ASIO cash boost 'generous' but IGIS, Commonwealth Ombudsman funding can't be ignored

But while the domestic intelligence agency's funding is set to soar in the coming years to deal with growing threats, funds directed to its regulators, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) and Commonwealth Ombudsman, will only reach 1 per cent of its total.

Over the next four years, the federal budget has committed $4 million to both oversight bodies to do the job.

Australian National University security and intelligence expert Professor John Blaxland said he was concerned the funding was not enough.

"[The funding is] a step in the right direction but it needs to go further," Professor Blaxland said.

"The function of the IGIS is a very strong one.

"With the enduring power of a royal commissioner, [IGIS] wields a Damocles sword over the heads of public servants who work in the national security and intelligence space.

"It holds the powers of life and death - bureaucratic life and death."

Without the necessary resources and transparency over its work, however, the watchdog's efforts to keep the nation's most powerful accountable will be challenging.

"[IGIS resourcing] needs to be accompanied by a more robust series of explanations over how the expanded national intelligence community is being held to account by the IGIS," Professor Blaxland said.

"For a good liberal Western democracy like ours, that's [our] bread and butter."

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The additional $413.5 million ASIO will receive over the next four years will likely be directed toward developing its cyber security capabilities, Professor Blaxland said.

The 72-year-old agency has traditionally focused on human trade craft but, with the rise of cyber threats, will need to develop stronger domestic capability.

The Australian Signals Directorate's Australian Cyber Security Centre is equipped to deal with the task but legislation restricts the directorate to overseas efforts, resulting in a gap in the country.

"This growth in the ASIO portfolio would suggest that there's a bit of a shift taking place," Professor Blaxland said.

"[It seems] Mike Burgess, with his highly technology savvy hat on, is growing a function within ASIO, that has traditionally been a more human-centric organisation, and developing a more technologically heavy dimension to it.

"This is a reasonable and relatively generous additional allocation to ASIO as it expands its portfolio capabilities into the cyber domain."

Ignoring the digital domain, in a tense environment where hostile nations are undertaking covert cyber operations to undermine their foes, is no longer a option.

"The job has gotten larger, more complicated and more pressing," Professor Blaxland said.

"We've gone from a society that was web-enabled to web-dependent and then web-vulnerable and that progression has made the necessity of risk aversion, through doubling down on these capabilities, all the more important.

"No self-respecting defender of national security, no politician who is in that space, wants to be the one that's called out for having under-resourced [security and intelligence agencies] and having exposed Australians to a great catastrophe."

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