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November 13, 2023
LAURA JAYES: A cyber attack and Australia's largest port operator has caused chaos in the lead up to Christmas, particularly over the weekend. DP World manages about 40% of the country's container shipments. This morning there might be some good news. It says things might look like they're starting to return to normal. Joining me now is the Shadow Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister James Paterson. James, good to see you. First of all, do you have any update? Kenny Heatley, our reporter, is saying that things might look like they are starting to move on the port.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning, Laura. Yes, I was briefed by the company last night and they were hopeful that they would be able to restore normal operations in the next couple of days and in the meantime, what they're trying to do is build a parallel system that effectively allows the port to continue to operate, at least for those high priority shipments in the meantime so that it doesn't have to adverse flow on consequences for our economy. My understanding from the company is that they detected suspicious and unauthorised activity on their own networks at about 10 a.m. on Friday and took a precautionary measure to shut down their networks or effectively disconnect them from the internet so that whatever was happening couldn't proceed any further. I also understand they haven't received a ransom note. It's possible, or the reason they haven't received a ransom request is because they did successfully disrupt the attack, or it's possible that the attacker was not motivated by economic gain and may be motivated by something else.
JAYES: James, it does sound like DP World was well equipped to deal with something like this. It was attuned to the threats its company faced, and even so, it's caused such chaos. That's a concern, isn't it?
PATERSON: I think the company has taken the right decisions based on the information available to me to shut down their networks, because if it was an adversary who was intending on causing us harm and not just seeking economic gain, they could have engaged in sabotage, which could have been quite damaging in the real world, caused real world harm. And so it is precautionary, it is appropriate to shut it down. What I'm concerned about is that it doesn't appear that the company already had in place any backup system or redundant system where the port could continue to operate, perhaps on reduced load in a manual way. And actually the power does exist for the federal government to require them to do that under the critical infrastructure reforms passed by the previous government. The Minister for Home Affairs can require a critical infrastructure provider like a port to have a number of redundancies or resilience in place to make sure that we can continue to operate in times of crisis when there's a cyberattack. It appears that hasn't been the case. So the Minister hasn't ordered this and I've got some questions about why that hasn't happened. Ports are so obviously consequential for the operation of our economy and society and have this lasting longer than it is, it's going to or had it affected more than one provider could have devastating consequences for our economy.
JAYES: Okay. Let's talk about a different story now and what we saw at the weekend in Sydney and Melbourne. There is no doubt that anti-Semitism is on the rise.
PATERSON: I'm deeply, deeply disturbed by the scenes we saw in Caulfield on Friday night., Laura. People are entitled to protest for whatever cause they like, but to choose Caulfield, to choose a park across from a synagogue and to choose Shabbat, where Jews go to pray at their Shul or Synagogue or when they gather in their homes for a Shabbat dinner with their families, seems to me like a very deliberate choice. It seems to me like the choice was designed to intimidate, that it was designed to incite, and it had exactly the predictable effects that we thought it would. And the Jewish community is in even more fear than they already were for this safety. We saw that shocking rally through Sydney, deliberately going through suburbs that are a number of Jewish Australians who live in, terminating in Coogee. We've seen graffiti on Jewish owned businesses, we've seen graffiti on the home of a Jewish rabbi, and we've also seen an alleged assault of two young men in the Jewish community on Saturday night. I've spoken to one of those victims and he has briefed me on what happened to them, is a shocking act of intimidation and violence, which the police are now investigating.
JAYES: What happened to them James?
PATERSON: Well, they were returning home on Saturday night from a night out with their friends driving through Caulfield, and they noticed two suspicious vehicles. So they did a U-turn to drive past and see what those vehicles were doing. They couldn't determine what they're doing, so they continued on with their journey and unbeknownst to them, those vehicles followed them into a side street in Caulfield, in a residential street where they had parked to drop off their friends. One car pulled up behind them, one car pulled up beside them, and a number of men got out of the car and surrounded the car and physically assaulted two of the passengers of the car, in the process of demanding access to their phones to demonstrate whether or not they had been filmed or photographed. The men who surrounded the car apparently said that they had been there for the protests, even though the protest that occurred 24 hours before. And the young men are understandably very shaken up by this incident, and have reported to police, and it's critically important that the police follow through on this incident and ensure that these people are prosecuted if they have breached law. which It sounds like they might have.
JAYES: Yeah, indeed, you're right. These intimidatory tactics of not just rallies being held by pro-Palestinians, but some more intimidatory figures going to Jewish areas of Australia, and that has a chilling effect on so many families. I just want to end by asking you about Penny Wong's comments. She didn't call for a ceasefire. She called for Israel to make steps towards one. What is wrong with that?
PATERSON: I think that’s a very, very generous interpretation, Laura, is that the ceasefire we're having when we're not really having a ceasefire.
JAYES: Well, but that's what she said though.
PATERSON: Yeah, and it's a very deliberate choice of words. The Australian government has never previously called for a ceasefire or steps towards a ceasefire. Our American allies, the Biden administration, are not doing so, and there's very good reason for that. Of course, there should be a ceasefire after Hamas is defeated and after the hostages are released. But until then, any ceasefire will just allow Hamas to continue to control Gaza. And they have said themselves they intend to use Gaza as a landing base for further operations against Israel. The people of Israel and the people of Gaza will never be safe while Hamas remains in charge. And the ceasefire will facilitate that. And I'm disappointed and concerned that Penny Wong has announced what appears to be a shift in government policy on Insiders understand she did not give a heads up to the Israeli ambassador or embassy, I understand she did not give a heads up to the Jewish community. She has previously been very critical of the previous government for announcing foreign policy initiatives, including on Insiders, and it appears to me that she has done the same. If the government is trying to walk back her comments this morning and say she wasn't calling for a ceasefire, I think that's a good thing. But I think she herself needs to be very clear about that because it is a significant shift if that's what the government is doing.
JAYES: I don't think anyone's walking it back so far, have you seen that?
PATERSON: Well, I just interpret it from your comments, Laura. Parsing her comment saying she wasn't calling for a ceasefire, it was only steps towards a ceasefire, and I think that's a meaningless distinction.
JAYES: Yeah, but, just words are so important in this debate. You know that James. So I'm just saying exactly what she said. She didn't call for an immediate cease fire. She said steps towards one. And I think that nuance is really important, is it not?
PATERSON: I agree with you. And that point about words being important is really critical because unfortunately, we do see here in Australia tempers being whipped up and people getting very activated over what is being said. And so for the foreign minister on Insiders to accuse Israel of attacking hospitals and for other ministers in the government to leave open the possibility that Israel is guilty of genocidal crimes, crimes against humanity or war crimes is a very dangerous and inflammatory thing to do when we should be urging calm. I am deeply afraid, Laura, that something terrible is going to happen in this country. All the signs are there. And when you have synagogues being shut down on Shabbat because police fear for the safety of the occupants, because there's a protest outside, I think we need to call that out and call it out for what it is, which is anti-Semitic.
JAYES: Look, I'm less concerned, to be frank, about Penny Wong's calls for steps towards a ceasefire. What I'm concerned about is really not much from Anthony Albanese overnight in terms of condemnation. What we saw in Caulfield, the kind of veiled references on Remembrance Day and also from Richard Marles saying essentially, look, we don't want any criticism, essentially we don't want any of these feelings being whipped up on either side of debate. We don't want to see Islamophobia, we don't want to see any anti-Semitism. But what you are seeing is these intimidatory tactics in Jewish areas. I don't think you see Jews going to, you know, predominantly Muslim suburbs in Australia with flags. Correct me if I'm wrong.
PATERSON: Agreed Laura, I agree with you. The prime minister has failed to show leadership here. It took him 24 hours before he said anything about a protest in Caulfield. And when he did, it was a very generic statement about how we should all be very nice to each other and we should all get along. What we saw was a specific instance of antisemitism. If there was ever a day where there was a protest outside a mosque that could lead to those Friday night prayers being cancelled and people being evacuated, I'll be among the first to call out Islamophobia. And when there are instances of Islamophobia, we should call it out. But on Friday night, we didn't see Islamophobia. We saw anti-Semitism. And it needs to be called out because it is on the rise. And the stats from my home state of Victoria at least, are very clear. The police have arrested nine people for instances of anti-Semitism and one person, for Islamophobia. I think it's very clear the problem we have on its hands in this country right now, it is anti-Semitism. And if we don't deal with it, something terrible is going to happen.
JAYES: James, thanks so much for your time, as always.
PATERSON: Thanks, Laura.
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