Rethinking national security with the Gold Coast community

The ANU National Security College joined Bond University’s Twilight Seminar Series to discuss how Australians understand national security, resilience and preparedness.

No worries, no more: rethinking Australian security, threat and resilience in the divisive 21st century brought NSC experts together with the Gold Coast community to continue the conversation sparked by the College’s nationwide Community Consultations.

NSC Deputy Head Andrew Ramsay presented key findings from the No worries? report, including growing concern about national security and the need to better connect Australians with conversations about risk and resilience.

We want to better understand the gap between how the public thinks about security compared with the national security community. And we need to think about how we bridge it… how we bring people back into the fold when we're talking about risk, resilience and security.

Drawing on First Nations' perspectives on national security, Pascale Taplin explored how local knowledge, relationships and mutual accountability can strengthen national security.

Understanding the complexity of local context and collaborating effectively with local people to secure their communities and their resources can only be achieved when government agencies and local people work effectively together.

Associate Professor Danielle Ireland-Piper turned the conversation to the role of law in enabling and restraining national security policy, and the importance of maintaining democratic freedoms, accountability and community trust.

The law is how we operationalise national security, it's how we enable and restrain it.

The panellists were joined by two Bond University students, Deklyn Reid and Jill Xia Wohengu, who brought important perspectives from their own communities and experiences. Deklyn, a First Nations person and law student, reflected on the No Worries? report and its implications from a First Nations perspective. Jill offered a Pasifika perspective on national security, including the importance of understanding security as relational and the challenges posed by climate change.

Bond academic and NSC expert affiliate Stuart Murray served as MC for the event, helping guide the discussion and offering his own reflections on national security challenges for Australia. Yuin woman Narelle Bedford gave a moving Acknowledgement of Country, grounding the conversation in place and community.

The evening reinforced a central theme of the NSC’s Community Consultation work: national security conversations are strengthened when they extend beyond Canberra and include the communities they seek to protect.

We thank Bond University for hosting the seminar and the Gold Coast community for an engaged and thoughtful discussion.