March 7, 2023
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning. A very disturbing report in The Australian today has revealed that Australian universities are assisting in training students from foreign authoritarian countries in offensive cyber hacking tactics and techniques. Australia's cyber security challenges are hard enough already without our taxpayer-funded universities assisting our potential adversaries to do us harm. Among the course content, which is being alleged by whistle-blowers to be taught to students in China, is tactics about how to attack civilian critical infrastructure.
Right now, today, Australia's critical infrastructure and government networks are under near constant attacks and probing from our potential nation state adversaries, including those in China. The mass training of students offshore to potentially go to work for the very agencies that are targeting Australia is deeply disturbing and concerning. I've worked with these whistle-blowers directly and I'm alarmed by their reports. I respect the fact that they are unwilling to teach some of this material to their students and they are self-censoring to prevent danger from being exposed. But that's not a good enough protection or robust enough protection for Australia.
We need action from the government here. I'm calling on the Albanese government, particularly through the Universities Foreign Interference Taskforce, to launch an urgent investigation to get to the bottom of these very serious reports. This is exactly the sort of thing that the Universities Foreign Interference Taskforce was set up to prevent from happening. Our universities have said they're on top of this issue. Clearly, they're not and more action is required.
Happy to take questions.
QUESTION: Is this something you had been aware of prior to today? And also, how widescale do you think it is? How many students are involved? How many universities across the country?
PATERSON: I've been aware of this for a number of weeks as whistle-blowers from the university sector came to me to let me know that that's what was happening and they were concerned by it, and that's why these articles appeared in the media today. I wasn't aware of it prior to that. I don't know how many students are involved. The challenges with online education overseas is that it's a potentially enormous number of students and universities in their responses to Natasha Bita of The Australian today were not exactly forthcoming with their comments. They didn't exactly shed a great deal of light on this. That's why I think it's important that the government investigate this urgently and get on top of it.
QUESTION: Just referring to an article in The Age today. Australia faces the threat of war with China within three years. What do you think, is that likely?
PATERSON: Look, I don't want to comment on the prospect of conflict in that region. Australia has a very strong position, our bipartisan, longstanding position is that we don't want conflict. We want the peaceful status quo to prevail. We want the sovereignty of all states to be respected, the self-determination of all peoples to be respected. It is an alarming report in The Age today, and it is consistent with what we've heard from Admiral Davidson, the former Indo-Pacific commander, and Kevin Rudd, our former Prime Minister who spoke about potential conflicts within our region in the next five years. So, we do need to heed these warnings. We do need to be prepared, and that's exactly what AUKUS is all about. I really hope the government steps forward in the coming days and weeks with a plan to implement AUKUS as fast as possible.
QUESTION: In the event that it did happen, the panel of national security experts say we're not prepared. Australia is not prepared for a full-scale conflict. Is that a concern for you?
PATERSON: Of course, it's a very serious concern and my view is we need to do much more to be ready for potential conflict and to help prevent conflicts by discouraging and deterring them. And the best thing Australia can do on that front is to work closely with our allies and friends like the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and others to be as credible a deterrent as possible because war in our region would be catastrophic, and that's the last thing anyone wants to see.
QUESTION: And if you think that we do need to be better prepared, what are the gaps that need to be filled?
PATERSON: Well, AUKUS is about filling those gaps. That's exactly why the former government launched the AUKUS initiative with the United Kingdom and the United States because Australia needs capabilities that can make our potential adversaries think twice before they threaten our interests, our values or our citizens. And that's why AUKUS needs to be delivered on as soon as possible. I'm looking forward to the announcement from the government. Of course, the Opposition will provide bipartisan support to anything which brings forward the capabilities we need to defend ourselves and our interests.
Thank you.
ENDS
