Office of National Intelligence

Office overview
Formed	20 December 2018 (2018-12-20)
Preceding office	Office of National Assessments DPMC intelligence activities
Jurisdiction	Australian Government
Headquarters	Robert Marsden Hope Building, Canberra
Minister responsible	Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister
Office executives	Andrew Shearer, Director-General[1] Nina Davidson, Deputy Director-General Paul Taloni, Chief Intelligence Scientist
Parent department	Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Website	oni.gov.au

The Office of National Intelligence (ONI) is an Australian statutory intelligence agency responsible for advising the Prime Minister and National Security Committee, the production of all-source intelligence assessments, and the strategic development and enterprise management of the National Intelligence Community.^[2][3][4] The ONI is directly accountable to the Prime Minister of Australia as a portfolio agency of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

ONI is the Australian equivalent of the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the United Kingdom Joint Intelligence Organisation.

History

The origins of ONI stem from recommendations of the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security (also known as the First Hope Commission) which was established on 21 August 1974 by Australia's Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and led by Justice Robert Hope, for the formation of an independent agency to provide intelligence assessments on political, strategic and economic issues directly to the Prime Minister.^[5][6] The Commission reported in 1977 to the Australian Government led by Malcolm Fraser, and four of its eight reports were tabled in Parliament.

The ONA was established under the Office of National Assessments Act 1977, which ensured ONA's statutory independence from government. ONA began operations on 20 February 1978, assuming the Joint Intelligence Organisation's foreign intelligence assessment role. The Joint Intelligence Organisation retained its defence intelligence assessment role until it was restructured as the Defence Intelligence Organisation in 1990.^[7]

The formation of the Office of National Intelligence was announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on the 18 July 2017 in line with recommendations from the 2017 Independent Review of the Australian Intelligence Community led by Michael L'Estrange and Stephen Merchant. The Office of National Intelligence subsumes the Office of National Assessments, with its facilities in the Robert Marsden Hope Building.^[8] The expanded role of the agency includes the strategic development and enterprise management of the National Intelligence Community.^[9][10] On the 1 December 2017, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced Nick Warner, then Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and former Secretary of the Department of Defence, to serve as the Director-General of the Office of National Intelligence.^[11][12] ONI was formally stood up on the 20 December 2018.^[13]

Role

The recommendations of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review outline that the Office of National Intelligence would serve as the principal advisory agency to the Prime Minister on intelligence matters with new and expanded responsibilities from the Office of National Assessments including:^[14]

• convening and chairing the National Intelligence Coordination Committee and a proposed Intelligence Integration Board;
• convening a proposed National Intelligence Community Science and Technology Advisory Board, National Intelligence Community Innovation Fund, National Intelligence Community Innovation Hub, and Joint Capability Fund;
• producing all-source national assessments and strategic foreign intelligence assessments;
• identifying national intelligence priorities in support of government policy-making;
• overseeing performance evaluations of the Australian Intelligence Community;
• coordinating joint capabilities and shared services across the National Intelligence Community;
• developing an Intelligence Capability Investment Plan for the Forward Estimates period;
• coordinating international intelligence liaison relationships; and
• setting community-wide standards for security, analytic tradecraft and ICT^{[clarification needed]}.