Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have a lot of respect for Senator Antic on this particular matter, but it is quite disappointing to see the opposition come into the chamber and try to play political football with issues of such importance as what occurred over the last week. I appreciate that Senator Antic appreciated the pun I used, but the fact is that this is a very serious matter.

The records of 10 million people have been affected in this breach. This is a breach that Optus seriously needs to pay particular attention to and address with the utmost urgency. That is why the Minister for Cyber Security today—what we have heard from the opposition, apparently—the minister has not made any public statements or tweets. That's how they used to govern. Remember how they used to govern when they were in government? There were press releases and tweets—all spin and no substance. We don't need to do that. As the minister articulated very clearly today in question time, the adults are in charge. We don't need to be putting useless tweets or media releases out to the public. We are taking the advice of our experts, experts who actually understand all the technical ins-and-outs of what has occurred.

There are obviously national security implications here—things we can't disclose—but the minister will make all the necessary commentary at the appropriate time, when she has all the facts in front of her. That is something that we and our agencies are trying to do right at this moment. We are working with Optus to try and understand how the deep the hacks have gone. The minister, today in question time, made it very clear:

Responsibility for this security breach rests with Optus, and I note that the breach is of a nature that we should not expect to see in a large telecommunications provider in this country.

Senator Antic and others on the other side come in here and pretend that this is an event that requires just a media release or tweet to solve all the issues of the world. It doesn't. Our public servants, particularly those in ASD—the Signals Directorate, the cybersecurity team here in Canberra—and the Federal Police, have been working around the clock over the last four days. Senator Antic makes fun of people, particularly those who may have been at the footy, I can tell you that there are a lot of public servants in this great capital who were working very hard and very closely with Optus to make sure that the people who have hacked into the Optus database are held accountable according to Australian law.

Interestingly, the other aspect that the minister highlighted in parliament today is that one in four or our Commonwealth entities met the Essential Eight cybersecurity obligations back in 2021. Further, it is also now on the public record that, when the Labor Party were in opposition last year, it took the Liberal government 365 days to release a discussion paper calling for a ransomware strategy. They then introduced this bill, but it was too late. It was far too late to actually have the bill passed by the previous parliament, because we had the upcoming federal election. There would have been other remedies in that bill that would have prevented such hacks from occurring, but the government of the day, the then coalition government, the Liberals and the Nationals, took their time in implementing the reforms that were needed.

The minister, Clare O'Neil, has today also indicated that this breach has actually resulted in a need for substantial reform. It is substantial reform that this government will be working on very closely with the industry and others to ensure that this occurrence does not happen again. But Optus has said that it will directly communicate with those customers over coming days, so I do encourage anyone who is a current customer of Optus or has been in the last seven years to, please, make sure you do contact Optus. Please, make sure that they are actually taking this breach very seriously, because the last thing that this government wants is people's details being shopped around out there. We all know of people in our families who have, unfortunately, been caught up in some scams in the past.

It is something that this government is taking very seriously, despite the rhetoric that we hear from those opposite. It's interesting, because they've spent the last hour and a half wasting precious Senate time so they could filibuster and prevent important legislation from being passed.