November 20, 2024
JOURNALIST: Are you surprised by some of the findings in this report today about the threats faced by Australia?
PATERSON: No, I'm not surprised. It's very consistent with the reports that the Australian Signals Directorate have published every year when it comes to cyber crime online. It's consistently prolific and consistently serious, and it demonstrates why governments, business, industry, universities, other stakeholders need to work better and closer together than ever before because Australians are becoming victims of cyber crimes every day online. That's why the previous government invested $10 Billion in ASD as part of the REDSPICE Project and why we passed several tranches of critical infrastructure legislation to require industry to do their part to step up against this threat.
JOURNALIST: What did you make of the findings that wealthy, private school, aged care homes and real estate agencies are becoming increasingly targeted? It's gone beyond just the kind of traditional cybercrime, if you like, targeting these big institutions and government agencies.
PATERSON: Cyber criminals are sophisticated. They target people who have money and the target people who pay. And all of those institutions that you mentioned do have money. And unfortunately, sometimes they do pay. The consistent advice of the Australian government to people who are targeted by ransomware is do not pay because there is no guarantee that your data will be returned or released and there is no guarantee that you won't be victimised again. And in making that payment, you are helping this business model and supporting this business model. But in some circumstances, people still do make the choice to pay and unfortunately, that may send a signal to cyber criminals that their crime does pay, and they continue to do it.
JOURNALIST: A lot of these activities facilitated by social media platforms, a phishing scam, things like that to get information. Do you have any concern that the social media ban could see these platforms vacate their responsibilities? You know, flat ban, problem solved. You know, we're not going to worry about these other obligations we have.
PATERSON: Sure, you're absolutely right. It is prolific on social media platforms in particular, for example, Facebook Marketplace, we have had many tragic examples of people being ripped off on those platforms or their identity being stolen or impersonated on those platforms with very serious consequences for people and their families. Banning children from these platforms is a bipartisan agreement. And what we now do as a parliament should have no bearing whatsoever on the platform's obligations to protect everyone else on those platforms, because it's not just children that are becoming victims of cybercrime and financial crime online, it's also adults. And those platforms should not make the mistake of thinking that if this legislation passes, that our expectations of them will be decreased in any other area of compliance.
JOURNALIST: On the topic of that legislation. Can we expect to see some progress on that this week in terms of getting it through Parliament and also on that if I can? That government said yesterday that digital I.D. would not be a path that they would go down in terms of verifying people's age. You're not going to have to upload a digital copy of your driver's license or anything like that. Do you think that's the right approach to go about age verification?
PATERSON: I certainly hope there is progress, but it does require the government to come forward to introduce legislation and to allow it to be brought to the Parliament and they haven't yet done so. I would be concerned if they were going to force Australians to use a form of digital I.D. to verify their age on social media. We voted against the digital I.D. bill because we were not convinced that the privacy protections were sufficient. And it is a concern to many Australians that they might be forced to do this. So I think it's important that the government is very clear when they finally release their legislation that they don't intend to require people to use digital I.D. to verify their ages. Adult Australians should be free to continue to use social media and they shouldn't be required to participate in a digital I.D. scheme to do so.
JOURNALIST: Do you think that it was a mistake for Chris Bowen to not sign this expansion of nuclear despite requests from the US and the UK over at COP?
PATERSON: Chris Bowen has embarrassed Australia again on the international stage and he's left our allies wanting. They formed the expectation, probably given to them by the Australian government that we would be signing on to this and why wouldn't we? Emissions free, safe, proven nuclear energy is being adopted all across the developed world among our closest allies and friends to bring down emissions and provide reliable, affordable baseload energy. Australia is the outlier and the Albanese government's opposition to it is both political and ideological. And it is a discredit to our country that others who are serious about acting on climate change and providing reliable, affordable energy for their countries are moving on this and that we are being left behind.
JOURNALIST: Richard Marles, just down the other end of the corridor, essentially said that Australia doesn't have a civil nuclear industry and so therefore of course we wouldn't be signing on to an agreement like that. What do you have to say about that?
PATERSON: He's wrong, we have a civil nuclear industry. We have nuclear medicine. We have nuclear research. We have nuclear mining. We're about to have nuclear powered submarines. We have almost every single element of a civilian nuclear industry other than nuclear power. And it is bizarre that this government thinks it is safe and affordable and achievable to man nuclear powered submarines, and indeed to build them here in our country, one of the most complex industrial enterprises you can enter into. But we are not capable of having a civilian nuclear power industry here in Australia and I think their arguments are looking very hollow.
JOURNALIST: Will the Coalition announce its policy to reduce international student numbers before the next election?
PATERSON: Yes, we will. We will be very clear with the Australian people about our plan to get migration under control because it has been out of control under this government. Right now there are more than 1 million international students or people who first arrived here as international students in our country. And this government has let immigration get completely out of control. We will have a policy which will put a cap on international students. It will bring down the numbers of international students lower than what Labor has proposed to do and which will not have a sweetheart deal for the Group of Eight universities, our most elite metropolitan universities who are effectively allowed to continue to have as many international students as they want while the rest of higher education industry is made to cut back. We will have a policy that is fair, that is equitable and is comprehensive.
JOURNALIST: Senator, just back on nuclear, briefly, the Coalition has promised to release the details of its policy before Christmas. The party said itself that you're potentially weeks away from an election. You know, is a policy announcement just before Christmas really enough to inform the public who are going to go on holidays and, you know, spending time with their families and potentially going to an election, you know, in weeks to come?
PATERSON: Well, the Prime Minister said on Sky News on Sunday that the election is going to be in May, which would be seven months away, and I think seven months is plenty of time to digest a policy announcement. The Coalition will be releasing our nuclear energy policy, our emissions free, baseload, reliable nuclear technology policy many, many, many months earlier than the Labor Party released their renewables-only policy in the last election campaign. In fact, they released it much closer to the election than we plan to release our policies. Australians will have all the details they need before they walk into the voting booth to make an informed decision about whether they want to rely on the government's renewables only policy, which is reckless and is driving up costs. Or our nuclear and renewables policy which will get emissions down and provide reliable baseload affordable energy.
JOURNALIST: Just quickly on the government's Misinformation bill, that's rapidly losing support. Do you think that if that doesn't pass, that it's going to open Australians up to more misinformation online?
PATERSON: I think it's important that the government have the courage of their convictions and that they submit the bill to the Senate for it to be considered by the Senate. I am worried that they will do the cowardly thing and cut and run now that looks like they don't have the support for this bill. It's not surprising that they don't have support for this bill because there’s not a stakeholder in the country, whether it's a media organisation, human rights group, lawyers, religious groups or anyone, who thinks this bill is a good idea. The failure of this bill will not make any difference to the misinformation and disinformation problem we have in this country. And passing the bill would not make any difference to it. It's a far more complex problem than that. I have looked at this very closely as part of a Senate inquiry into foreign interference through social media. There are other ways of addressing these problems that don't rely on censorship and instead rely on transparency. That means that Australians sincerely held political opinions can continue to be freely shared and that foreign states who seek to intervene in our democracy are called out for their malign conduct.
Thank you.
ENDS
