Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This is the third bill in the cybersecurity legislative package. This bill seeks to amend the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018(the SOCI Act) to strengthen existing security obligations on critical infrastructure sectors to address gaps identified following recent major cybersecurity incidents.

Australia currently faces heightened geopolitical and cyber threats, which means that our critical infrastructure is increasingly at risk. The risk to our sovereignty, defence, and security has never been more present, especially for the critical infrastructure providing essential services crucial to our way of life.

Recent incidents illustrate that threats to the operation of Australia's critical infrastructure continue to be significant and far-reaching. From natural hazards through to human-induced threats—all have the potential to significantly disrupt critical infrastructure. Indeed, the Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has stated, 'malign foreign powers will consider using sabotage to coerce, disrupt or retaliate during times of escalating geopolitical tensions. Pre-positioning malicious code in Australia's critical infrastructure is the most likely means.'

An attack on a single critical infrastructure entity can quickly create catastrophic cascading consequences across critical infrastructure and Australia's socioeconomic stability, defence and national security.

This bill will build upon previous reforms to the SOCI Act to uplift and enhance the security, resilience and agility of critical infrastructure in the face of an increasingly hostile and complex threat and risk landscape.

The bill contains six measures in total:

Together with the other bills in this package, this bill will help to strengthen our responses to the dynamic, cascading consequences of serious incidents that impact our critical infrastructure, and more broadly, the Australian community.

The government will refer this bill and the others in the package to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and will consider any recommendations that committee makes.

I extend my thanks to staff at the Department of Home Affairs for their incredibly hard work developing this bill. I commend this bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.