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Stepping up resilience
John Coyne | July 3, 2025Amid worsening strategic surprise and security fragility, Australia’s national resilience responses are just as important as its defence capabilities.
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Fighting international crime
John Coyne | June 25, 2025If the US no longer sees global crime networks as a threat, Australia must. The world’s new transnational crime syndicates don’t just smuggle drugs—they destabilise regions, corrode institutions and erode sovereignty. And they are increasingly doing so in the service of states that seek to undermine the liberal order Australia depends upon.
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Unpicking Australian sovereignty
John Coyne | June 22, 2025Sovereignty will always be central to Australia’s national security debate. But invoking the word isn’t enough. We need to understand it, define it and defend it not as a relic of strategic nostalgia but as a living, evolving capacity to act in the national interest.
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Coming home
John Coyne | May 21, 2025Anthony Albanese’s decision to return policy responsibility for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police to the Department of Home Affairs comes in response to rapidly intensifying threats to social order.
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Manufacturing more resilient supply chains
John Coyne | October 4, 2024Australia should define and maintain a minimum manufacturing capacity to enhance its national resilience in an age of continuous, concurrent and cascading crises.
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Improving state cooperation on security threats
John Coyne | October 1, 2024Cooperation between federal and subnational Australian governments on national security must continue to evolve in the face of the complex terrorism, espionage and foreign interference threats.
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Made in Australia
John Coyne | June 5, 2024The government’s vision for critical minerals and a Future Made in Australia boldly attempts to move Australia’s economy forward amid slowing global growth and recent domestic economic stagnation, but future budgets will need to build on that investment and identify new income sources to do so.
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Down the plughole
John Coyne | April 30, 2024Wastewater analysis shows that Australia’s consumption of a range of illicit drugs continues to climb, despite the best efforts of law enforcement and harm minimisation schemes.
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Renewing police connections in the Pacific
John Coyne | October 23, 2023Australia should invest in strengthening its support and connections with policing in the Pacific to improve social stability on troubled islands and prevent China offering to fill a security void to pursue its own expansionist agenda.
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Resilience in Australian agriculture
John Coyne | March 16, 2023Prioritising the right places to invest in national resilience will be challenging, but shoring up the resilience of our food production to reduce vulnerabilities is a logical place to start.
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Rebuilding social cohesion and national resilience
John Coyne | December 24, 2022The Federal Department of Home Affairs should build on its new agenda by developing and deploying a national strategy for social cohesion and government trust.
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Bank erosion
John Coyne | November 8, 2022The growing exodus of international banks from the Pacific is leaving many Islanders without access to the safe, reliable financial services they need.