In Australia’s National Interest - Security of Critical Infrastructure

How do you strengthen workforce assurance for existing employees — without creating the very insider risk you’re trying to reduce?
In this episode, Pentagram Advisory explores one of the most sensitive challenges facing critical infrastructure organisations: introducing a Trusted Workforce Program into an established workforce.
As regulatory expectations evolve and insider threat becomes more visible, many organisations are expanding screening and personnel security measures. But poorly managed change can disrupt trust, undermine morale, and elevate behavioural risk.
This episode examines:
• Why workforce assurance must be systemic, not episodic
• The difference between background checks and true governance
• How enterprise risk, role risk and individual suitability connect
• Why change can increase insider risk if trust is mishandled
• Practical steps for introducing screening for legacy workforces proportionately
Workforce assurance is not about suspicion or surveillance. It is about governance, proportionality, and sustaining trust over time.
For leaders responsible for security of critical infrastructure, personnel security, insider threat mitigation, or CIRMP obligations, this episode provides practical guidance grounded in risk and organisational psychology.
Because in high-consequence environments, trust is not a one-time decision — it is a system.

Workforce assurance is now a strategic security capability for Australia’s critical infrastructure sectors.
In this episode, we explore how organisations can build defensible workforce assurance for non-citizen offshore applicants whose personal, professional, and behavioural history may sit largely outside Australian systems.
We examine why traditional, point-in-time background checking alone cannot provide sufficient assurance in this context, and why a trusted workforce assurance model must be risk-led, role-based, and supported by layered corroboration and ongoing suitability monitoring.
This discussion is relevant for boards, executives, security, risk, HR, and governance professionals responsible for roles with access to critical systems, data, and operations.
Presented by Tim Slattery and Marina Shteinberg, Pentagram Advisory.

In this final episode of Pentagram Advisory’s three-part Workforce Assurance in Critical Infrastructure series, we explore why trust cannot stop at the point of hiring — and why the highest personnel security risks often emerge long after someone has joined an organisation. 
From ongoing suitability and the critical role of reporting, to treating offboarding as a security event and recognising post-employment risk, this episode unpacks how workforce assurance must operate across the entire employment lifecycle.
We discuss how organisations can move from clearance to care, and from point-in-time screening to a proportionate, risk-led model of continuous assurance that supports people while protecting critical assets. 
If you work in or support Australia’s critical infrastructure sector, this episode offers practical insights into building a Trusted Workforce Program that aligns with CIRMP expectations, the Protective Security Policy Framework, AS 4811:2022, and international good practice — and ultimately strengthens organisational resilience. 
Brought to you by Tim Slattery and Marina Shteinberg from Pentagram Advisory.

The Bondi Beach massacre in December 2025 is the most deadly and consequential terrorist attack on Australian soil. That it happened is a national tragedy. That it happened is not a surprise.
Pentagram's podcast explores the possible consequences for Australia's society, for people - be they Muslim, Jew or gentile - and how this might affect people in the workplace, with particular focus on Australia's critical infrastructure workplaces.
The article calls for private sector leadership, in the absence of government leadership, and provides approaches that workplace leaders might take to support people in the workplace. The article also talks about actions to manage people who may present aberrant workplace behaviours stemming from the Bondi Beach massacre.

Pre-employment screening in critical infrastructure is often treated as a compliance step — a set of standard checks applied to every role, regardless of the risk it carries. But this approach rarely delivers real security assurance.
In this episode, we explain how organisations can move beyond generic, outsourced background checks and build proportionate, risk-led pre-employment screening in-house, using many of the processes they already have in place. Most organisations are already doing a lot — identity checks, right-to-work verification, referee checks, licence validation, probity declarations. The challenge is not starting from scratch, but organising these activities into a structured, defensible workforce assurance capability.
We unpack the key principles of effective pre-employment screening, including proportionality, relevance, fairness, transparency, and privacy, and show how screening should be driven by role risk and consequence, not by habit or convenience. We also explain why government and outsourced checks, while useful, cannot substitute for an organisation’s own responsibility to understand its specific security risks.
This episode provides practical guidance on how to design tiered, role-based screening models, distinguish between eligibility and suitability, and use risk factors ethically — without stigmatising people or creating unnecessary barriers to employment.
If your organisation is looking to strengthen its approach to workforce assurance under AS 4811:2022, the PSPF, and the SOCI framework, this episode offers clear, implementable ideas you can apply internally — without creating more burden, cost, or complexity.