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Welcome to the Australia Defence Association (www.ada.asn.au)
Who are we?
The Australia Defence Association (ADA) has long been Australia’s only truly independent, non-partisan, community-based, public-interest watchdog and ‘think-tank’ on defence and wider national security issues.
Our public-interest oversight primarily focuses on the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the Department of Defence and Australia's six intelligence and security agencies.
Commonly asked questions about the ADA are answered in detail on our Frequently Asked Questions page.
What do we do?
We seek to represent the long-term public interest in helping ensure Australia is adequately defended.
What do we believe?
National defence is a universal civic responsibility of all Australians not just, for example, current or former members of our defence force. At the very least we all need to think about it seriously.
As a community-based, non-partisan, national public-interest guardian organisation with a long-term and independent perspective, we therefore seek the development and implementation of national security structures, processes and policies encompassing:
an accountable, integrated and flexible structure for making defence and wider national security decisions over the long term;
a practical and effective balance between potentially competing needs for civil liberties and community security;
intellectually and professionally robust means of continually assessing Australia’s external strategic and domestic security situations;
the sustained allocation of adequate national resources to all our defence and wider national security needs according to such means (rather than tailoring supposed "assessments" to the funding levels, bureaucratic fashions and partisan policies thought to be acceptable politically);
integrated and deterrent defence and national security strategies based on the protection and support of our enduring national interests;
the development and maintenance of an adequate defence force capable of executing the defence aspects of such a national strategy; and
the development and maintenance of manufacturing and service industries capable of sustaining defence force capability development and operations.
What do we do to make it happen?
On a national basis we undertake independent research, public education programs and public-interest advocacy:
Comment on current or recent issues may best be found on our Letters-to-the-Editor, Opinion Articles, Media Commentary or Formal Comment, pages.
Further commentary (and background information) can be found through our Issues Index, or in our quarterly national journal, Defender, and our email bulletin, Defence Brief.
We contribute informed commentary to public, academic and professional debates on a wide range of defence and wider national security issues and encourage our members to do so as individual citizens.
Over the last three decades we have often been invited to make submissions to parliamentary and official inquiries, especially those conducted by all-party parliamentary oversight bodies such as the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (JSCFADT) and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS).
Print, radio and television media regularly consult with us when seeking research guidance, long-term context, background detail or informed comment on strategic policy, defence, intelligence, domestic security, international affairs and related issues.
We maintain liaison and informal co-operation on international security and related matters with counterpart national public-interest guardian organisations, research institutes and scholars in 12 allied and friendly countries across the Pacific basin.
Who are our members and supporters?
ADA Membership is open to all Australians concerned about Australia's external defence, our internal security as a national community and the importance of informed and effective public debate on defence and wider national security issues generally (including a logical and practical balance between potentially competing needs for community security and civil liberties).
Our members include Australians from all walks of life who have an intellectual and practical interest in ensuring Australia is adequately defended and internally secure.
We are a broadly community-based association not an ex-Service organisation or a defence force representative body. Being truly community-based, fewer than 25 per cent of our members have ever served in our defence force, a police force or with one of our intelligence and security agencies (although many have).
More detail on these matters can be found on our Frequently Asked Questions page.