Julia Banks (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security. Will the minister inform the House how the government is assisting Australia's small businesses to protect themselves online?

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. I know she is a passionate advocate for small businesses in her electorate and does an outstanding job representing them. Three weeks ago, the Prime Minister and I met with telecommunications and internet service providers to look at what we need to do to help protect small business from the threat of cyber. And last week, the government announced that it would establish a cybersecurity task force to drive fast action to improve Australia's capability in response to cybersecurity and cybercrime incidents.

The task force will engage with state and territory governments, and also the private sector, to build national capacity to protect small business—particularly, from cybercrime. The task force will work to actively protect them from the current threats that we are seeing, such as the WannaCry incident, and see what we can do to help them keep their businesses safe, because, as we all know—and you would think those on the other side would know—small business is the engine room of the Australian economy. The government is also going to be providing $10 million in grants to go to small business to help them to make sure that they are doing everything they can to keep themselves secure, including being able to undertake pen testing.

The Turnbull government is bringing a resolve to cybersecurity and backing it with the financial resources that this country needs to keep us safe from this threat. The $230 million we put behind the Cyber Security Strategy is the first time any government has put money behind a cybersecurity strategy. We also put $400 million into the defence white paper, the first time a substantial investment has gone to our defence forces to ensure that they are prepared for this threat. We have opened the first Joint Cyber Security Centre, in Brisbane, to make sure that state government and industry can work together with the Commonwealth government to keep us safe. We also have announced $1.9 million to establish cybersecurity centres of excellence to train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. The Turnbull government has put its money where its mouth is when it comes to meeting our nation's cybersecurity challenge, especially when it comes to small business.