Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Cybersecurity incidents are on the rise and are a threat to Australia's national interest and safety. Cybercrime is thought to be the biggest threat facing any business with an online presence. It has cost Australia around $42 billion in the last financial year, according to the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the University of New South Wales. Many people feel you can't put a price tag on our private data—that is certainly true—our electricity grid or our online economy. They are so valuable. The wider community feels this investment and Home Affairs' work in this space is worth continuing. It's important to strengthen our protections across all of this space.

Over the 2021-22 financial year, more than 76,000 cybercrime reports were made via ReportCyber, with one cybercrime report made approximately every seven minutes. There are many factors that feed into the global cyber threat we are experiencing. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has increased this threat globally. We have seen many malicious actors—both state and nonstate actors—seeking to garner and capture the sensitive and private information of citizens. They do this by targeting Australians and their small businesses. Most incidents identified by the Australian Cyber Security Centre noted the use of very simple techniques, and a lot of this can be protected with very simple defences. People in my electorate of Wills have contacted me about the issues that they face. One woman was quite distressed about being called by scammers as well as contacted online, and she immediately reported this and came to me.

She immediately reported this and came to me. There are others who have been very worried about the security of their small businesses and their websites. They're worried about being prey to these malicious attacks. Of course, many contacted my office after being victims of the cyber incident involving Optus.

People are rightly worried about their data and their private information being in the wrong hands. As a government, we are very aware of this real threat to cybersecurity. We are aware that cybersecurity issues are prevalent and exceeding anything that we've seen before. Unfortunately, the previous government failed to deliver any leadership on cybersecurity. They abolished the role of cybersecurity in the ministry. They failed to mandate cyber incident reporting obligations to government. They failed to deliver on the need for stronger penalties to protect online privacy. They failed to report publicly on the effectiveness of the 2020 cybersecurity strategy. How can we improve systems if we don't even know whether our systems are working? As a nation, we were left woefully underprepared by those opposite when they were in government. Because of their failures, we were not able to be resilient when it came to the impacts of cyberattacks. We had poor data and security in this space.

On this side, the Albanese government is a responsible government. We are a government that supports the Australian people. If you fall the into a cyberattack or a data breach, we will support you no matter where you are in Australia. We've committed to making Australia the most cybersecure nation in the world by 2030. The other mob are all talk, no action. This government has already started doing the work, albeit quietly and effectively—but that's important. We've already set up the 'hack the hackers' task force. This is a 100-strong task force of ASD and AFP officers who are hacking back at criminals seeking harm Australia and Australians. We are delivering $19.5 million to protect our most critical infrastructure assets through the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre. We're working closely with industry to develop Australia's new national cybersecurity strategy and we're building a national office for cybersecurity within the Department of Home Affairs. We're working across multiple portfolios in delivering this new national cybersecurity exercise program.

At a community level we are supporting individuals, businesses and organisations in being able to report a cybercrime incident or vulnerability through the Australian Cyber Security Centre. There is more work to be done, but that is already underway. We want to build a capacity to ensure people are more prepared and work together towards this government's commitment to making Australia the most cybersecure nation in the world by 2030. I want to assure the Australian people to feel more at ease that this government, these ministers—the home affairs minister, the minister for immigration—are working day in, day out to secure Australians' personal information and keep them secure from cybersecurity incidents, which are a serious threat to our safety and our national interest. This government is taking action and doing the job.

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