Command, Control and Organisation
ASIO is a statutory body under the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 and is responsible to the Parliament of Australia through the Attorney-General. The Organisation also reports to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and is subject to independent review by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The head of ASIO is the Director-General of Security, who oversees the strategic management of ASIO within guidelines issued by the Attorney-General. The current Director-General is David Irvine, who assumed office in March 2009.
In 2012, ASIO had a staff of around 1,760 personnel. The identity of ASIO officers, apart from the Director-General, remain an official secret. While ASIO is an equal opportunity employer, there has been some media comment of the Organisation's apparent difficulty in attracting people from a Muslim or Middle Eastern background. Furthermore, ASIO has undergone a period of rapid growth with some 70 per cent of the Organisation's officers having joined since 2002, leading to what Paul O'Sullivan, Director-General of Security from 2005 to 2009, called 'an experience gap'.
Read more about this topic: Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
Famous quotes containing the words control and/or organisation:
“When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)