[2] One of the first acts of the new Whitlam government was to help US-led efforts in the United Nations General Assembly to combat global terrorism, which had recently gained prominence with the 1972 Munich Olympics and the Croatian nationalist bombings in Sydney.
Both Whitlam and Attorney-General Lionel Murphy, emulating President Richard Nixon, stressed that terrorists would be hunted and political violence either to person or property would not be tolerated either inside or outside Australia.
[4][5] The government's inability to justify the raids in Parliament and ASIO's own response - leaking documents which contradicted the prime minister's account - "rendered the reform of the intelligence community both politically untouchable and urgent".
[9] The most important part of the terms of reference, as Whitlam argued in 1985, was: In the light of past experience, and having regard to the security of Australia as a nation, the rights and responsibilities of individual persons and future as well as present needs, to make recommendations on the intelligence and security services which the nation should have available to it and on the way in which the relevant organisations can most efficiently and effectively serve the interest of the Australian people and Government...The second volume of the Official History of ASIO, edited by David Horner and written by John Blaxland, suggests the Royal Commission could have brought ASIO to an end.
[13]In his report, Hope asserted that Australia's intelligence agencies were too close to those in the UK and the US, as part of the five-nation UKUSA Agreement (commonly called Five Eyes).
"[15]Hope recommended that ASIO should continue to be overseen by the Executive (Australian Government) as opposed to Parliament and that the organisation be routinely reviewed to ensure its operational efficacy.
[17] ONA reported directly to the Prime Minister to provide foreign intelligence assessments on political, strategic and economic issues.
[22] He shared the belief of US and UK intelligence agencies that ASIO was fundamentally compromised and that this was part of a global trend or "grand design", possibly referring to the leak of the FBI's COINTELPRO.
By the time of the Second Hope Commission in the 1980s he found the exploitation of Pine Gap had changed and that the Hawke government was handing raw intelligence to major Australian corporations.
[26] The Secretary of the Department of Defence, Arthur Tange controversially ordered that the Commission "should not be told too much" because this would put the Five Eyes alliance in jeopardy.