Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation

This Master's dissertation explores the context in which the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security, 1974-1977 came to be. The Whitlam government wanted to reform the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) so as to depoliticise it and make it more effective in combating genuine threats to the state, including global terrorism. In early 1973 the Government's reform was stalled as a result of the Attorney-General's raid on ASIO offices. The Prime Minister announced in late 1973 that an inquiry into ASIO would arise at some point. The Australian Labor Party took the idea of a judicial inquiry into Australia's intelligence and security apparatus to the 1974 election. Within weeks of returning to office the Whitlam government decided to launch the Royal Commission. The Royal Commission's terms of reference ensured that an intelligence apparatus would continue to be available to the Commonwealth. Labor had decided to keep ASIO prior to the 1972 election. This was despite it experiencing two decades of ASIO's ideological partisanship, which had consequences for Labor. Such a decision was not inconsistent with its history, having been an anti-communist party from the 1920s and responsible for ASIO's creation in 1949. The decision to erect the Royal Commission was also widely supported by major Australian newspapers. When the Royal Commission finished in 1977 a lasting bipartisan consensus on ASIO was emerging.

Beginning in the late 1950s what was to become the Church of Scien- tology in Australia had become a topic of public concern. In response to a highly critical report issued by an official Board of Inquiry in the State of Victoria, held over the course of 1963-1964 under the auspices of Kevin Victor Anderson Q.C., state governments in Victoria (1965), Western Australia (1968) and South Australia (1969) passed legislation to restrict the activities of Scientologists. This legislation proved controversial and largely ineffective and was eventually repealed in all three state jurisdictions. This article provides a preliminary account of the circumstances that occasioned the original Board of Inquiry and the background and parliamen- tary debates surrounding each piece of legislation. Utilizing archival documents and public records this article examines how this controversial legislation passed into law and how Scientology initially responded to attempts to curtail its activi- ties. The article concludes with a brief account of the circumstances surrounding the repeals of the legislation in Western Australia (1973), South Australia (1974) and finally in Victoria (1982).