Office of National Intelligence Act 2018

ONI has the following functions:

to lead the national intelligence community, as described in section 8;

to carry out the evaluation functions mentioned in section 9;

to:

provide quality assurance, reporting and advice to support the consistency and transferability of the highest level of security clearances issued by the Commonwealth; and

assist the Commonwealth authorities that sponsor those security clearances to establish and maintain those authorities’ capability to prevent and detect insider threats;

to:

assemble, correlate and analyse information relating to international matters that are of political, strategic or economic significance to Australia, including domestic aspects relating to such matters; and

prepare assessments and reports in relation to such matters in accordance with the Government’s requirements;

to:

assemble, correlate and analyse information relating to other matters that are of political, strategic or economic significance to Australia; and

prepare assessments and reports in relation to such matters in accordance with the Government’s requirements;

to provide advice to the Prime Minister, from a whole‑of‑national intelligence community perspective, on national intelligence priorities, requirements and capabilities;

to provide advice, from time to time, to the Prime Minister on matters relating to the national intelligence community more generally;

to collect, interpret and disseminate information relating to matters of political, strategic or economic significance to Australia that is accessible to any section of the public;

to communicate, in accordance with the Government’s requirements, intelligence that is produced under paragraph (c), (d) or (g);

to cooperate with and assist bodies referred to in section 14 in accordance with that section;

to provide assessments or reports, prepared under paragraph (c) or (d), to a person or body, inside or outside Australia;

such other functions as are conferred on ONI by this Act or any other law of the Commonwealth;

to do anything incidental or conducive to the performance of any of its functions.

For matters that do not form part of ONI’s functions: see subsection 10(2).

ONI must perform its function under paragraph (1)(a) in ways that promote the appropriate integration of the intelligence capabilities of the national intelligence community.

The Director‑General must ensure that ONI performs its functions in ways that do not inappropriately impact on, or encroach on, the functions and responsibilities of other agencies within the national intelligence community: see subsection 10(1).

The Prime Minister may give directions to the Director‑General about the performance of ONI’s functions, but not in relation to the content or conclusions to be contained in any advice, report or assessment by ONI: see section 12.