Former ASIO chief Duncan Lewis calls for ’perspective’ on universities’ China links

Former ASIO chief Duncan Lewis warns against ‘histrionics’ that he believes don’t align with the national interest.

Former ASIO director-general Duncan Lewis will join the Australian National University.

Former ASIO chief Duncan Lewis has called on Australians to keep in perspective the threat posed by universities’ China research links, warning against “histrionics” that he believes don’t align with the national interest.

Speaking on his appointment as a professor in the Australian National University’s National Security College, Mr Lewis said the threat was real and it needed to be managed sensibly.

“Unfortunately, in my view, there have been some fairly injudicious claims (about universities) and there is from time to time, even a sort of histrionics around the threat that presents (from China),” he told The Australian.

Mr Lewis – who also served as head of the Department of Defence, as Australia’s first national security adviser and as an army major-general – said Australia, as a middle power, needed to be “extraordinarily agile” in responding to China and avoid being seen as shrill.

“We must make sure we don’t overplay our hand and we don’t underplay our hand. We need to tell it like it is. But sometimes we don’t need to be perhaps as shrill as is sometimes depicted. I think we’ve got to be very balanced about this,” he said.

Mr Lewis refused to comment directly on Department of Home Affairs head Mike Pezzullo’s remarks in April that the “drums of war” were beating. “Our national interest must always guide what we do and, of course, what we say,” he said. He advocated diplomacy “working overtime” as the best response to cases where China crossed the line.

Mr Lewis declined to back universities in their complaints about the federal government’s tough rules requiring them to notify the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of contracts made with thousands of foreign entities.

Legislation behind the rules, passed last December, allows Foreign Minister Marise Payne to cancel contracts she decides are not in Australia’s interests.

Asked whether the notification requirement on universities was too onerous or time-consuming, Mr Lewis said: “When your national security is the point at question, then you can’t say, well, it’s too hard or it’s too much.”

“I think that it is entirely proper that the necessary reporting and checks and balances and so forth are in place. It was clear to me, certainly when I was serving as the director-general of ASIO, that we as a nation needed to do some more work around this.”

Mr Lewis said the situation was dynamic and policies needed to be flexible. “I think we have to be ever alert to when further restrictions need to be put in place,” he said.

“We should also be equally alert to when restrictions might be relaxed in the future.”

At the ANU’s National Security College, which he helped establish when he was national security adviser to then prime minister Kevin Rudd, Mr Lewis will hold the part-time role of professor in the practice of national security.

He expects to be involved in the college’s masters program and in its executive programs for government national security officials.

Also joining the college in an academic role is Heather Smith, who headed the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science until last year. She will work on the relationship between geoeconomics and security.

College head Rory Medcalf said both appointees would be “exceptional mentors” to students.