CANBERRA - 20 October 2021

Thanks, Deputy Speaker.

 

Before I make some remarks on the bill, I want to acknowledge the work being done right now by our warfare and cyber operatives, Australians that are right now defending our country, defending our economy at the ASD, but obviously at other agencies as well and in other organisations and businesses.

 

They're in the fight on the front line right now, and as we've heard from several speakers, every eight minutes or so, there's a cyber attack on our country.

 

That's an attack on our economy, on our way of life, on our sovereignty, so this is very important legislation.

 

Whilst I agree with some of the comments made by the speakers on our side about the delays and the misunderstandings that have been consistent in getting us to this point today, I nonetheless want to acknowledge the Government in finally introducing these new laws to ensure the resilience and safeguarding of Australia's critical infrastructure, and it most definitely has support.

 

The Government is introducing these new laws to ensure the resilience and safeguarding of Australia's critical infrastructure.

 

Many threats, ranging from natural hazards, including weather events, to more direct human-induced threats – including interference, cyber attacks, espionage, chemical oil spills to give some examples, but also attacks by insiders.

 

They all have the opportunity and the potential to significantly disrupt our critical infrastructure.

 

Pervasive threat of cyber-enabled attacks and manipulation of critical infrastructure assets is very serious, and it is considerable, as we heard and as we read almost daily.

 

The scope and impact is significant and there is an increasing rate which is unprecedented of these cyber attacks.

 

So at the start of my contribution there was a cyber attack, and those Australians fighting against it, trying to stop it mitigate the damage.

 

By the end of this contribution, there will have been another one. And Australians will again be at the forefront of protecting our nation.

 

So, we are critical of the delays but on the same ticket in terms of the intent of this bill, because we are facing increasing cyber security threats to our essential services, to our businesses and all levels of government, as indeed we have experienced in our own federal parliament house.

 

The Commonwealth Parliament has come under attack in its IT systems, as we're all well aware.

 

In the past two years, cyber attacks have also hit networks in the health and food sectors, media and as all listeners would understand, our universities, where there's not only the disruption of the work at our universities, but the death of our brilliant international, internationally acclaimed intellectual property from our brilliant academic and researchers.

 

Internationally, cyber attacks have disrupted critical sectors, including in the United States, their water and fuel supplies.

 

In this threat environment, it's crucial that Australia's technical authority, the Australian Signals Directorate, is empowered to assist entities in responding to significant cybersecurity threats and incidents to secure our critical infrastructure assets.

 

Now, as speakers have already mentioned, these are last resort powers and affected entities will undoubtedly retain their reservations and their right to keep a keen eye on all bills or all policies that federal governments have.

 

In supporting this legislation, we are relying on the intention stated in the bill for our support as given by the department and agency heads, that these powers will only be used as a last resort.

 

And of course, with this in mind, it is very important to emphasize that the PJCIS, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, will be notified and briefed each time the Government enacts this power, and will conduct a full review of the legislation when additional critical infrastructure reforms are introduced by the Government.

 

In evidence provided to the committee, witnesses overwhelmingly indicated their willingness to cooperate with the ASD.

 

Government assistance powers would only be needed in the event that an affected entity is unwilling or unable to respond appropriately.

 

Thus, these measures should only be needed rarely, if ever.

 

And in the instance that there is disagreement between an entity and ASD in the best course of action, the bill does incorporate the committee's recommendation to include safeguards that require the minister to consider multiple impacts and current responses to any actions under this legislation.

 

The Government itself has conceded that more work needs to be done in communicating, consulting and responding to concerns regarding its proposed positive security obligations for critical infrastructure sectors.

 

These are important initiatives and they need to be done properly, and as the Member for Gellibrand said, Government agencies and the Federal Government itself needs to engage with the industry more.

 

They need to build a deeper level of understanding, build a deeper level of trust, and together build a deeper level of expertise to meet the threats that are increasing, and that are significant, and that could do great harm to our nation, great harm to the economy, and we need to build that resilience together.

 

He himself has a great deal of experience in this area in the industry, and I hope that the Federal Government takes his contribution and looks at it very seriously indeed.

 

Because there is bipartisan support in this bill and bipartisan support for securing our nations from all threats, and cyber is becoming a domain – already is a domain – where significant threats can materialize.

 

And as I said, by now, those Australians working at ASD and in other agencies are combating yet another cyber attack.

 

This is real. It's happening every day, every eight minutes.

 

So it's good that this legislation has finally arrived.

 

Our cyberspace is such an important domain, and a place where threats to our nation are arising continually.

 

It is such a crucial domain and it's one that I, having a responsibility as a federal representative, have been seeking to understand at a deeper level so that I am able to support the best of my ability those Australians who again right now are countering these threats.

 

I recently, with the Member for Bean, spent some time on an ADF parliamentary program focused on cyber warfare and cyber defence and offence.

 

We visited a number of organisations providing cyber and information warfare capabilities to defence and the whole of the Australian Government.

 

I was incredibly impressed by the intelligence and adaptability of these Australians who are operating in this domain, defending our sovereignty and defending our economy.

 

So I want to give a shout out to all of those.

 

I do want to acknowledge the importance of the ADF parliamentary program that gives the opportunity for elected federal members to spend time with the ADF to understand the seriousness of the work we do and the need for proper resourcing.

 

So I just want to acknowledge Lieutenant Colonel Andy Martin, but also the host of that event from the Navy, very very exceptional Australians doing fantastic work.

 

And in the time that I've got remaining, Deputy Speaker, I just want to do you something that I think we should all and more often, and that is to provide some contextual information to Australians that are tuning in today around this domain of cyber space and the incredibly important work that ASD but also some of our ADF defence agencies are doing.

 

Cyber space is a global domain within the information environment consisting of an interdependent network of information technology infrastructure, including the internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processes and controllers.

 

Their resident data is used to store, modify, exchange, process and collaborate on information.

 

Cyber space is unbounded by physical location or international boundaries.

 

It is like the Matrix, it's everywhere.

 

Cyber space provides users with unprecedented access to information, audiences and critical targets across vast distances.

 

And this is why it is so important, because on a day-to-day basis, you are in this domain and you are being potentially the subject of some sort of attack or monitoring.

 

And that's why it needs the vigilance of the operators in this environment and the interest and concern and resourcing of government working closely with industry to make sure that Australians are protected as much as possible.

 

There can be conflict within cyber space, and that's what we learned more about what we can do and where we're under-resourced in this area during that parliamentary program.

 

Conflict in cyberspace can be conducted across large geographic distances, obviously, and it can have significant effects.

 

So we visited and spent time with the Information Warfare Division, which was only formed in 2017 in the Department of Defence.

 

Its promotion was part of an initiative by the Australian Government to combat threats to Australia's national interests in the information environment.

 

I want to acknowledge the Commander of Information Warfare, Major General Susan Coyle, CSC of DSM.

 

She is a very, very impressive person who I've known for some time, and I really wish that division all the very best in their important work, as I do to the Australian Signals Directorate for their important work.

 

There are great Australians doing work there every day to protect our nation, protect our sovereignty, our prosperity, by protecting our economy.

 

And they’re unsung heroes. They're not out on the frontline in another country. They are here defending in the cyberspace domain our people, our country, our way of life.

 

It is incredibly important work.

 

So even though you are necessarily anonymous in the work that you do, I just wanted to reconfirm from Federal Labor and all parliamentarians our thanks to you for the important work that you do, and our support for this legislation that will be used as a last resort should it be needed in this essential business that we are in, of defending the Australian people with every resource that we have at our disposal.

 

Thank you.

 

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