Security of Critical Infrastructure 2021 - (Status Update)

Review by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS): Public Hearing Thursday 20 May 2021

Review of Part 14 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 – Telecommunications Sector Security Reforms.

The Public Hearing is the first following a request for public submissions to address the national security aspects brought into focus on the TSSR review by the advent of the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020 (SOCI).

An agenda of the hearing is attached.

Aspects of Part 14 to the TSSR reflect the crossover and duplication of security areas addressed in the TSSR, and potentially overtaken by the SOCI legislation before the House.  Telcos are seeking that Pt 14 is retained separately from the SOCI amendment as the SOCI legislation is far more prescriptive than that of the TSSR.

Testimony revealed a pattern of consistent concerns:
- lack of transparency in Government policy setting and intentions.
- duplication of effort across State and Federal reporting requirements.
- poor to non-existent information sharing across Government agencies - this causes business reporting duplication and repetition.
- the cost of reporting and compliance is rising and is not addressed in any fashion by ongoing and new Government requirements.

Article attachments

• Public Hearing program 20 May 2021 (25 KB PDF file)