David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for the opportunity to make a few short comments on the tabling of the Asian Pacific Parliamentary Forum 2020 communique report. The forum was a unique opportunity, especially for new backbench senator like myself, to engage with our counterparts from regional parliaments, to discuss issues of mutual interest and to commit to cooperative action in the best interests of our countries and their people. I was very pleased to be a member of Australia's delegation of the forum that was held at parliament this January. It gave someone like me, a new backbencher as I said, the ability to debate with some very interesting colleagues from around the Asia-Pacific. For example, debating points on cyber security with the representative of China, who himself was a chair of the United Nations Security Council, was a completely unique opportunity.

As members noted during our plenary session considerations, the security of our communications, data and personal privacy in the cyberworld is a very tangible element of how we can invest in our economic prosperity and sovereign security. Without secure systems, our participation in the global community and economy is not possible, and, as a result, the very prosperity that the member countries have committed to achieving through the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development cannot be achieved, which would be to the detriment of each country's progress and its people.

As our Director-General of Security highlighted in his Annual Threat Assessment the other night, Australia's experience with exploitative cyberactivity has shown that small business, local governments and our critical infrastructure can be vulnerable to disruption through a range of attacks, scams and, also, sophisticated threats—all targeted against those key elements of our communities. Unfortunately, as other countries' experiences have shown, we are not alone in this, and that is why it is so important that the forum member countries strive to enable capability and capacity in each of our countries to counter this exploitative activity and protect key economic systems and infrastructure from disruption.

Debate interrupted.