Our mission

Situated at the centre of Australia’s national security and intelligence communities, we provide Australia with a strategic advantage through our forward-leaning intelligence assessments, our innovative open source analysis and by enhancing how the National Intelligence Community works together to address the challenges of today and tomorrow.

What we do

In an era of rapid geopolitical and technological change, we illuminate the future and help safeguard the nation. Formed under the Office of National Intelligence Act 2018(Opens in a new tab/window), we lead the National Intelligence Community and are the principal advisory agency to the Prime Minister on intelligence matters. We are the senior intelligence assessment body in Australia and we work on the leading edge of the nation's intelligence capabilities, driving new ideas and technologies.

We provide the Prime Minister and others members of the National Security Committee of Cabinet with intelligence-based advice, analysis and assessments. By delivering insight, context, situational awareness and warning, we provide the Government with a strategic decision-making advantage.

We seek to explain events in a complex and rapidly changing world, identify risks and opportunities for Australia, and distil facts and insights in an often crowded and contested information environment. We provide robust, tested analysis and focus on the major issues facing our nation.

We write and brief on matters of political, strategic or economic significance to Australia, drawing on all sources of information available to the Australian Government. This includes material covertly collected by other intelligence agencies, diplomatic reporting, open source intelligence and insights we gather from talking to world-leading experts in business, academia and think-tanks.
We lead Australia’s National Intelligence Community, which brings together ten agencies to protect and enhance Australia’s security, prosperity and sovereignty. Agencies work together in support of common Australian Intelligence Missions that address the intelligence requirements of the Australian Government.

Our role is to ensure the National Intelligence Community forms an agile, integrated and data-driven intelligence enterprise that can meet the challenges presented by Australia’s evolving strategic and security environment. Given the community is constituted of independent agencies that answer to their respective ministers, our leadership is focused on championing collaboration and collective action.

We seek to maximise the value of Australia’s intelligence capabilities using our expertise and convening power. We work with agencies on the development of joint capabilities and shared services, evaluate how the community is working together on our common missions and provide advice to the Government on intelligence priorities, requirements, performance and resourcing.

We are particularly focused on how the National Intelligence Community can work together on common challenges, such as technology, workforce, professional development and innovation, as well as how we can align our strategic engagement and streamline governance arrangements.
Our open source analysts systematically collect, interpret and disseminate publicly available information relating to matters of political, strategic or economic significance to Australia to support the government's intelligence priorities, the work of the National Intelligence Community and allied partner agencies.

We also provide leadership to the National Intelligence Community on open source, including on capability and expertise.

How intelligence protects Australia

Find out how our work advances the national interest and helps keep Australia safe

Who we are

We are a globally-engaged Australian intelligence agency of several hundred staff that works with partners within and beyond the Australian Government.

We are committed professionals

We are analysts, technologists, generalists, enablers, designers and planners. Above all, we are intelligence professionals who serve the nation.

We are diverse

We are stronger for the breadth of experience we all bring – we see the world from multiple perspectives, enriching how we work and think.

We are one

We are an integrated, cohesive organisation made stronger and more resilient by our collegiality, mutual respect and unity.

Our commitment to diversity

Learn more about how diversity and inclusion are critical in our work and important to us

How our values shape our work

Our work depends on trust. We cannot succeed unless we earn and maintain the trust of the Australian public, senior decision-makers and our partners inside and beyond the National Intelligence Community. So we place a premium on integrity, contestability, rigour and accountability. And we are guided in all that we do by our values and principles:

Leadership: We use our expertise and convening power to deliver distinctive value

We act where we add value and we speak when we have something to say; through our leadership, we maximise the value of Australia’s intelligence capabilities.

Integrity: We are accountable and rigorous

Our work and advice depend on others’ trust in us – to earn this, we are forthright, fair and lead by example.

Acumen: We distil information and different perspectives into actionable insight

We think clearly and boldly – we are prepared to challenge orthodoxy, we encourage contestability in all that we do and we prize our analytical independence.

Innovation: We are open to new ideas, new technology and new ways of working

Through our foresight, we anticipate threats and opportunities; through our courage to take on risk, we develop and advocate for novel, technologically-enabled responses.

Collaboration: We build consensus and cultivate trusted partnerships

We do not solve problems alone – we champion collective action and forge enduring partnerships within and beyond government.

We also share wider Australia Public Service values and are impartial, committed to service, accountable, respectful and ethical.

Integrity and accountability

Learn more about how we embed rigour, contestability and accountability in all we do.