of the day for people like Richard and I in the human intelligence space and for Bill Burns for that matter with the CIA the protection of sources is something that is absolute in the way that we think about the work that we do and so we have to be very robust there will always I think in the future be more and more pressure to release more and more intelligence I think it will be very important that intelligence chiefs are very very clear on where the red line is that might unpick or reveal the identity of our sources now in my own experience policy makers our political leaders respect that they know that if an intelligence chief comes forward and says I have a problem here this is getting this is getting too close to the way it could be unpicked digital profiles could be worked through to reveal a source in my experience people have been very respectful of that but I think it's something that that is the trade-off that we're going to be dealing with into the future you said something in your remarks about how in closed societies top officials reinforce the biases of leaders and it's harder for them to speak truth to power do you think that some of the explanation as to why Russia's efforts have been so unimpressive that the officials around Mr Putin aren't game to tell him that he's wrong that would be my hunch I think it would be a very short career to red team President Putin we saw it didn't we we actually had that extraordinary vision of the that moment where President Putin wanted all of his officials to reinforce his views and he did it in public and of course someone was not quite on their game that day that's very very very perilous I think what we do very well in Australia in my experience is and in particular in the National Security Committee of Cabinet is that everyone does have a voice and no two voices are the same and I think that the the Prime Minister in particular gets an array of diverse views that come through to him ultimately you know he's the key decision maker in my four and a half years in this job I've never seen an intelligence chief step away from saying an unfortunate truth or reality to the Prime Minister it's our strength and it needs to remain that way we're almost out of time couple of final questions different intelligence services have different cultures or different characters some of them are known for being more daring of course democratic but on services it's often said reflect the culture of the country they serve and so you get democratic secret intelligence services that are quite different from those in authoritarian countries what is the character of ASIS would you say I mean where is ASIS on the risk appetite give us a sense of how you think about ASIS compared to other services well I think we it's hard to characterize that I mean at the end of the day a human intelligence service like ours is genuinely a reflection the type of activities we undertake the operations we do is a reflection of the risk appetite of our governments at the time and clearly if I was Digi Mossat there have been moments in their history where the government of the time and its risk settings are very different to the sort of risk settings that I live with having said that I think it's in the Australian character and in the Australian nature that governments of both sides have been advantaged by a daring risk accepting organization like ASIS so this is genuinely both sides of politics have benefited from the type of risk settings that we have and our willingness to present options and the most sensitive and the most complex and the most high risk activities are ones that will be presented to government as a set of options and I have significant delegations myself and I would say the risk settings have adjusted over the last few years the extent to which I have been delegated more and more authority to approve operations in the last few years I think the question now because I do think we're at an inflection point is will those settings continue to evolve and change I think they will I think that the nature of the contest is changing in a way that our political parties of either persuasion will see the reality of what's happening we will help them better know and understand the reality of what's happening behind closed doors not what just is being said and I think that the demand signals for ASIS activities and operations will increase not decrease and I guess that is sort of what I sought to set out in the speech but at the end of the day we have an arm of government we're a sharp not a blunt tool it's very much our job to present those options to government and for them to decide what sort of risk appetite they have for us to undertake those activities knowing that there's no absolutes here with everything we do we work very very hard not to be compromised we work very very hard not to get caught that's the nature of our business but it's not 100% game here and the more that the risk settings change the greater the prospect that there will be compromises or we will get caught and really that's an ongoing conversation that I need to have with the next government and beyond finally I've got a bone to pick with you Paul and that is I want to ask you why there are no great Australian fictional spies Richard Moore has George Smiley and James Bond and now Jackson Lam Bill Burns has Paul Christopher and Nathaniel Nash and Jason Bourne but I'm struggling to think who we've got so I'm wondering are you doing something wrong here is there an opportunity for an Australian novelist maybe to have some access to ASIS and pick up some trade craft so firstly when I next see Chris Yorman who wrote Secret City I'll pass on your regards I quite like the way he's creating the DGAZO character Mike it's emerging in very interesting ways of course he characterises the chief of defence force as corrupt and crazy and we know absolutely that Angus Campbell is neither crazy or corrupt look I think that there's a right time isn't there I mean the best is Likari let's be honest and the Cold War those grey skies of Europe lent themselves to such wonderful wonderful storytelling maybe our sky's too blue here I don't know we'll just have to keep working on it Michael but I think if I'm right if times are getting it tougher if this business is going to get harder I think that environment engenders the creative juices that will hopefully lead one day to an outstanding Australian fictional author in the style that you wish Paul thank you again for your remarks thank you for pulling back the veil a little bit it's a world that many of us in which many of us are interested but about which most of us are ignorant so thank you for shining a light on it ladies and gentlemen scripture says that the years of a life number three score and ten but I think you'd agree that Paul's remarks show us that having reached that milestone of 70 aces remains very sprightly indeed 70 is a great age Paul we're very pleased to have you and your predecessor and many of your colleagues here to mark the occasion so thank you very much please join me in thanking Paul Simon