Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is working to protect Australian families, businesses and infrastructure from new and evolving cyber threats?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I also thank him very much for the work that he's doing in relation to an online petition that he has at the moment, calling on state governments to support the Australian government's position in relation to a register for child sex offenders. It's great work that he is undertaking in his electorate of Ryan.

The reality is, for all Australians now—it doesn't matter whether you're at school, whether you're a worker or whether you're a small-business owner—you are spending more and more time online. Senior Australians are taking up Facebook and sending photos backwards and forwards to kids and grandkids. Internet banking is now, obviously, a big part of people's lives as well. We want to make sure that we can keep people safe online. We want to make sure that we can do everything we can through the cybersecurity strategy that the Prime Minister and I announced earlier this month to keep not only Australians at home safe online but also businesses and infrastructure safe online.

It is the reality now, sadly, that state actors and criminal groups are targeting Australians, scamming identifications and trying to help groom young children online to catch up in the real world. There are many different facets of why we need to get the cybersecurity strategy right.

We're investing $1.67 billion into this strategy to help keep Australians safe online. The Morrison government have made it absolutely clear that we want to protect and defend Australians online and, in particular, from threats against our critical infrastructure. Whether we're talking about telecommunications or the energy sector, for example, we need to make sure we have adequate protections in place. Working very closely with those sectors is a crucial part of the strategy as well.

We want to make sure that that a cyberattack on our banking sector doesn't result in banks unable to settle transactions at the end of the day or people not being able to go into a local cafe or restaurant or small business in their community to pay the bill by way of tap-and-go. It would be crippling. We've seen cyberattacks here at a record level in recent months, and we know that during the period of this pandemic many crime groups are targeting young children online. We know that paedophile groups are targeting and trying to groom young children online, and that is what makes it absolutely necessary that we defeat that scourge through the cybersecurity strategy.

I want to say thank you to the Prime Minister and to the heads of our agencies, who have been working day and night on this strategy to make sure that we can keep Australians safe. We will continue to work with industry, with every sector, to make sure that the online environment is as safe as it can be.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgence—Can I just briefly associate the opposition with the comments of the minister. It is, quite frankly, abhorrent and hard to understand this scourge, this evil. We need to do whatever we can to wipe it out.