Opening Statement from Mr Andrew Shearer, Director-General of National Intelligence
Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee, 1 December 2025
This will be my final appearance before this Committee as the Director-General of National Intelligence. I would like to acknowledge the public accountability this provides. It’s important Australians understand how our strategic environment is changing.
When I first appeared before the Committee in May 2021, the pandemic was only just receding and Australia was the target of sustained economic coercion.
Four years on, the pace, ambit and gravity of strategic change are, if anything, even greater than we anticipated.
The Indo-Pacific is now the epicentre of global systemic rivalry. The guardrails that for decades separated competition from confrontation and conflict are weakening. Crises are overlapping and intersecting, bringing threats onshore faster – sometimes in real time.
Warning times are shorter – meaning we have to act now if we are to be prepared for what may be coming. And some of the assumptions that underpinned international stability for decades can no longer be taken for granted.
Most consequentially, should deterrence break down – notwithstanding the efforts of our government and our allies – we would face a rising risk of major conflict in our region within the next decade.
For Australia, this adds up to a world that is less predictable and less forgiving. We face an environment where coercion below the threshold of conflict has become routine; where information, supply chains and emerging technologies are wielded as instruments of power; and where the contest over technology, data, standards, critical minerals and components will shape the economic and security order for years ahead.
National power, security and economic resilience have always been related but today are more interconnected than ever.
Malign states are colluding with criminals and other non-state actors to enable hacking, sabotage, assassinations and political interference.
The struggle for influence and strategic advantage in our region has intensified on every front.
In the Pacific, efforts to build influence over elites have become more overt and sustained. In Southeast Asia, dangerous interceptions and rising tensions around the South China Sea illustrate how coercive tactics are used to assert spurious territorial claims.
Japan is now being subjected to economic coercion in addition to military and paramilitary pressure tactics.
And China’s growing power projection across a widening swathe of the Indo-Pacific – exemplified by the February circumnavigation of Australia by PLA Navy Task Group 107 – demonstrates the speed, confidence and reach that now characterises regional military capability development and competition.
I’m proud of how Australia’s National Intelligence Community has responded to these developments over the past five years.
Every day our nation, its agencies and our intelligence professionals are facing an environment characterised by incessant cyber attacks, unrelenting espionage and interference efforts, and increasing demands for actionable insights – from across government, from the Australian Defence Force and from an expanding range of non-government stakeholders.
Like the recipients of our intelligence, our staff are seeking to navigate accelerating (and often polluted) information flows, compressed warning and decision-making times, technological disruption, complexity and ambiguity.
It’s a demanding and often stressful operating environment.
I am pleased to say the Independent Intelligence Review conducted last year confirms our agencies are rising to the challenge.
We have improved our collection of classified and open-source intelligence; strengthened our analytic foundations, including through the establishment of the National Intelligence Academy; better integrated our interagency efforts across the Australian Intelligence Missions; and built deeper partnerships with state and territory governments, industry, universities and think tanks.
Our investments in technology, mission integration and tradecraft are yielding results – giving Australia a sharper, more responsive and more resilient set of intelligence capabilities.
The establishment of the inter-agency Cyber and Critical Technology Intelligence Centre within ONI has meant we are better equipped to understand and adopt new technologies and ways of working.
And major cross-Community initiatives – including the development of a common Top Secret cloud environment, a more robust, shared vetting capability and expanded parliamentary briefing facilities – will provide crucial platforms for our long-term effectiveness.
And we have reinforced and augmented our international partnerships, providing greater support to the government’s statecraft and foreign-policy objectives.
We have expanded our intelligence diplomacy, built new links in our region and deepened connections – particularly in Europe following the invasion of Ukraine – while also strengthening the daily collaboration that makes the Five Eyes such a critical and irreplaceable asset for our nation.
And we have shown the cumulative value of these individual initiatives in how we have responded to a more febrile and crisis-prone strategic environment. Our more agile mission structure and effects posture have enabled us to move swiftly and with precision in response to rapidly unfolding developments.
And I remain proud of the way ONI – through its all-source assessments, open-source intelligence and enhanced mission management – has provided warning, foresight and context in times of uncertainty, complexity and crisis.
Over the past five years, this includes our coverage of conflicts in Afghanistan, Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as more recent clashes in our region. But it also extends to enduring challenges – such as economic security, emerging technologies, people smuggling and transnational crime, and regional military modernisation.
In sum, ONI and Australia’s other intelligence agencies are more capable, better coordinated and more unified than at any time in our history – and as ready as they can be in a material sense to take on the challenges of the next five years.
But ultimately it is our people and our culture that will ensure we are ready to continue serving and safeguarding Australia in whatever comes next.
The National Intelligence Community I’ve had the privilege of leading draws tremendous strength and resilience from its sense of shared mission, its openness to innovation and partnering in new ways, and its insistence on integrity.
These qualities have made us better prepared for the strategic circumstances I have outlined and better placed to meet the intensifying demands being placed on us.
So, I’d like to thank my fellow agency heads for their leadership, collegiality and support. And to express my deep respect for the men and women of the National Intelligence Community – including my outstanding team at ONI – which is even greater today than it was five years ago.
Their quiet dedication, realism, focus and professionalism have been constants amid profound change. And I’m confident they will remain so.
Thank you, Chair.
1 December 2025