China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is expanding its research collaboration with universities outside of China. Since 2007, the PLA has sponsored more than 2,500 military scientists and engineers to study abroad and has developed relationships with researchers and institutions across the globe.

The ‘grey zone’ has received much publicity in recent years as certain nation-states have employed indirect methods to achieve advantage over their opponents without recourse to open kinetic warfare.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between India, the US, Japan and Australia (the Quad, sometimes referred to as the QSD) was initiated more than a decade ago, but fell apart after Australia withdrew support in 2008. The four members restarted the idea (Quad 2.0) on the sidelines of the two 2017 ASEAN summits.

Another major government digitisation scheme - digital identity - is set to cause controversy and risk further disempowering Australians in the absence of clearer policy and legislative controls.

This report outlines the problems that are holding the private security guarding sector back from being an active participant in national counter-terrorist plans and presents recommendations to enable the private security industry to become an effective part of our counter-terrorism capability.