A new national security policy is expected to be outlined by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd this week.
Mr Rudd has promised he will deliver his first national security statement before the end of the parliamentary session which ends on Thursday.
The statement will become the government's overarching framework under which policies including the defence White Paper, expected early next year, will sit.
One of the papers ordered by Mr Rudd which was to feed into the statement appears to have been buried.
Former defence chief Ric Smith wrote a report on domestic security for the government and it was handed to Mr Rudd on June 30. An unclassified version of the paper is yet to be released.
It is widely anticipated Mr Rudd will take a very broad view of national security including issues like climate change, terrorism, the possibility of failed states in the Pacific and more traditional defence concerns.
The statement may include the announcement of a national security adviser.
Some analysts have suggested the adviser is likely to be Duncan Lewis - a former SAS commander and now a senior national security bureaucrat inside the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
