For more than a decade, which has included the 2013, 2016, 2019 and 2022 federal elections, ASPI has helped to generate ideas and foster debate about Australian strategic policymaking through Agenda for change, a wide-ranging collection of analyses and recommendations to assist the next Australian Government in its deliberations and planning.  

Agenda for change 2025: Preparedness and resilience in an uncertain world continues in its tradition by providing focused and anticipatory policy advice for the 48th Parliament of Australia. The agenda strives to highlight, and present solutions to, the most pressing questions that our next government must consider in order to advance and protect Australia’s national interests in a more disordered and challenging world. 

This edition reflects five interrelated aspects of Australia’s position in 2025, focused on the need to:

• defend Australia
• navigate our place in a new world (dis)order
• reform our security architecture and policies
• secure our critical infrastructure
• protect and use our natural resources. 

In 2025, that means equipping the next government for the reality of the contest in which our country is engaged. Since the previous edition of Agenda for change in 2022 we’ve seen:

• Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine and public confirmation of the China–Russia ‘no limits’ partnership
• change in Australia’s policy towards China, with a focus on ‘stabilisation’, accompanied by reduced economic coercion against Australia but a ratcheting up of military intimidation, including an unprecedented PLA Navy circumnavigation of Australia
• heightened aggression by China against the Philippines in the South China Sea and against Taiwan
• a lowering of the national terrorism threat level to ‘possible’ in 2022, before it was raised back to ‘probable’ not quite two years later 
• the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, the resulting war in Gaza and an increase in politically motivated violence in Australia
• the rise of artificial intelligence, including the landmark release of ChatGPT in late 2022 and then DeepSeek in 2025
• the return of Donald Trump to the White House, bringing tension among allies and question marks over the future of the US-led international order.

Each chapter in Agenda for change includes a limited number of prioritised policy recommendations, which are intended to be discrete, do-able and impactful. Although, when dealing with some of the more existential challenges facing Australia, the recommendations are necessarily and similarly expansive.

In addressing that extraordinary range of developments, ASPI has drawn on a wide range of expertise for the 2025 edition of Agenda for change. The views expressed are the personal views of the authors and don’t represent a formal position of ASPI on any issue, other than a shared focus on Australia’s national interests.