Agenda

In an era marked by evolving threats, geopolitical uncertainty, cybercrime, and increasingly complex operational environments, strengthening security posture has become essential to protecting organisations, communities, and national interests. Building effective security intelligence requires the integration of advanced technology, real-time data analysis, risk assessment, and collaborative information sharing to identify vulnerabilities before they escalate into critical incidents. At the same time, national resilience depends on the ability of governments, businesses, and critical infrastructure providers to anticipate disruptions, respond rapidly, and recover effectively from physical, cyber, and environmental threats. By investing in proactive security strategies, skilled personnel, and resilient systems, organisations can enhance situational awareness, improve decision-making, and create a stronger foundation for long-term stability, public safety, and economic continuity.

Geopolitical instability is no longer episodic, it is continuous, concurrent and cascading, and it is increasingly expressed through hybrid threats that blur the line between competition and conflict. For Australia, the risk is not just external aggression but the steady erosion of economic resilience, supply chains and institutional trust through coercion, cyber operations, market manipulation and grey-zone activity. This presentation argues that Australia’s security now sits at the intersection of national security and economic performance. It will outline how hybrid threats target the systems that sustain national power, energy, critical minerals, food, finance and infrastructure, and why markets alone cannot manage these risks. The session will set out a practical framework for government and industry to move from awareness to action.

This presentation delivers the final findings of Security 2030, a two-stage research project conducted in partnership with ASIAL and funded through Edith Cowan University. Drawing on a triangulated evidence base of government threat and risk reporting, industry benchmarking data, regulatory analysis, and in-depth practitioner interviews, the research maps the current operating baseline of the Australian private security industry and charts credible capability trajectories through to 2030. The findings confirm that 2025 represents a structural inflection point; not an incremental transition, but a convergence of regulatory, technological, workforce, and risk environment pressures that will reshape how the industry operates and how it is procured. The presentation examines six identified structural transitions, including the shift from service delivery to assurance-qualified participation, from labour deployment to intelligence-enabled capability, and from fragmented markets to capability stratification. Practitioner insights from Stage 2 are used to test, challenge, and ground these findings in operational reality. The session concludes with evidence-informed implications for industry positioning, SME viability, workforce development, and the strategic role of peak bodies in guiding the sector through what the research describes as a defining five-year window.

The SOCI Act reforms and maturing RSNL obligations have fundamentally changed what adequate security looks like for critical infrastructure owners and operators. Demonstrating compliance is no longer sufficient — practitioners must prove that residual risk has been reduced to SFAIRP and produce documented evidence that is defensible under independent assurance review. Drawing on live application across the $11B Sydney Metro Western Sydney Airport program, this session unpacks Security Cases, Goal Structuring Notation, and RVTM — and what risk-based, evidence-led security practice demands of the profession.

“Take a risk-based approach” is one of the most commonly used phrases in security governance, yet it is often interpreted differently by executives, risk professionals and security teams. These differing perspectives can lead to misaligned expectations, inconsistent assessments and unclear decision-making. Drawing on global security leadership experience, this session explores how the concept of risk is understood across organisations and why the gap between risk frameworks and operational security practice persists. The presentation provides insights into how security leaders can translate threat analysis and risk assessments into clearer strategic advice for organisational decision makers.

Australia’s Security of Critical Infrastructure Act introduces complex compliance challenges for critical infrastructure operators, intensified by new smart device security standards for IoT fleets. This session explores how Agentic AI can audit, evidence, and maintain SOCI compliance at scale, automating IoT assessments, and generating Statements of Compliance. Attendees will gain insight to how human-in-the-loop Agentic AI reduces compliance burden, human error, manage the SOCI “compliance cliff” and risk, while achieving defensible outcomes across critical infrastructure, assets and Systems of National Significance.

Crowded places are changing. Security must evolve with them. This session introduces the Hybrid Light Model (HLM), developed by South Bank Corporation for Brisbane's South Bank, one of Australia’s most visited precincts. Built on principles of safety, customer focus, and resilience, the intelligence-led HLM redefines the traditional guarding model through a more visible, proactive, and integrated approach. The session will explore a suite of enhanced security arrangements, including a modernised Security Control Room as the operational nerve centre, multi-agency integration, and behavioural detection capabilities, to collectively strengthen resilience in a crowded place.

With a workforce of over 200,000, Australia’s private security industry performs a vital and growing role as part of Australia’s national security mix. Yet as we navigate increasingly complex security threats and vulnerabilities, the inconsistent patchwork of industry regulation creates easily exploitable vulnerabilities which pose significant potential security risks. This presentation will examine why the introduction of nationally consistent professional standards for the security industry is more important than ever.