The first is the National Security Strategy Statement. The starting point for this, as with all national security strategies in the world, will be that the first priority of government is the protection of its people, sovereignty and interests.

The strategy is extremely likely to highlight that Australia is facing a broad and complex range of traditional and non-traditional threats. Traditional threats include major state conflict, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, espionage and trans-national crime, and non-traditional threats include resource security, uncontrolled mass migration, fragile-states pressures, economic shocks, pandemics, social disharmony, and food and energy security. To make this more complex, none can be addressed in isolation as many are interconnected.

As a consequence, the strategy will probably state that the old divisions in national security policy are no longer relevant. Specifically, the distinction between external threats (the responsibility of diplomats and soldiers), and internal threats (the tasks of police and emergency responders) is irrelevant. This is because a threat external to Australia is just as likely to have a domestic component in Australia because of the globalisation of people, technology and ideas.

It is also meaningless to conceive of government agencies in terms of those responsible for national security and those which are not. Now all agencies have some role. A case in point is preventing home-grown radicalisation. Intelligence and law-enforcement agencies have an obvious role in prosecuting those intent on crime, but other agencies such as education, health, immigration and transport can make significant contributions to the de-radicalisation campaign by tackling inequalities, discrimination and alienation which may contribute to the problem.

The strategy is also expected to identify that engagement of all groups in society is essential for enhancing national security. While governments will continue to use a whole-of-government approach to developing policy and operational unity, increasingly a whole-of-nation approach involving the three levels of governments, business and communities will be required to reduce the risk of the threats.

At the international level, security will be advanced by Australia working with a range of multilateral, bilateral, and ad-hoc coalitions. These groupings will increasingly involve business and non-government organisations. This will be a big cultural challenge for most agencies as they see such groups as service-delivery agents and not policy and operational partners. Government will increasingly give particular attention to preventing conflict, and the stabilisation and reconstruction of states that are fragile, failing or collapsed. This involves providing more resources to addressing the underlying drivers of conflict and instability such as poverty, inequality, inadequate governance and a lack of market economies.

In many cases the conditions that lead to conflict and instability are gradual and extremely complex. This means there is plenty of opportunity for delay and prevarication, and that any solutions need an incredible amount of policy consistency for at least a decade.

Domestically, security will be advanced by Australia working in partnership with all of society, and specifically by focusing on resilience and an ''all-hazards'' approach. Resilience is the ability of individuals, organisations, communities and society to resist and bounce back quickly from shocks. Creating resilience makes society stronger and more self-reliant. The all-hazards approach means emergency preparation and response are based on addressing the full range of likely natural and man-made hazards, rather than just the top few.

The second document will be the Homeland and Border Security Review. The review was led by the former Defence secretary Ric Smith and it was handed to the Government recently. The review makes recommendations about improving the roles, responsibilities and functions of organisations involved in homeland and border security arrangements. Although the review's terms of reference were never made public, it is hoped that an unclassified version of it will be issued publicly.

One of its key conclusions will probably be that an Australian homeland security department is not required because the existing coordination mechanisms and effectiveness of homeland and border security efforts are adequate. Forming such a department was Labor policy when it was in Opposition. The Labor election commitment of establishing the Office of National Security has already been implemented and the review should recommend that the second part of the commitment, to establish a National Security Adviser, be implemented.

The review will probably also address the many inadequacies in national security which have arisen since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Areas for improvements include increased information sharing between governments and between governments and industry, the lack of legislation governing border protection command arrangements, and the unclear division of responsibilities for counterterrorism between the Attorney-General and his junior minister. Likely areas for change include ways to build a consistent and coordinated policy approach across agencies, the merging of the numerous watch offices, improving capability development processes for disasters, and modifying the command structure for national terrorist and non-terrorist incidents.

Assuming the predictions above are accurate, what these two documents reflect is a more balanced and nuanced, middle-power national security approach that does not over-emphasises the terrorist treat.

Athol Yates is director of the Australian Homeland Security Research Centre. He will be a speaker at the Safeguarding Australia Conference which begins tomorrow and ends on Thursday.