Home Affairs gets no new funding to set up national office for cyber security

A new national office for cyber security is being set up with no additional funding to Home Affairs, a department that faces an ever-expanding remit and “structural underfunding”.

The establishment of the office was announced by Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil in February, when it was described as a new coordination point for cyber incident response, among other functions.

More details of the national office have now emerged, including that Home Affairs was allocated no additional funding by the government in order to stand the office up.

Agency officials said late last week they were continually being loaded up with additional responsibilities by successive governments, while having less funding year-on-year to work with.

The officials specifically called out cyber security as an area where responsibilities were being laid on without new funding, and the admission that the national office is one of those responsibilities adds weight to the department’s assertions.

In addition to the lack of extra funding, it has emerged that the new national office for cyber security will have five full-time equivalent (FTE) staff that are “directly allocated” to its activities.

This includes a new coordinator role that the government is currently recruiting for.

In addition, Home Affairs said it would offer support from “at least 50 FTE from across the department, and more as required in the context of a significant incident.”

While O’Neil had initially suggested the national office could be opened by as early as March, the open date is now being targeted as “no later” than May 1.

There would also need to be some discussions with the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) on roles and responsibilities.

“The national cyber security coordinator and the national office for cyber security will regularly engage with ASD including formalised engagement through operational protocols that will outline roles and responsibilities, including during cyber incidents,” department officials said.