January 20, 2023
Australia's leading security officer said he is "gently nudging" the government to reinstate skilled migration from the cyber security industry amid the sector's crippling skills shortage.
It comes after Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil made a ministerial direction on October 28, 2022, to remove the cyber security specialists from the priority migration skilled occupation list, which fast-tracked workers from overseas to Australian industries needing higher numbers.
Former head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre and chief strategy officer of CyberCx, Alastair MacGibbon, said his advice to government would be to put greater priority towards skilled cyber professionals coming to Australia.
"My preference would be that cyber security was added back because the former government actually put in place what I thought was some good policies around bringing cyber security talent to Australia," he said.
"It's not the only solution to our cyber security needs, there's a dearth of cyber security talent and we're not good enough at creating our own cyber security professionals but why would we not also look to the talent available in the rest of the world to become Australians and protect our communities?"
A departmental spokesperson from Home Affairs said the ministerial direction involved "simplifying the visa process to deliver more efficient visa processing for the benefit of skilled applicants".
"The priority skilled migration occupation list occupations involved time-consuming and complex assessments [and] were only necessary while travel restrictions were in place and contributed to the backlog of skilled visa applications," they said.
However, Mr MacGibbon said the industry still had strong concerns about the lack of clarity around how skilled migrants from the cyber security profession would come to Australia.
"[Home Affairs] said we're going to simplify the system, part of that process was that they took out categories that we all thought would be on the list a a priority areas, so they really narrowed it down from memory," he said.
"I understand the logic behind doing that, I'm very sympathetic to [Clare O'Neil] as the immigration minister as well but it had consequences and it had consequences to the cyber security community."
A September 2022 report by CyberCx predicted over the next four years there would be a shortfall of 30,000 unfilled positions across Australia in cyber security.
David Arthur, as the security practice lead for Australia and New Zealand at F5, a global technology company, expressed concerns with this as the government gets through backlogged applications from the now-cancelled prioritisation list.
"Once [the government] gets through that backlog and the new prioritisation takes into effect, then we'll start to see a decline," he said.
The Department of Home Affairs spokesperson said the ministerial direction would reduce complexity and would mean more skilled applications would be processed quicker.
"Processing times for all ICT skilled workers have improved under the Temporary Skills Shortage and Employer Nomination Scheme visas since the new processing priorities commenced," they said.
However, Mr MacGibbon said the wrong signal is still being sent to cyber security professionals overseas.
"The government's vision to make Australia the most cyber-secure country in the world by 2023 is necessary and welcome, but for the rhetorical rubber to hit the road, we need stronger and faster action, and clearer pathways for qualified professionals to join us," he said.
Shadow minister for cyber security James Paterson also called on the government to further prioritise cyber professionals.
"We need faster visa processing for cyber experts to build on Australia's cyber capabilities in a highly competitive global market," he said.
