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Australian Defence Strategic Guidance, 1976–2020 »
Volume I: Defending Australia without a Threat, 1976–1994
Edited by: Jean Bou, Stephan Frühling
Publication date: 2026
Between 1976 and 2020, Australia’s Department of Defence produced a range of strategic guidance documents. Some were classified, intended to inform and guide the government, while others were created for public release and ultimately became statements of government policy. These documents offer an insight into how successive Australian governments understood the nation’s security and what policy and institutional steps should be taken in response. Each paper aimed to develop or shape strategic concepts, provided the basis for significant budget and capability decisions, and directed reforms and policy change across the Defence organisation.
For the first time, the story of how these documents were developed, and the key ideas and debates that shaped them, can now be told. Based on unique access to archival records, this book is the product of a joint research project undertaken between the Australian Commonwealth’s Department of Defence and The Australian National University.
By the early 1970s, Australia had to develop and communicate a new defence policy at a time when there seemed to be no clear threat to the country. This led the government of Malcolm Fraser to commission Australia’s first Defence White Paper in 1976. As a public expression of government policy, this was a fundamentally new format for strategic guidance. Other White Papers followed in 1987 and 1994. The formerly key Defence Committee, previously responsible for the development of the guidance, faded, and longstanding classified guidance papers had their final iterations. This volume traces the demise of these Strategic Basis papers, as well as the rise of White Papers and other ad-hoc guidance documents. In doing so, it helps to show how Australian defence policy and strategic guidance were forged during the Defence of Australia era.
‘At the heart of resilience is knowledge. We are in fraught times. We need to understand how we have seen our strategic requirements historically to benchmark what we need to do now, comprehending strengths and inadequacies in our thinking. These volumes are essential reading.’
—Kim Beazley, former Minister for Defence and leader of the Labor opposition
‘This history of Australian Defence Strategic Guidance shows the messy reality of policy development. Politics, personality, money and deadlines all make for a combustible mix. This is a white-knuckle ride for anyone who has ever worked in the strategy business. The book makes for compelling reading, explaining the, at times, mystifying policy results. It shows how Australia's strategic approach developed, setting the foundations for today's defence capabilities.’
—Peter Jennings, former Deputy Secretary in the Department of Defence and former Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
‘With unique, unfettered access to the classified files, this meticulous, scholarly, lively study illuminates the processes, the personalities and above all the ideas that have shaped Australia’s big defence decisions over the past 50 years. It is a remarkable resource and an essential foundation for the momentous debates we need to have about our defence in the challenging and very different decades ahead.’
—Hugh White AO, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies, ANU
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Australian Defence Strategic Guidance, 1976–2020 »
Documents: Defending Australia without a Threat, 1976–1994
Edited by: Jean Bou, Stephan Frühling
Publication date: 2026
Between 1976 and 2020, Australia’s Department of Defence produced a range of strategic guidance documents. Some were classified, intended to inform and guide the government, while others were created for public release and ultimately became statements of government policy. These documents offer an insight into how successive Australian governments understood the nation’s security and what policy and institutional steps should be taken in response. Each paper aimed to develop or shape strategic concepts, provided the basis for significant budget and capability decisions, and directed reforms and policy change across the Defence organisation.
For the first time, the story of how these documents were developed, and the key ideas and debates that shaped them, can now be told. Based on unique access to archival records, this book is the product of a joint research project undertaken between the Australian Commonwealth’s Department of Defence and The Australian National University.
This volume is a facsimile of all the strategic guidance papers analysed in Volume I. It includes a full copy of the 1976 Australian Strategic Analysis and Defence Policy Objectives; 1976 Defence White Paper; the 1979 Australian Strategic Analysis and Defence Policy Objectives; the 1983 Strategic Basis of Australian Defence Policy; the 1987 Defence White Paper; the 1989 Australia’s Strategic Planning in the 1990s; the 1991 Force Structure Review; the 1993 Strategic Review; and the 1994 Defence White Paper.
‘At the heart of resilience is knowledge. We are in fraught times. We need to understand how we have seen our strategic requirements historically to benchmark what we need to do now, comprehending strengths and inadequacies in our thinking. These volumes are essential reading.’
—Kim Beazley, former Minister for Defence and leader of the Labor opposition
‘This history of Australian Defence Strategic Guidance shows the messy reality of policy development. Politics, personality, money and deadlines all make for a combustible mix. This is a white-knuckle ride for anyone who has ever worked in the strategy business. The book makes for compelling reading, explaining the, at times, mystifying policy results. It shows how Australia's strategic approach developed, setting the foundations for today's defence capabilities.’
—Peter Jennings, former Deputy Secretary in the Department of Defence and former Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
‘With unique, unfettered access to the classified files, this meticulous, scholarly, lively study illuminates the processes, the personalities and above all the ideas that have shaped Australia’s big defence decisions over the past 50 years. It is a remarkable resource and an essential foundation for the momentous debates we need to have about our defence in the challenging and very different decades ahead.’
—Hugh White AO, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies, ANU
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Australian Defence Strategic Guidance, 1976–2020 »
Volume II: The Era of the Balanced Force, 1997–2020
Edited by: Andrew Carr, Stephan Frühling
Publication date: 2026
Between 1976 and 2020, Australia’s Department of Defence produced a range of strategic guidance documents. Some were classified, intended to inform and guide the government, while others were created for public release and ultimately became statements of government policy. These documents offer an insight into how successive Australian governments understood the nation’s security and what policy and institutional steps should be taken in response. Each paper aimed to develop or shape strategic concepts, provided the basis for significant budget and capability decisions, and directed reforms and policy change across the Defence organisation.
For the first time, the story of how these documents were developed, and the key ideas and debates that shaped them, can now be told. Based on unique access to archival records, this book is the product of a joint research project undertaken between the Australian Commonwealth’s Department of Defence and The Australian National University.
In response to regional instability and the War on Terror, the government developed the Australian Defence Force (ADF) as a ‘Balanced Force’, structured to serve a wider range of national interests. A Defence White Paper in 2000 was followed by three short Defence Updates as the Department and ADF grappled with the pace of overseas operations. Three White Papers followed in 2009, 2013 and 2016, produced through increasingly ambitious and lengthy processes that grappled with the emergence of great power competition in the Indo-Pacific and the need to prepare Australia’s defence forces for an increasingly complex region. By the end of the period, the 2020 Defence Strategic Update signalled a shift away from the White Paper model of strategic guidance, which has been replaced today by the National Defence Strategy.
‘At the heart of resilience is knowledge. We are in fraught times. We need to understand how we have seen our strategic requirements historically to benchmark what we need to do now, comprehending strengths and inadequacies in our thinking. These volumes are essential reading.’
—Kim Beazley, former Minister for Defence and leader of the Labor opposition
‘This history of Australian Defence Strategic Guidance shows the messy reality of policy development. Politics, personality, money and deadlines all make for a combustible mix. This is a white-knuckle ride for anyone who has ever worked in the strategy business. The book makes for compelling reading, explaining the, at times, mystifying policy results. It shows how Australia's strategic approach developed, setting the foundations for today's defence capabilities.’
—Peter Jennings, former Deputy Secretary in the Department of Defence and former Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
‘With unique, unfettered access to the classified files, this meticulous, scholarly, lively study illuminates the processes, the personalities and above all the ideas that have shaped Australia’s big defence decisions over the past 50 years. It is a remarkable resource and an essential foundation for the momentous debates we need to have about our defence in the challenging and very different decades ahead.’
—Hugh White AO, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies, ANU
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Australian Defence Strategic Guidance, 1976–2020 »
Documents: The Era of the Balanced Force, 1997–2020
Edited by: Andrew Carr, Stephan Frühling
Publication date: 2026
Between 1976 and 2020, Australia’s Department of Defence produced a range of strategic guidance documents. Some were classified, intended to inform and guide the government, while others were created for public release and ultimately became statements of government policy. These documents offer an insight into how successive Australian governments understood the nation’s security and what policy and institutional steps should be taken in response. Each paper aimed to develop or shape strategic concepts, provided the basis for significant budget and capability decisions, and directed reforms and policy change across the Defence organisation.
For the first time, the story of how these documents were developed, and the key ideas and debates that shaped them, can now be told. Based on unique access to archival records, this book is the product of a joint research project undertaken between the Australian Commonwealth’s Department of Defence and The Australian National University.
This volume is a facsimile of all the strategic guidance papers analysed in Volume II. It includes a full copy of the 1997 Australian Strategic Policy; 2000 Defence White Paper; 2003 Defence Update; 2005 Defence Update; 2007 Defence Update; 2009 Defence White Paper; 2013 Defence White Paper; 2016 Defence White Paper; and the 2020 Defence Strategic Update.
‘At the heart of resilience is knowledge. We are in fraught times. We need to understand how we have seen our strategic requirements historically to benchmark what we need to do now, comprehending strengths and inadequacies in our thinking. These volumes are essential reading.’
—Kim Beazley, former Minister for Defence and leader of the Labor opposition
‘This history of Australian Defence Strategic Guidance shows the messy reality of policy development. Politics, personality, money and deadlines all make for a combustible mix. This is a white-knuckle ride for anyone who has ever worked in the strategy business. The book makes for compelling reading, explaining the, at times, mystifying policy results. It shows how Australia's strategic approach developed, setting the foundations for today's defence capabilities.’
—Peter Jennings, former Deputy Secretary in the Department of Defence and former Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute
‘With unique, unfettered access to the classified files, this meticulous, scholarly, lively study illuminates the processes, the personalities and above all the ideas that have shaped Australia’s big defence decisions over the past 50 years. It is a remarkable resource and an essential foundation for the momentous debates we need to have about our defence in the challenging and very different decades ahead.’
—Hugh White AO, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies, ANU
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Australian Journal of Biography and History: No. 12, 2026 »
Special Issue: Intellectual Biography
Publication date: 2026
This special number of the Australian Journal of Biography and History consists of papers presented at a workshop on intellectual biography, held at The Australian National University in December 2024. The guest editor, Melanie Nolan, notes that historians increasingly do not agree on one kind of approach to intellectual biography. She surveys the kinds of postwar intellectual biographies historians have published, together with current debates over whether intellectual biography should entail methodological individualism or collectivism, internalist or externalist approaches, and whether to lump or split lives and intellectual developments. The first group of papers then considers intellectual biography written through the lens of the Cambridge School of intellectual history, which continues to dominate the field. Richard Whatmore and Thomas Ashby examine the historian J.G.A. Pocock’s methodology and his own biography. Kate Fullagar comments on this work, as she did at the workshop. A second group of papers—by Ian Kumekawa on A.C. Pigou, Emile Chabal on Eric Hobsbawm, and Matthew Birchall on Edward Gibbon Wakefield—are part of the push by historians to extend the span of intellectual biography. The authors argue respectively for a more ‘capacious’ approach to the category of economic intellectuals, the wider social influences on intellectual historians, and the need to consider how ideas have been applied as much as their disembodied theories. Finally, a pair of papers consider historians’ push of intellectual biography inwardly. That is, they are participating in what scholars identify as the more general ‘interventional’ or ‘reflexive’ turn in historiography. Jaume Aurell considers historians’ autobiography as intellectual biography, while Alison Bashford considers the intellectual biographies she has written metabiographically, weaving the biographies of intellectuals with her own historical self-reflection on intellectual biography.
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Fragile Prosperity »
Australia’s gigantic monetary gamble
Authored by: Stuart Kells
Publication date: July 2026
Fragile Prosperity presents a new perspective on the past five decades of economic policy in Australia. This book shows that in important respects the basic pillars of this policy are misconceived, resting on fundamental misunderstandings of money, taxation and fiscal accounting.
Monetary and fiscal policies in Australia are reappraised, along with the nation’s program of financial deregulation: a gigantic experiment in modern money. A new understanding is presented of the causes of inflation in Australia and the drivers of house price growth, along with associated impacts on wealth distribution and inequality.
The implications are stark. While successive federal governments and Australia’s central bank have given up the means to directly control the principal cause of inflation, the current method of inflation control operates like a dead hand on the non-bank economy. Australia now faces a terrible conundrum in public policy and macroeconomic management, one with urgent implications for countries with similar regulatory settings, such as Canada and New Zealand. Further afield, the story of Australia’s experiment with modern money is a cautionary tale for all advanced economies.
‘Many younger Australians no longer feel that hard work brings a better life. In this timely book, Kells reveals the deeper, actual reasons Australia is no longer a land of economic opportunity.’
Thomas Walker, CEO, Think Forward
‘The thrust of this excellent work is that the process and consequences of the generation of money have been widely misunderstood by regulatory and government bodies, leaving Australia unwittingly clinging to a “fragile prosperity”. Kells sets about offering practical solutions.’
David Merrett, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne
Experiencing Indonesia »
30 years of ACICIS
Publication date: July 2026
This book examines the many and varied dimensions of the Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) and celebrates its 30th anniversary. Charting the institutional history of ACICIS alongside the development, innovation and impact of its programs, this volume captures personal insights from ACICIS alumni as well as staff members and partners from Australia and Indonesia. Contributors bring diverse perspectives and insights to reflect on and analyse the significance of ACICIS programs.
This book highlights the pioneering structures that enabled in‑country, experiential learning for young Australians in Indonesia; the development of highly innovative programs created in collaboration with Indonesian partners; and the impact of ACICIS on participants, staff, partners and host communities as well as on broader Australia–Indonesia bilateral relations. This rich and varied account of ACICIS’ context, operations and impact can inform decision-making and program design for learning abroad programs in Indonesia and beyond.
A central theme of this book is ACICIS’ commitment to experiential learning and its transformative impact on lives and relationships for individuals, institutions and communities. There are indeed many human faces of ACICIS; this volume presents their voices.
Format: Hardback
Confronting Australia’s Childcare Crisis »
Authored by: Andrew Scott
Publication date: 2026
Australian childcare is in crisis. Revelations in the last two years of the serious harm being done to many of Australia’s youngest citizens, in places meant for their education and care, have shocked the nation. Failings simmering for decades are forcing a policy reckoning. In this book, Professor Andrew Scott outlines expert evidence and international experience to demonstrate how we can best make childcare safe and invest in children’s crucial first 5 years. Further, Scott demonstrates how the public outlay on policy measures needed will result in a substantial net financial gain for taxpayers. He advocates a future in which traditional Australian community involvement in early learning, together with innovative new forms of provision, are mobilised to support parents, properly value the work of childcare professionals, boost women’s workforce participation and increase the role played by fathers in the lives of their children. Out of crisis, as Professor Scott powerfully shows, comes the opportunity for far-reaching, beneficial social change.
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Indigenous Songs of Victoria »
Publication date: June 2026
Indigenous Songs of Victoria seeks to do justice to the songsters, the clever men and women of traditional Indigenous societies who made these artistic treasures, as well as to the many people who have valued, written down or otherwise recorded these songs, so that they can be heard, read and delighted in today.
The rich diversity of Indigenous songs collected in this book is a cultural treasure of Victoria and Australia. The authors bring together here well over 100 different song texts with musical transcriptions and analysis, cultural context and, for many, translations.
This volume brings the rich knowledge and artistic skill of the song-makers of Indigenous Victoria to a wider audience and makes the sources of these songs, in manuscripts, old journals and sound recordings, accessible, often for the first time.
Aboriginal History Journal: Volume 49 »
Edited by: Crystal McKinnon, Ben Silverstein
Publication date: May 2026
In this volume, Nicholas Pitt and Heidi Norman trace Wiradjuri, Gomeroi and Wailwan histories of smallpox in the 1830s, emphasising Aboriginal understandings, responses to and treatments for the disease they called either Boulol or Thunna Thunna. This work reveals the networks of knowledge and experience that secured the survival of people in Country. Gary Foley, Clare Land and Shannon Woodcock then document a Community Organisation Course offered at Swinburne College of Technology, 1975–1977. The importance of this course can be seen in the sovereign futures it enabled; participants went on in the following years to organise Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations and other Black Power movements across the southeast of the continent. The following article, by Will Bracks, takes up this theme in describing the networks involved in organising Rock Against Racism concerts in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Sydney throughout the 1980s. Organised in a manner characteristic of Black Power, this series of concerts raised political consciousness and generated resources to support Aboriginal communities.
Turning to the West, Sean Winter considers Noongar practices of cultural burning in the mid-nineteenth century, a period of government suppression through legislation that limited the way Noongar people could care for Country; Winter shows us how an insistence on displacing Noongar knowledges has caused cultural and ecological harm. Lastly, Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui brings to the fore the valuable writing of John Naish, a Welsh author based in the Queensland cane fields in the mid-twentieth century. Naish’s realist novels and autobiography, she shows us, offer us insight into the position and resistance of Aboriginal people in tropical north Queensland.