December 2, 2022
The Canberra building that houses the offices of top Home Affairs executives including department secretary Mike Pezzullo is watched over by security cameras made by Chinese companies that have been banned from the US and UK on national security grounds, leading to demands the equipment be “ripped out” of government offices across the nation.
The cameras, made by Chinese surveillance equipment manufacturer Dahua, are installed as part of the building security systems at Home Affairs headquarters at 4 National Circuit, Barton, in the heart of Canberra’s so-called Parliamentary Triangle.
The building is across the road from the Attorney-General’s department and around the corner from the headquarters of the secretive Office of National Intelligence.
Cameras and equipment made by Dahua, as well as Chinese device maker Hikvision, have long been the subject of concern among intelligence experts, who say they can be used as spyware even when users think they are turned off.
Recently both the US and UK have expanded restrictions on the use of Hikvision and Dahua because of national security fears and concerns the companies have helped aid Beijing’s brutal repression of ethnic Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang province.
“HikVision and Dahua cameras have no place in the heart of our national security policy community,” Senator James Paterson said.
“We should follow our closest intelligence and security partners and rip them out of all government buildings, starting with the one in the same building that senior executives of Home Affairs work from.”
At a Senate hearing Deputy Home Affairs Secretary Marc Ablong said that the cameras were operated by the building’s owners and would be the subject of negotiations when it came time to renew the lease.
“I think that is a legitimate area for the Department to engage in conversations about (with the landlord)”, Mr Ablong told the hearing.
However Mr Ablong also admitted that the federal government has no “central repository” of the manufacturers of security cameras across government departments or whether they have been made by Chinese manufacturers.
Mr Paterson said he would make inquiries across the government to find out this information.
“We need to know where these cameras are and I am concerned that Home Affairs does not know whether other government departments have these cameras installed.”
“I have submitted a question on notice to every government department and agency to find out,” Mr Paterson said.
A Home Affairs spokesman said: “All devices included in Australian Government networks are subject to a security risk assessment by the relevant entity. The UK and the US have made sovereign decisions based on their own assessment of their specific needs, and according to their national interests.”
