Royal Commission On Intelligence And Security
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The Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security (RCIS), also known as the First Hope Commission, was a
Royal Commission A royal commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue in some monarchies. They have been held in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia. In republics an equi ...
established on 21 August 1974 by
Prime Minister of Australia The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister is the chair of the Cabinet of Australia and thus the head of the Australian Government, federal executive government. Under the pr ...
Gough Whitlam Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from December 1972 to November 1975. To date the longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), he was notable for being ...
to reach findings and make recommendations as to the
Australian Intelligence Community The Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) and the National Intelligence Community (NIC) or National Security Community of the Australian Government are the collectives of statutory intelligence agencies, policy departments, and other government ...
. The commission was conducted by Justice Robert Hope of the NSW Court of Appeal. It concluded its work in 1977, although the reports were gradually handed down from 1975 under Prime Minister
Malcolm Fraser John Malcolm Fraser (; 21 May 1930 – 20 March 2015) was an Australian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, and is the fourth List of ...
.


Background


Policy development

The
Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...
had come to power in 1972 after over two decades of
Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia (LP) is the prominent centre-right political party in Australia. It is considered one of the two major parties in Australian politics, the other being the Australian Labor Party (ALP). The Liberal Party was fo ...
rule. Despite having created the
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO ) is the Intelligence agency, domestic intelligence and national security agency of the Australian Government, responsible for protection from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign inte ...
(ASIO) in 1949, the subsequent actions of the organisation contributed to Labor's long period out of office. One of the first acts of the new
Whitlam government The Whitlam government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party. The government commenced when Labor defeated the McMahon government at the 1972 Australian federal elect ...
was to help US-led efforts in the
United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...
to combat global terrorism, which had recently gained prominence with the
1972 Munich Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and officially branded as Munich 1972 (; ), were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972. It was the ...
and the Croatian nationalist bombings in Sydney. Both Whitlam and Attorney-General
Lionel Murphy Lionel Keith Murphy QC (30 August 1922 – 21 October 1986) was an Australian politician, barrister, and judge. He was a Senator for New South Wales from 1962 to 1975, serving as Attorney-General in the Whitlam government, and then sat on the ...
, emulating President
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
, stressed that terrorists would be hunted and political violence either to person or property would not be tolerated either inside or outside Australia. During its first term (1972-1974) the government quickly became embroiled in a political scandal known as the 1973 Murphy raids, in which Murphy suddenly demanded entry to the ASIO headquarters in Melbourne and the Canberra office, after the press had been alerted. The government's inability to justify the raids in Parliament and ASIO's own response - leaking documents which contradicted the prime minister's account - "rendered the reform of the intelligence community both politically untouchable and urgent". In September 1973, Whitlam publicly indicated that an inquiry into ASIO of some kind would be instigated. Labor took the policy of establishing a judicial inquiry to the 1974 election as part of its policy platform. It was not until the controversial leak of the 'Cairns dossier' (ASIO's view of Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns) in June 1974 - although the leak probably occurred much earlier in April 1973 - that an inquiry was called.


Terms of reference

The Governor-General commissioned Justice
Robert Marsden Hope Robert Marsden Hope, (24 July 1919 – 12 October 1999) was a Justice of the New South Wales Court of Appeal and Royal Commissioner on three separate occasions, most notably the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security. As a judge Hope ...
on 21 August 1974 on the advice of Whitlam and Murphy. The terms of reference were made public by Whitlam in a press release on the same day. The most important part of the terms of reference, as Whitlam argued in 1985, was:


Abolition of ASIO

The second volume of the ''Official History of ASIO'', edited by David Horner and written by John Blaxland, suggests the Royal Commission could have brought ASIO to an end. However, this has since been argued to be incorrect as the Whitlam government had no intention of disbanding or abolishing ASIO: Labor had rejected the policy of abolishment at its 1971 and 1973 conferences. As the
US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...
observed secretly, "Seems clear hitlamhas no intention of abolishing... He will eventually be able to say that he has had a careful inquiry... and might make some organizational or personnel changes."


Reports

The Hope Royal Commission delivered eight reports, four of which were tabled in Parliament on 5 May 1977 and 25 October 1977.


Findings

With regards to ASIO, Hope found that its existence was legally, philosophically and practically legitimate. Despite being directed by the terms of reference to examine the history of ASIO, Hope declined: In his report, Hope asserted that Australia's intelligence agencies were too close to those in the UK and the US, as part of the five-nation
UKUSA Agreement The United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement (UKUSA, ) is a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The alliance of intellig ...
(commonly called
Five Eyes The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are party to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperat ...
).


Recommendations

Hope made many recommendations. With regards to ASIO, Hope wanted it to become truly part of the defence forces of Australia and celebrated as such: Hope recommended that ASIO should continue to be overseen by the Executive (Australian Government) as opposed to Parliament and that the organisation be routinely reviewed to ensure its operational efficacy.


Implementation

Results from the other reports included the establishment of the
Office of National Assessments The Office of National Assessments (ONA) was an Australian statutory intelligence agency established by the ''Office of National Assessments Act 1977'' as an independent statutory body directly accountable to the Prime Minister of Australia a ...
(ONA) as a statutory body independent from government with the passage of the ''Office of National Assessments Act 1977'', and the reform of ASIO by the '' Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979''.Parliament of Australi
Bills Digest No. 11 of 2001–02
of Intelligence Services Act 2001. This document contains numerous references upon which this article is based.
ONA reported directly to the Prime Minister to provide foreign intelligence assessments on political, strategic and economic issues. ONA began operations on 20 February 1978, and assumed 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 The Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) is an Australian government military intelligence agency responsible for strategic intelligence and technical intelligence assessments, advising defence and government decision-making on national sec ...
in 1990. The Defence Signals Division was renamed Defence Signals Directorate. Aside from the observation that ASIS was 'singularly well run and well managed', the report(s) on ASIS were not released, but on 25 October 1977, Fraser publicly announced the existence of ASIS and its functions on the Commission's recommendation.Mr Malcolm Fraser, 'Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security', Ministerial Statement, House of Representatives, Debates, 25 October 1977, p. 2339


Top secret and undisclosed aspects

In a top secret supplement to the report on ASIO Hope stated his suspicion that ASIO had been "penetrated by a hostile intelligence agency" that had succeeded in making the organisation ineffective. He shared the belief of US and UK intelligence agencies that ASIO was fundamentally compromised and that this was part of a global trend or "grand design", possibly referring to the leak of the FBI's
COINTELPRO COINTELPRO (a syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltr ...
. In 1998, Hope conducted an interview with the
National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...
to be released after his death. In the interview Hope revealed a number of controversial things. According to Hope, the Whitlam government had used Pine Gap to spy on Japanese delegates during 1973 trade negotiations. This was the first of many such instances. By the time of the Second Hope Commission in the 1980s he found the exploitation of Pine Gap had changed and that the Hawke government was handing raw intelligence to major Australian corporations. He said he found ASIO to be dominated by conservatives who were fanatical about the Cold War and that "the whole system was substantially directed to the left wing of politics”. He found that ASIO was "deliberately designed to shield the organisation from external (and internal) scrutiny". The Secretary of the Department of Defence,
Arthur Tange Sir Arthur Harold Tange (18 August 1914 – 10 May 2001) was a prominent Australian senior Civil service, public servant of the middle to late 20th century. Tange was considered one of the most influential people in the government of Australia ...
controversially ordered that the Commission "should not be told too much" because this would put the Five Eyes alliance in jeopardy. As a result, the Commission was not granted access to the satellite tracking station at Pine Gap.


Release of commission papers

On 27 May 2008, the records of the commission were partly released to the public. As of 2014, many declassified documents authored by the commission remain redacted.


See also

*
Church Committee The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence ...
*
Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the Presidency of Richard Nixon, administration of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began in 1972 and ultimately led to Resignation of Richard Nixon, Nix ...


References


External links


Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security
{{Authority control Intelligence and Security Gough Whitlam 1974 establishments in Australia Australian intelligence agencies 1977 disestablishments in Australia Espionage by country