The National Archives of Australia has released cabinet papers from August 2000, entitled Progress of Commonwealth Security Preparations.

The papers outline the steps taken by the country to protect the Sydney 2000 Olympics from security threats.

Documents reveal the Australian Government sent a team of security experts to the United States to meet with its National Security Council.

A series of exercises were held in May 2020, named Ring True.

“The security issues that could arise during the 2000 Olympics and the appropriate responses to them are now well understood as a result of a series of national exercises that culminated in Exercise Ring True in May 2000,” Attorney General Daryl Williams wrote to the cabinet in August, one month prior to the Games.

“Ring True was reassuring.

“A key issue in the unlikely event of a serious emergency will be coordination between the states, particularly NSW [New South Wales] and the Commonwealth.”

Exercise Ring True was held in Sydney and Canberra between May 24 to 26 in 2000, with the exercise consisting of siege-hostage incidents at the Homebush Bay baseball stadium and at Bruce Stadium.

An additional challenge for New South Wales participants included a chemical incident, the documents reveal.

The document said the exercise had been reassuring, but outlined areas which could be improved including coordination and media handling.

The Games followed on from the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, which saw two people die and 111 injured in a bombing at the Centennial Olympic Park.

Terrorist atrocities over-shadowed the Munich 1972 Olympics, where 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed, along with a German police officer, by the Palestinian group Black September.

The Games came a year prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001.

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director general Dennis Richardson also requested the cabinet inform the New Zealand Government that comments related to a potential threat to the Lucas Heights nuclear facility were “unhelpful”.

Richardson said the organisation “would appreciate prior consultation on any substantive future statements by the New Zealand Government on matters bearing on Australian domestic security”.

A possible plot to attack the reactor had reportedly been uncovered by New Zealand earlier that year.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation had deemed the United States, Israel and Turkey as being as the greatest threat from existing terrorist groups in Australia, with the threat level ranked at medium.

Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the UK, Germany, India and Sri Lanka were considered to be at threat from terrorist groups, however, the groups were considered to have no or low capability of operating in Australia.

Documents also warn of the potential of the “very high likelihood of hoaxes and protests, for the most part peaceful, taking place during the Games.”