By Matt Walsh
CANBERRA, July 19 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government's decision to form a new, all-encompassing Home Affairs portfolio will "make Australians safer," according to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who has been asked to head the new office.
However, opposition ministers questioned whether the new arrangement would really enhance the country's counter-terrorist capability.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that Australia's domestic counter-terror and intelligence agencies, including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), would all report to the Minister of Home Affairs, in what he described as the "most significant reform of Australia's national intelligence and domestic security arrangements in more than 40 years."
Expanding further on the responsibilities he will have in his new role on Wednesday, current Immigration Minister and future Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the new portfolio would allow agencies to more effectively deal with the "scourge of terrorism."
"It will make Australians safer because the sole priority of the cabinet minister will be national security - coordinating the agencies, making sure that we've got our eyes not only on the contemporary issue, that is, in relation to terrorism, but the other aspects: counter-espionage, cyber-security, and terror online," Dutton told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio on Wednesday.
Dutton admitted that while the relevant organizations had been doing a wonderful job which under their separate jurisdictions, modeling has shown that an "umbrella approach" works.
"As we've seen in the UK for a long period of time, as we've seen in Canada and other comparable jurisdictions, including the United States, every effort has to be made to bring agencies together, and that's been the recommendations of people who have done analysis in this space for a long period of time," Dutton explained.
"I will mean, for example, where we now have counter-terrorism unit officers at airports - five years ago that wasn't the case - we can have them more joined up with the rest of the intelligence community, just by way of one example."
Dutton denied that forming the Home Affairs portfolio was in no way a political response to rising tensions within the coalition government, declaring his "sole focus" was keeping Australians safe.
"Of course, it's not being done for political reasons. This has been considered by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for a long period of time," he said.
The prime minister confirmed the reasoning behind the new portfolio when speaking on local television on Wednesday. Turnbull described the merging of Australia's security agencies as "logical."
"The only issue here is the safety of all Australians," Turnbull told the Nine Network. "Having these agencies together is common sense, it is logical."
"At the moment, you have the counter-terrorism agencies, Australian domestic security agencies, in effect split between three departments, between attorney-generals, immigration border protection and my own department."
But the opposition Labor Party has been hesitant to applaud the move, with opposition leader Bill Shorten questioning the new portfolio's necessity.
"We will work constructively with the government but they've announced what they say is the biggest overhaul in 40 years," he told the press on Wednesday.
"Where is the problem to justify the biggest overhaul in 40 years?"
Meanwhile, former Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said to his knowledge, none of the nation's major intelligence agencies, including ASIO, had called for the changes.
"As yet the government has not explained how it is that this very substantial change to our national security arrangements is going to indeed make Australians safer," he told ABC radio.
The government said the new portfolio would likely begin operations in June next year.
