Joint Intelligence Organisation

The Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO) was an Australian government intelligence agency, responsible for the analysis of defence and foreign intelligence. The foreign intelligence assessment functions of JIO were assumed by the Office of National Assessments (ONA) in 1977 and the JIO was fully replaced by the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) in 1990.

History
Following World War II, defence and foreign intelligence functions were shared between the Royal Australian Navy, the Australian Army and the Royal Australian Air Force. There also existed a Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB) within the Department of Defence responsible for geographic, infrastructure, economic, scientific and technical intelligence in the Asia-Pacific region.

In 1970, the foreign intelligence functions of the individual armed services were merged into the JIB and the Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO) was formed. Following the formation of the ONA in 1977 to handle assessment of foreign intelligence, the JIO was changed to focus on intelligence relating solely to defence matters. Following a review of intelligence structures, the JIO became the Defence Intelligence Organisation in 1990 as the Department of Defence's strategic, all-source intelligence assessment agency.