A new report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute calls on the federal government to better prepare Australians for a more volatile and uncertain strategic environment and to urgently invest in building national preparedness capabilities and resilience.
The report, ‘Building National Preparedness: A roadmap for Australia and what we should learn from Finland’ by ASPI Senior Fellow and former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs Marc Ablong PSM, was released on 23 May 2025.
Despite Australia facing increasing threats from natural disasters, pandemics, cyberattacks, economic disruptions, geopolitical tensions and possible conflict, the report argues that the nation lacks a comprehensive national preparedness framework to address such risks.
“The Australian Government isn’t doing enough to prepare Australian citizens for the more volatile and uncertain strategic environment that we face,” the report states.
“There’s no regular public discourse about the national risks to Australia, there’s no planning or capability development for mitigating such risks, and there’s no regular program for educating, training or exercising Australia’s communities to deal with them.”
To better safeguard Australia’s security, prosperity, and way of life against current and future crises, including the risk of war, the report calls for a whole-of-society approach to strengthening national resilience, involving all levels of government, industry, civil society and communities.
The report includes a detailed 10-year road map of immediate, near-term and longer-term initiatives that the Australian Government should embrace as it builds the capabilities and capacities needed to fully prepare the nation.
Urgent priorities for Australia include establishing a national risk register, strengthening coordination across governments and with industry, investing in critical infrastructure and training, enhancing public education, and improving military and civil defence preparedness.
It also argues that Finland, with a strong, integrated national preparedness and total defence strategy, is a benchmark that Australia can measure itself against.
The report recommends Australia and Finland establish a Hybrid Threat Resilience Forum to build options for collective responses to hybrid crisis events, and that Australia consider establishing an Australian version of Finland’s well-known National Defence Course.
Other recommendations include establishing an overarching Finland-Australia strategic dialogue involving officials engaged in defence, foreign affairs, domestic resilience and intelligence, to share strategic perspectives on the security environment and oversee specific working groups on national preparedness topics.
This should include a discussion on the protection of national critical infrastructure and cybersecurity between Australia’s Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre and Australian Cyber Security Centre and Finland’s National Emergency Supply Agency and the National Cyber Security Centre Finland.
This report and broader topic will be discussed at the 2025 ASPI Defence Conference on 4 June in Canberra which is focused on preparedness and resilience.
