August 7, 2023
PETA CREDLIN: Welcome back. Let's go back to Canberra now. A few national security related issues I want to get you across. Joining me now, Senator James Paterson, Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security. Senator, this morning we learned that there is a risk to foreign made solar panels that we're putting into our grid that could be the target of a cyber attack. Explain why this is a concern.
JAMES PATERSON: Peta, last month through another story in The Australian, I warned the government and the Australian people that 58 per cent of the internet connected solar inverters being installed in Australia come from companies headquartered in China, including companies like Huawei, who we've banned from our 5G network and who are subject to China's national intelligence laws, which means they can be compelled to assist the work of Chinese intelligence agencies at any time. This morning, the Cyber Research Centre, an independent respected centre, completely 100 per cent backed up my concerns. They outlined how these solar inverters could be weaponised against Australia in two ways. One, the inverters themselves could be destabilised through cyber vulnerabilities which would take out power to your own home or residence or business. But two, if enough of them are connected to the grid, and the Labor Party is rushing them into the grid right now, they could be used to destabilise our entire electricity grid and put it out of power completely destabilising our whole country or whole regions of our country. Now the Labor Party is aware of this risk. They have talked about this risk, but they've done absolutely nothing to deal with it and they're planning to put in 82 per cent renewables by 2030, which will massively exacerbate it.
CREDLIN: We know also too, Senator Paterson, this was a debating point in Britain recently, I think it was the British government who raised concerns in relation to EV's, electric vehicles manufactured in China. I know it sounds like a fantasy movie, sci fi movie plot, but it's also a risk, isn't it?
PATERSON: That's right, Peta, because a modern electric vehicle is a computer on wheels. It's also an Internet connected device. Many of them are made in China, some of them by Chinese-owned companies who have also designed them, and they have their own cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Their own ability to store and collect data on its users and its drivers and its ability to be remotely controlled and influenced. Theoretically, people have outlined that you could destabilise these together as a single event and therefore shut down the roads in a major western city. These are the very real issues that we have to confront and deal with in the strategic environment that we're in.
CREDLIN: Alright, James Paterson, we heard today a Jihadi bribe, Zehra Duman has regained her Australian citizenship. It was taken off her as she certainly fled Australia, went to Islamic State. You used to chair the Joint Intelligence Security Committee. Explain this to people at home. How does she get her citizenship back?
PATERSON: Peta, you would remember well, during the Islamic State period, we had a terrible problem of a number of Australians going to fight with Islamic State or to sign up and support Islamic State. Men typically as fighters and women, typically as brides for the fighters. And it was a terrible problem and our government recognised this and passed legislation to allow us to strip them of their citizenship if they had another citizenship. And we did so at about 20 occasions of people who we thought represented a risk to Australia. Well, in June last year the High Court overturned that. They said a minister can't do that. A minister can't have that power, only a court should have the power to do that. So it's now 12 months on and the Albanese government has known of this risk from the Alexander case when the first person had their citizenship stripping overturned. Now we've had a second person successfully appeal to the High Court to have their citizenship restored and the Albanese government still hasn't legislated to remedy this issue and there are others who are before the courts right now, including Benbrika, who was charged with very serious terrorism offences, convicted and jailed for them and who is soon coming up for release at the end of his jail term and who may pose a risk to the Australian community. So they must solve this problem before his case is resolved. But it's working its way through the courts now, so there's not much time to wait.
CREDLIN: I just find that extraordinary, which begs the question to me. Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neil, I mean, is she up to the job? Because there's also a lot of talk that her portfolio is being shaved off and almost dismantled from the old Home Affairs portfolio under Peter Dutton.
PATERSON: There's very clearly a war on the Department of Home Affairs. I think it's being led by the Prime Minister or the Minister for Home Affairs, and I think it's Australia's national security that's going to suffer and we really shouldn't permit it to happen.
CREDLIN: Alright. Well, I'm going to get back into that one tomorrow night. James Paterson, thank you. And look, thank you for all the work you do. I get a lot of comments from my viewers about you. Thank you for your time.
ENDS
