Mr Lewis said Australia's top companies "touch many if not most of the sinews of Australia".

"They have a very deep reach so it's very important to work co-operatively with them. Of course boards are sitting on top of enterprises that have enormous vulnerability as well so it's my obligation to inform them when I see vulnerabilities appearing," he said, adding it was a "two-way street".

"I hope I give to boards the threat information and the description of the threat environment they face, [which] they need to perform their function. They then give to me a platform through which messages about security awareness can be passed on to the wider community."

The Financial Review reported earlier this year on a series of briefings given by Mr Lewis and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary, Frances Adamson, after business groups complained Canberra's strained relationship with Beijing was starting to have an impact on trade.

In recent months, the government has moved to strengthen bilateral ties, culminating in a friendly meeting between new Foreign Minister Marise Payne and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi last week in New York. However, tensions still remain over the heated debate in Australia over foreign interference, Canberra's concerns about Beijing's growing influence in the Pacific and the government's decision to ban Chinese telecommunications company Huawei from participating in the 5G roll-out.

Mr Lewis said the closed-door briefings had been a deliberate push by ASIO to speak frankly with the corporate sector about national security issues, and they were a useful way of pushing messages out to the wider community.

Intelligence shake up

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said the step-up in engagement from the intelligence community had been welcomed by companies.


"It's important that business is aware as much as possible of the national security issues the government are dealing with," she said.

"There is a lot more interaction in the cyber security space and there has been an increase in awareness of mitigation strategies."

Mr Warner and Mr Lewis spoke to AFR Magazine as the intelligence community is in the middle of its biggest restructure since 1977. Legislation to replace the Office of National Assessments (ONA) with ONI and give Mr Warner, as its director-general, more staff, money and powers to coordinate the activities of the intelligence and security agencies and channel advice to government is due to be passed by the end of the year.

It will reframe the intelligence community at a time when the terrorism threat remains high and the country is fighting back against what Mr Lewis said are "unprecedented levels of foreign interference".

As part of an acronym-heavy reshuffle, the community of six main agencies – ONA, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), ASIO, ASD, the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) and the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO) – has been expanded to include four more. Those are the intelligence arms of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Australian Transactions Reports & Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), the Australian Criminal and Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and Australian Border Force (ABF). Between them they have a budget of more than $2 billion and are made up of over 7000 staff.

Cooperation and integration

This National Intelligence Community of 10 agencies – which will be bolstered by a joint capability fund building up over the next five years to be worth an estimated $370 million – has a more domestic focus in its expanded form. It is a shift from the past, when foreign and domestic intelligence arrangements were kept very separate.

This network will be responsible for helping the government set the country's main intelligence priorities and, via ONI, producing a daily briefing report for the prime minister.


"What we're trying to do is bring about cooperation, coordination and integration so Australia can get a better bang for its buck," said Mr Warner.

"There's lots of difference but lots of commonalities between these 10 intelligence agencies. A lot of them collect, a lot of them analyse. They all have training programs. They all or most of them need linguists with different skills. They all have graduate programs. They all have ICT systems. In time, ONI will try and bring some greater efficiencies and cohesion to that."

The establishment of ONI is the result of recommendations from a review conducted last year by former senior public servants Michael L'Estrange and Stephan Merchant. These included a suggestion for intelligence analysts to consult more widely and interact with experts outside of government to inform assessments.

The new structure was announced last July by then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull along with another major change for Australia's national security arrangements – the formation of the Home Affairs Department. That department includes in its portfolio all of the domestic security agencies, which represent half the intelligence community, although they operate as statutory authorities.

Lisa Murray's feature on Australia's intelligence agencies is on www.afr.com and inside the Power issue of The Australian Financial Review Magazine, out this Friday.