Climate change, cyber-attacks, uncontrolled mass migration and the rise of "fascist extremist" groups are among the many risks Australia’s national security agencies need to be prepared for, according to Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo.
Giving a lecture at the Australian National University on Tuesday night, Mr Pezzullo outlined his vision for an "extended state" approach to protecting Australians, in which security concerns and protections are an integral part of how Australian institutions and organisations are designed and operate.
Mr Pezzullo said it's time to rethink the notion that Australia's national security is exclusively threatened by "the other", citing environmental threats and the coronavirus pandemic.
"Today one of the most vital security practices in the face of the threat of COVID-19 is hand washing and good hand hygiene, a measure, with all due respect, which is far removed from the appearance and character of a complex weapon system," he said.
"A view of security which is concerned exclusively with the administration of violence does not assist us to prepare for other dilemmas which might impinge on civil peace, such as a global pandemic or a potentially catastrophic geomagnetic storm, which could will occur at a scale which would render most electrified technologies inoperable.
"Who is the attacker in that latter instance, the sun, nature, or perhaps God Himself?"
The Home Affairs chief outlined an expanded “apocalyptic” register of 25 security threats facing Australia, which include the prospect of “uncontrolled mass migration, including as a result of civil conflict and/or climate change”.
“Increased disaster and climate risks, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse” were also listed as security concerns.
Mr Pezzullo said “Islamist terrorist groups” are still considered the most dangerous terror threat due to their global reach but warned the rise of “fascist extremist” groups which threaten “politically motivated violence, including armed groups which might be motivated by conspiratorially framed ideologies” had become an “increasing concern”.
Cyber security was also high on his agenda, with the Chief Bureaucrat warning online offensives have the potential to cripple critical infrastructure across the country.
Additional risks according to the Home Affairs chief include efforts to subvert “democratic institutions including our elections, the fragmentation of our social cohesion by way of foreign interference, political warfare and disinformation, the weaponization of social media and declining trust in public institutions - espionage against our decision making processes”.
Mr Pezzullo also touched on more fantastical “extinction” scenarios, including “humanity killing synthetic viruses, the Terminator AI threat” and a nuclear holocaust caused by warring superpowers.
“Complacency is certainly not warranted in the face of this register, please don't get me wrong, but nor is existentially pessimistic fatalism,” the Bureaucrat said.
“Over-arming the state is as great a danger as under-powering it.”
Mr Pezzullo has served as Secretary for Home Affairs since the so-called mega-department was formed in 2017.
His leadership came under criticism in 2019, after emails were released showing he complimented the Australian Federal Police following raids on the home of Journalist Annika Smethurst and the Sydney offices of the ABC, which were labelled by media organisations as an intrusion on press freedom.
Mr Pezzullo admitted there were ways in which Australia’s intelligence community could communicate in a more open way, but he dismissed the notion Australia’s intelligence community was behaving in a deliberately opaque manner.
“The notion that somehow the colleagues that I've just identified, myself included, are tyrannical, despotic, plotting behind closed doors to oppress the Australian population…is frankly just an exaggeration of a caricature and a trope,” he said.
He cautioned against an authoritarian approach to protecting Australians entailing “the administration of fearful anxious subjects".
“Security is more than the question of protection or of survival. It’s a question of how we should band together, and pool our capacities for living.”
