Parliament Reviews Legislation to Preserve Military Expertise and Protect Defence Secrets from Expiration

The exemption timeframe for Australian defence personnel who intend to work for a foreign entity could vary depending on the type of job and knowledge they possess during their military service, according to the Defence Department.

During a Senate Committee hearing on Feb. 22, representatives from the Defence Department provided details about how long former defence personnel need to wait after retiring to obtain authorization to work for an overseas employer under the military secrets bill.

First Assistant Secretary Defence Security Peter West said the government was looking to establish a “reasonable” timeframe regarding the aging of a person’s knowledge and skills.

He explained that the timeframe needed to ensure that the knowledge and skills of defence personnel would no longer remain critical and cutting-edge after he or she retired.

At the same time, Mr. West said there was a need to link the timeframe with the type of job that a person did during their military service.

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“There will be different timeframes for different types of job families that we have the exemptions for,” he said.

“Some job families will be excluded totally, whereas some job families we think are relatively lower risk where the information is more perishable or less critical, where we may have a lesser timeframe, and the timeframe we are looking at in that context is around five years.”

The first assistant secretary added that the timeframe could be longer (up to 10 years) for jobs or roles where the knowledge was longer lasting and more critical to Australia’s national security.

However, Mr. West noted that the above exemption would not apply to former defence personnel possessing knowledge about tactics, techniques, procedures and sensitive information related to export control goods as the restrictions would remain for life.

Hostile Activities Targeting Australia’s Secrets

At the hearing, Ewan MacMillan, the deputy director-general of the Vetting Service Delivery at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, raised the alarm about hostile foreign states aggressively seeking Australian secrets by targeting government employees—saying the scale of operation was unprecedented.

“Hostile foreign states and their intelligence services and their proxies are aggressively seeking access to Australia’s secrets, whether this be information or knowledge or expertise, understanding about defense and national security capabilities, government decision making and the various means by which we keep Australia secure, safe and prosperous,” he said.

Mr. MacMillan elaborated that foreign intelligence services were actively targeting individuals with access to secrets, expertise, or knowledge related to critical capabilities regardless of their employment status and levels of information access.

“This targeting is not restricted to individuals with current and ongoing access. Former employees or individuals who previously had access or have highly valuable expertise are seen as highly valuable targets, as they are seen as having less security support and potentially less restrictions or obligations to report contact or engagement with foreign individuals,” he said.

The deputy director-general also noted that foreign intelligence services would seek to mask or obfuscate their approach, while trying to dupe or manipulate unwitting targets.

As Mr. MacMillan warned about the rising threat, he said Australia needed to take tougher measures and adapt to the situation.

“They will seek to exploit vulnerabilities to their own advantage,” he said.

“In the face of this threat, the need to protect Australia’s secret sensitive information and capabilities … cannot be overstated.”