Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, in answer to the last two questions in terms of where funding is coming from for absorbed measures, you have told us the details are to be advised. You have talked of enhanced efficiencies in the organisation and you have talked about reprioritisation of programs. The only thing you have not spoken about, of course, is detailed programmatic specificity, but I am sure that is coming. If we can move onto some other funding issues, in January this year the Prime Minister launched the national security policy. In her speech she said:

The Government has already committed substantial funding and additional effort to strengthen our cyber capabilities, including $1.46 billion out to 2020 to strengthen our most sensitive networks.

That is an enormous amount of money. You can imagine my interest in finding out where that money was coming from, so I asked the Prime Minister through a question on notice. It was revealed that the funding was in fact to last until 2030, not 2020—a slight error of 10 years. The Prime Minister's grievous error—apparently a staffing error; you have to watch those staff—amounts to $114 million a year. That is quite an error, really, when you think about it. Given that Defence is the lead agency and is responsible for amalgamating the Commonwealth's cybersecurity operations under the new Australian cybersecurity operations centre, how does the government intend to make up this shortfall in funding or are the details to be advised, are there enhanced efficiencies or is there reprioritisation of programs?

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