There’s an outcry over Australian government funding of think tanks. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s ego may have taken a hit but hardly its funding. Marcus Reubenstein looks at the future of Canberra’s biggest war cheerleaders.
It’s hard to know where to begin with the Varghese review into federal government funding of strategic policy think tanks that ultimately recommended ‘sweeping’ changes to the way the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is run and funded.
It’s not the end of ASPI, which is this country’s loudest voice in whipping up fears of war with China – despite hysterical reporting in The Australian, and it’s not the end of ASPI arguments that rely on virtually no facts.
ASPI will not automatically lose its Commonwealth funding; at worst it may simply be required to justify the millions of taxpayer dollars it receives each year.
Led by former prime minister John Howard, a gaggle of right-wing politicians, security hawks and China alarmists have lined up to bemoan the supposed hobbling of ASPI. One thing completely left out of the debate is the ASPI Charter, as outlined in cabinet papers from 2000, and the charter letter ASPI publishes on its own website.
ASPI has strayed so far from its original charter, established under Howard, one might argue its closer to returning to what it is meant to be than Australia is to getting its AUKUS nuclear submarines.
another $5m from foreign governments, weapons makers
Under the leadership of its inaugural executive director, Professor Hugh White, ASPI stuck to its charter that deemed, “The purpose of the Institute would be to provide policy-relevant research and analysis to better inform Government decisions and public understanding of strategic and defence issues” and “The Institute would need to operate independently of Government and of the Defence Organisation.”
White, who is no supporter of ASPI’s heavy-handed China-threat narrative, has become a pariah amongst its apparatchiks.
Though he’s rarely been directly criticised for his view that the China-threat is based less on an actual threat and more on the US desire to maintain its global primacy, a number of those who’ve advanced his views have been publicly cast as mouthpieces for Beijing.
Be alarmed not alert! ASPI, a Seven ‘exclusive’ and a think tank gravy train
The Varghese Review
In February the government commissioned Peter Varghese, the former Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to conduct an independent review into commonwealth funding of strategic policy work.
The review did not just look at ASPI but also the Australian National University, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), National Security College (NSC), United States Studies Centre (USSC), Perth USAsia Centre (USAC), RAND Australia, The Australian American Leadership Dialogue (AALD) and the Lowy Institute.
Rather than shackle these strategic think-tanks, one of Varghese’s key recommendations is for total annual funding to be increased from $40 million annually to $50 million, although the government has poured cold water on that proposal.
Of the nine think tanks reviewed, ASPI is currently gobbling up $7.5 million in commonwealth funds with another $5 million coming from foreign governments, weapons makers and technology companies, whose sponsorship of ASPI is now almost double that of weapons makers.
It’s a convenient way for ASPI to say, ‘look we only get four percent of funding from weapons makers’, however, its tech sponsors are all involved in providing services to the US and Australian defence and national security sectors.
ASPI and its supporters are unhappy because there’s a sting in the tail. Rather than just doling out money to the loudest voice in the room, Varghese has recommended a levelling of the field by opening funding to competitive tenders.
However, the government response is that it “notes this recommendation”, so there’s no immediate requirement for ASPI to specifically justify its core funding and government supply contracts.
Once again, a total misrepresentation of the facts is fuelling ASPI’s narrative, the only difference is this narrative is about ASPI itself.
Millions through the back-door
Since its inception, over and above its core funding of $4 million per year, ASPI has quietly picked up 166 government supply contracts worth more than $40 million.
Apart from being buried deep in its annual reports, ASPI is very coy when it comes to admitting how much it picks up for running workshops and seminars for the Department of Defence and other departments. Last year ASPI picked up $3.5 million in such contracts; post-Varghese there is no restriction on the continued awarding of government contracts.
Its 2023-24 financial statements show that ASPI has $4.4 million in bank deposits, hardly the sign of a struggling research group.
Executive director, Justin Bassi picked up a tidy $421,272.78 for his services—bearing in mind his appointment was not via an open recruitment process, rather he was installed by, then defence minister, Peter Dutton, who had sole discretion as to the appointment of the ASPI boss.
US Government support
In 2023-24, the US government tipped $1.4 million into ASPI’s coffers, once again there is nothing stopping Uncle Sam from stepping in to make up any shortfall from possible cuts to Australian government funding.
John Howard told The Australian: “The whole purpose of establishing ASPI was to provide an alternative independent source of national security advice to the government. If the implementation of any of these recommendations threatens that, then I am against it.”
Writing in the same masthead, Varghese’s view is: “The sky has not fallen, ASPI will continue to do what it does, independent thinking will remain in the control of the thinker and how well ASPI fares in the competition for funds will depend entirely on how well it does its job.”
Under the new arrangements, current levels of funding for ASPI will remain unchanged until at least 1 July 2027 – more than enough time to find more money.
Scomo boost unwound?
Anticipating a loss of the 2019 election, the Morrison government increased ASPI’s core funding and then locked in $4 million annual payments for four years. Now in the fifth year, that funding has not been touched. It hardly supports the notion that the Albanese government is determined to kill off ASPI.
One of the most controversial recommendations – accepted by the government – is the withdrawal of funding for ASPI’s Washington D.C. office. The official response is: “The government agrees with the review’s conclusion that influencing foreign government policy in Australia’s interests is best done through a single voice representing the full authority of the Australian Government, principally the Australian Embassy.”
An editorial in The Australian misstated that, “The closure of ASPI’s Washington office at a time of great upheaval with the return of Donald Trump as president can only be seen as a crimping of our strategic flexibility.” It’s a line echoed across ASPI’s hawkish constituency, but the government has not stated its closing the Washington D.C. office, merely that it will no longer be funding it.
Cash for warmongering
It would be a fairly safe assumption that the ASPI sales team is right now knocking on doors in Washington, soliciting cash from the State Department, weapons makers and tech companies like Amazon, which is already an ASPI sponsor. And Amazon doesn’t just sell books and employ gig workers to deliver packages; it has a $1 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Writing in The Australian, current executive director Justin Bassi and his immediate predecessor Peter Jennings, supported by a pro-ASPI editorial, highlighted ASPI’s work on China research.
There is no mention that the majority of its China reports are reliant on the work of junior researchers, interns, undergraduates and at least one university dropout. While ASPI has often been right to call out China, its reports have overwhelmingly been poorly researched and written, reliant on dubious source material and, at times, blatant misinformation.
In a non-sensical defence of ASPI, The Australian editorial says, with the recommendation to justify its funding, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” The Australian calls this a brave (and unfair) new world for ASPI?
For years, the U.S. government, death merchants and corporate interests have been paying the piper – admission from ASPI’s biggest media benefactor that ASPI plays to the tune of foreign interests. What’s more the Varghese review and its recommendations adopted by the government will not in any way stop ASPI collecting cash to continuing playing its benefactors tunes.
This post was originally published on Michael West.