China denies it is behind 'major' cyber attacks announced by PM – as it happened

Victoria’s brumby cull once again has been given the green light after a cattleman lost his bid to protect the animals.

AAP reports that Philip Maguire, a cattleman from Omeo, has lost his court case stop the brumby cull from going ahead.

He claimed an earlier decision was wrong and he had a “special interest” in having the animals on or near his land, which abutted the park.

Parks Victoria should have consulted about changes to the control method which included a new “kill policy”, lawyer Anthony Strahan said.

It was a controversial decision and not engaging in community consultation did not allow for a “depth of views” to be expressed, he told the Court of Appeal justices.

But the judges rejected the argument on Friday.

“The applicant lacks standing and consequently leave to appeal is refused,” Chief Justice Anne Ferguson said.

Maguire was ordered to pay the costs of Parks Victoria. Parks Victoria chief executive Matthew Jackson welcomed the decision:

Parks Victoria has an obligation to control invasive species in Victoria’s national parks, including feral horses, which cause long-term and large-scale damage to native alpine plants and animals.

It is unclear when the proposed cull will start.

And from within the Brisbane hotel, asylum speakers have spoken to Guardian Australia, saying the protests have improved their morale and have not prevented them from receiving meals or medical attention.

Hannah Ryan has the story:

And here is the latest political and industry reaction to the higher education changes, from Paul Karp.

Centre Alliance’s education spokeswoman, Rebekha Sharkie, has expressed concerns about the government’s new proposed university fee shake-up.

Sharkie told Guardian Australia she believes it is “grossly unfair” to late high school students who formed preferences before the 2021 fee changes.

While she would “need to have a good look” at the package, Sharkie said she has “some serious concerns with arts students being slugged $30,000 for a degree”.

Students could pay as much as $43,500 for a humanities degree, up from $20,400.

She said: “We need philosophers, we need political scientists, we need sociologists. I think it’s really shortsighted if … what we are going to see as a result is whole faculties gutted.”

Sharkie acknowledged Tehan’s work boosting university places but said the government should not be “picking winners and losers” by increasing some course costs by more than 100%.

“I don’t think we should be making humanities courses the enemy,” she said.

Centre Alliance’s two Senate votes will be crucial to passing the package.

The Covid-19 crisis continues to ripple through Australian sport. The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age are reporting that the A-League will move from a summer to a winter season after lining up a new deal with Fox Sports for the remainder of this season and for 2020-21, after the network abandoned its previous six-year deal. In this scenario the next season would run from December 2020 to July 2021, then the following season would be played in the calendar year 2022. We’ve seen a lot of A-League plans floated before, but you know, maybe.

If you are unsure how the fee changes will play out and feel like you need more time to study the detail, Universities Australia are with you. “We will need to examine it closely in coming days in order to understand the impact on our students including those in the humanities,” the body has said in a statement.

The Guardian’s Matilda Boseley has been interviewing year 12 students today about the drastic changes to university fees.

“It makes me so angry,” Gabby Price, 17, said. “I feel as if I can’t do what I’m passionate about because the government wants me to like something else.

“I was so excited to go do an arts degree but now I’m not sure … I have dreamt of pursuing history for years and now that might not be a reality. I could honestly cry. Spending the rest of my life broke is not what I want to do.”

Here’s her full story:

The new head of Cricket Australia, Nick Hockley, has given an interview to AAP, in which he reflects on cricket’s good fortune in so far avoiding the mayhem the pandemic has sown in other sports, and how far removed Australia is from the coronavirus crisis in his country of origin, the UK.

We’ve been so lucky this coronavirus situation hit in our off-season.

We’re also just extremely lucky in Australia. I speak to family in England and everybody knows someone who has had it, most people know someone who passed away.

And we’re here talking about crowds coming back. We’re going to restaurants. Obviously it’s all step by step and cautious, but I think there’s just so much to look forward to.

An interesting thread here about how unis and students might react differently to the higher education changes, and not create the push towards “job-ready” degrees that Dan Tehan said was the reason for the change.

And in light of the government’s announcement today, we have created this open thread for you to reflect and discuss: What is the value of an arts or humanities degree?

The lovely Naaman Zhou will take over the blog for what is left in this afternoon.

Thank you for joining me today – take care of you.

This will go on for some time.

That exchange continued:

Q: Prime minister, even though you haven’t attributed it to China, that is the, I guess, assumption among many. Are you concerned about retaliation by Beijing?

Scott Morrison: Again, I set all those issues out this morning and made my comments on that at Parliament House earlier.

Q: When you say that Australia is currently experiencing these attacks, what did you mean by currently?

Morrison: I mean currently.

Q: Are you referring to a single, specific, ongoing attack?

Morrison: I’ve already set out those issues and raised those issues in Parliament House this morning, together with the defence minister which was the appropriate place to do that and I refer you to those comments.

Q: We’re only just seeking a bit of clarification because there is a lot of anxiety since this morning’s press conference and, as you say, you don’t write the headlines but we do and we’re just trying to help clarify the situation because people aren’t clear on it.

Morrison: [Inaudible]

The prime minister did hold a press conference at Eden-Monaro as we reported, but it was impossible to hear most of it because of all the trucks in the background.

But the transcript is out and you might find this exchange interesting:

Q: Just wanted to clarify your comments this morning regarding cyber attacks. There has been some reporting there’s one major cyber attack that’s carried out on a bunch of institutions. Is that correct or is this more a case of a series of coordinated attacks over sort of recent months rather than one single act that has taken place right now attacking all of those institutions?

Scott Morrison: Well I set out all these issues earlier today and I have made my comments on those issues and set out the government’s position very carefully so I would just refer you back to the comments I made this morning.

Q: It still remains unclear to people, though: has something specific prompted you today or last night to speak to the opposition leader and the state premiers about this matter?

Morrison: It was time to ensure that we raised greater awareness about this issue, as I said this morning.

Q: But is it one coordinated attack, is the headline “Australia is under attack” right now, hospitals, schools, local government, state government, federal government?

Morrison: The government doesn’t write the headlines, Brett. The press does that and I don’t intend to interfere in that process. I have been very clear about what I’ve said about this today, earlier this morning.

And it looks like restrictions will still be eased as planned in Victoria on Monday:

Annaliese van Diemen:

We remain vigilant. We would rather have [fewer] cases than we have. Today’s numbers are less concerning probably than yesterday’s. It’s cases we don’t have known links to that are the biggest concern. There a few of those. We want to be finding the cases that are out there. We expect, as with the Stanford, at the moment we expect secondary cases when there are household contacts involved. That is not unexpected. We are remaining vigilant and monitoring every day.

Dr Annaliese van Diemen says the security guards had been trained in PPE procedures (personal protective equipment) but there would be more training now:

There’s been closer mingling of the guards than we would like in the workplace. People are friendly and know each other. But it is important we maintain physical distancing and we maintain an awareness, particularly in the hotels ... so that a number of things observed by the staff reported directly into the people managing the hotels and were being addressed before the first case became apparent. It would appear the consequences had begun.

Victorian authorities have also managed to narrow down the source of one outbreak which had been troubling them: the Stanford Hotel, which had been used to quarantine travellers.

We have a total of seven cases linked to that hotel. That includes the initial case reported on Wednesday, the five new cases yesterday, the seventh case is an existing case previously linked to another out break related to a family in the south-eastern suburbs.

Extensive investigations yesterday revealed that a person linked to that case is also a worker as a security guard at the hotel Stanford. It’s not good news we have the outbreaks but reassuring to know there is a clear source for that particular outbreak.

Here is another take on that press conference:

For those who missed it:

This follows the review in the NSW branch-stacking allegations being returned yesterday.

Christian Porter:

This is an independent decision. It seems to me that they have looked at the issue of confidence and wanted to ensure that too high a wage increase, the cost for business feeds back into confidence because they can’t employ or the business cost means they employ less. Too little and business loses confidence.

The Fair Work Commission did their best to balance, and that is a very difficult exercise. It goes to show that this alone is one small part, not an unimportant one, but a small part of many parts of an agenda of reform we need to engage in to try to ensure that businesses can grow their way out of the recession that the pandemic put us in.

Anthony Albanese doesn’t go into any further detail about who, or when or even what.

These briefings are secure briefings and I have no intention of breaching any information that I’ve been given in these briefings.

Anthony Albanese is now holding a press conference on the “cyber attacks”.

I’ve been briefed today by the heads of Asio, the Australian Signals Directorate and the head of the Australian Cybersecurity Centre. The national security of Australia is paramount at all times. There can be no more important issue and no issue that’s more important for all sides of politics at senior levels to act as one.

We understand that from these briefings the relevant federal agency that all levels of government, critical infrastructure, and the private sector are being targeted in a sophisticated state-based cyber operation.

We support our security agencies and their efforts to address the serious and growing threat. We urge all Australians, Australian businesses, and other organisations, to listen to the advice that the Cyber Security Centre provides to the public.

He says Richard Marles, Penny Wong and Kristina Keneally were also briefed by the security agencies.

Asked about humanities students being asked to subsidise other degrees, Dan Tehan says:

Well I could say that what’s been happening up until now is the – your engineers and your scientists have been subsidising your arts graduates. But what I think we need to focus on is we want our arts graduates making sure that they are thinking about the employment outcomes that they are going to get from their degree.

Tehan repeats that he wishes he had done a language when he went to uni. Asked if he would have been discouraged from studying what he did, given the changes, he says:

Look I definitely think if something like this had have been done, I would have looked at it and said: ‘OK. Well, what do I need to do to make sure that I’m going to have the skills that I need to get a job afterwards?’ Maybe, yeah, I think I should look at doing a language, should look at continuing on doing maths, or maybe I should look at doing IT. I mean, that’s one of the things that I would have loved to have done now at university that I didn’t, given the way that digital economy now is growing and more and more dominating our economy.

So they are the sorts of things that, looking back with the 2020 hindsight, that yes, I wish I have been thinking more of. I think it would have been helped me with [getting] a job if I was focused on ensuring I did have the relevant skills for the economy at the time.

What does the future look like for the university sector beyond the Covid-lockdowns?

So universities will get CPI-indexed funding going forward. That means they can grow as the population grows, as the demand for the sector grows.

But we also want to make sure that universities are continuing to drive efficiency and also that as we realign funds it is going into the areas where we think it will drive our recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

So we think that we’ve got a package here that we can help universities deliver the type of graduates that we will need as we will grow our economy going forward.

And we think that the way that we’ve shaped it will enable them to be able to meet the demand that is coming into the system: 38,000 new places will come into the system by 2023, 100,000 by 2030.

So we think we’ve reshaped the architecture in a way which will enable universities to continue to grow, along with the record funding that we’re already providing them. But also ensure that we get those job-ready graduates or nation needs.

On the cyber attack:

Asked about the number of people in the room who hold arts degrees, including himself, as well as the lack of diversity in the room, and whether limiting arts degrees to those who can afford it will further impact diversity in sectors such as media and politics, Dan Tehan says:

One of the key things that we have announced today is, in particular, we want to lift attainment rates among those from low [socioeconomic] backgrounds and from Indigenous backgrounds.

My hope is what that it will lead to is more people from diverse backgrounds being in a room like this in 25 years. When I look back at my education one thing I regret is I didn’t do a language at university because I studied politics, internal relations, because I wanted to get to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

One thing that nearly prevented me from getting a job [there] ... was the fact I didn’t have a language. So I’m not saying to students don’t study art, study humanities, but think also about your job of prospects at the end of your degree.

So if you want to do history, think about doing teaching as well so you can teach history.

If you are wanting to do philosophy, which will be great for your critical thinking, think about doing IT, so you can help in a new and emerging area where we know that is going to be jobs.

We have got to remember no student pays a single dollar upfront to study in this nation. We have the best fee Help scheme. The only way you start paying back is when you earn more than $46,000.

What this is designed to do is get more people from more diverse backgrounds into our higher education system and we are putting the funding in place to help drive that.

Dan Tehan on how the government expects the university sector change post-Covid (which, reading between the lines, means less reliance on international students):

We have seen how revenue from international students helps fund research in this country.

One of the key challenges in a post-Covid economy will be to provide a sustainable pipeline of funding for research. I want to work with the sector to achieve this.

Our government wants universities to be even more entrepreneurial and engaged with industry.

In the post-Covid world, universities need to refocus on domestic students and offer greater alignment with industry needs.

They will be required to retrain or re-skill current workers through new and targeted programs that help them get back to work.

Our educated and highly skilled workers will need a mixture of certified skills, university degrees, graduate qualifications, apprenticeships and advanced diplomas.

This means, once and for all, resetting the relationship between the two streams of education: higher education and vocational education and training.

We must enhance and improve how the two systems interact so students can move more seamlessly from one to the other over the course of their education.

National cabinet will play a central role in delivering this key reform.

Back to Scott Morrison, the prime minister says the future is all about “flexibility”. Also he says he is in the “job-making business”, in case you were wondering how the marketing phrases were going:

You know, there’s been a lot of discussion about the jobkeeper program.

And as I’ve said repeatedly, we are always – it was always our intention to review that program and get the balance right about how the government would continue to be able to support people going through these difficult times.

But it is also very important that we maintain that flexibility for businesses so they can keep people in jobs.

Lesser flexibility will mean more people will find themselves out of jobs. And so that’s why I’m highlighting this as the thing that’s going to be even more important in keeping people in jobs as we come out of the Covid-19 period.

And so the independent process has made their decision. We’ve always respected that.

What I’m saying is businesses will need continued flexibility to keep people in work, and that’s what I’d be encouraging businesses and employers to be able to arrange sensible arrangements, which means people can stay in jobs.

And as the economy continues to improve, those hours can increase, and we can hopefully get back to as much as normal as is possible. So I’d just stress the need for that flexibility. Flexibility will keep jobs and it will also, I think, make jobs.

Scott Morrison has donned the high vis and is standing in front of giant trucks at the Snowy 2.0 press conference.

For the record, this is how the government is selling it:

Minister for Education Dan Tehan will present a national press club address on job-ready graduates.

From Monday, in Victoria, restrictions are scheduled to be further relaxed.

Restaurants and cafes can move from 20 to 50 people (with social distancing). Cinemas and theatres will be allowed to open, and you can go to the pub and order a drink without needing a meal.

We’re waiting to hear from Victorian health authorities about what they are watching, given the increase in numbers of positive Covid cases in recent days: 21 on Wednesday, 18 on Thursday and 12 today.

The problem is the level of community transmission. In recent weeks most other cases have been from returned travellers who are in forced quarantine in other states. Victoria is still seeing community transmission, including at daycare centres.

The premier of South Australia, Steven Marshall, has announced Queensland visitors will no longer have to go into quarantine if travelling to SA.

Queenslanders join Tasmanians, Northern Territorians and Western Australians in being exempt from the two-week forced quarantine.

South Australia plans on completely dropping its border restrictions on 20 July.

With Australia opening back up, and all states outside of Victoria keeping a handle (for now) on community transmission, there is not as much direct Covid news to report.

As it comes in we are updating what authorities are saying. Not every press conference is shown live, and sometimes, tracking down and confirming the information takes time.

Set your phone alarms.

Also, the Five Eyes finance ministers met. Given what their operatives do, a meeting seems superfluous, but OK.

Today Australia hosted a call with the finance ministers of the Five Eyes nations – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and the US.

It was the first of what will be regular calls among the countries to discuss the economic issues associated with Covid-19.

The world is in the midst of a once in a century pandemic and the economic implications for each of our countries are profound.

In addition to the many multilateral and bilateral discussions we are engaged in, this grouping provides a welcome opportunity for further collaboration on key economic matters.

During the call we exchanged views on the various policy responses under way and lessons learned.

We will continue to work together towards ensuring global financial stability and a strong and sustainable economic recovery.

I guess when you don’t have the Global Times, you have to be a little more overt in your silent diplomacy.

The official statement on the cyber attacks Scott Morrison decided to announce today – in a press conference that seemed more aimed at international watchers than the Australian public – has just dropped:

Protecting Australia’s economy, national security and sovereignty is the government’s top priority.

Based on advice provided to the government by our cyber experts, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), Australian organisations are currently being targeted by a sophisticated state-based cyber actor.

This activity is targeting Australian organisations across a range of sectors, including all levels of government, industry, political organisations, education, health, essential service providers, and operators of other critical infrastructure.

We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting and the tradecraft used.

The Australian government is aware of and alert to the threat of cyber-attacks.

The ACSC has already published a range of technical advisory notices in recent times to alert potential targets and has been briefing states and territories on risks and mitigations.

Regrettably, this activity is not new, but the frequency has been increasing.

Our objective is to raise awareness of these specific risks and targeted activities and tell you how you can take action to protect yourself.

Cyber security is a shared responsibility of us all. It is vital that Australian organisations are alert to this threat and take steps to enhance the resilience of their networks.

All Australian organisations who might be concerned about their vulnerability to sophisticated cyber compromise can take three simple steps to protect themselves:

1. Patch your internet facing devices promptly, ensuring any web or email servers are fully updated with the latest software.

2. Ensure you use multifactor authentication to secure your internet accessible infrastructure and cloud-based platforms.

3. Become an ACSC partner to ensure you get the latest cyber threat advice so you can take the earliest possible action to protect yourself online.

The ACSC and the home affairs department has published a more detailed technical advisory with advice for Australian businesses and organisations to protect themselves, which is available here.

NSW has recorded another seven cases, but all are people who have been in forced hotel quarantine.

You can read the advice, here

The Australian Cyber Security Centre has released these details on the ongoing cyber attacks Scott Morrison chose to reveal today:

“The Australian government is currently aware of, and responding to, a sustained targeting of Australian governments and companies by a sophisticated state-based actor.

“The title ‘copy-paste compromises’ is derived from the actor’s heavy use of proof-of-concept exploit code, web shells and other tools copied almost identically from open source.

“The actor has been identified leveraging a number of initial access vectors, with the most prevalent being the exploitation of public-facing infrastructure – primarily through the use of remote code execution vulnerability in unpatched versions of Telerik UI. Other vulnerabilities in public-facing infrastructure leveraged by the actor include exploitation of a deserialisation vulnerability in Microsoft internet information services (IIS), a 2019 SharePoint vulnerability and the 2019 Citrix vulnerability.

“The actor has shown the capability to quickly leverage public exploit proof-of-concepts to target networks of interest and regularly conducts reconnaissance of target networks looking for vulnerable services, potentially maintaining a list of public-facing services to quickly target following future vulnerability releases. The actor has also shown an aptitude for identifying development, test and orphaned services that are not well known or maintained by victim organisations.

“When the exploitation of public-facing infrastructure did not succeed, the ACSC has identified the actor utilising various spearphishing techniques. This spearphishing has taken the form of:

• links to credential harvesting websites
• emails with links to malicious files, or with the malicious file directly attached
• links prompting users to grant Office 365 OAuth tokens to the actor
• use of email tracking services to identify the email opening and lure click-through events.

“Once initial access is achieved, the actor utilised a mixture of open source and custom tools to persist on, and interact with, the victim network. Although tools are placed on the network, the actor migrates to legitimate remote accesses using stolen credentials. To successfully respond to a related compromise, all accesses must be identified and removed.

“In interacting with victim networks, the actor was identified making use of compromised legitimate Australian web sites as command and control servers. Primarily, the command and control was conducted using web shells and HTTP/HTTPS traffic. This technique rendered geo-blocking ineffective and added legitimacy to malicious network traffic during investigations.

“During its investigations, the ACSC identified no intent by the actor to carry out any disruptive or destructive activities within victim environment.”

Relationships Australia has released a survey on how we feel about the easing of Covid restrictions.

As you can see, we are all over the place:

21% of people said they would only feel comfortable returning to ‘normal’ activities if a vaccine was created and in use, with a further 14% noting they would only feel comfortable if there were no active cases worldwide.

31% of people noted that socialising was good for their mental health, and as such they felt the social benefits of interaction would outweigh the risks of infection.

And on Adem Somyurek, Anthony Albanese says:

Well, I’ll tell you what: I’ve been in Eden-Monaro a lot over the last month. No one has raised any of those issues with me and it certainly isn’t raised today. What people are concerned about is jobs and the economy. I doubt whether you’d heard that gentleman’s name two weeks ago and it would have been a trivia question. And if anyone in the federal press gallery could answer it, then they would have got a pretty good prize.

Anthony Albanese has spoken at his Eden-Monaro press conference about the increase in some university fees :

Well, this is the government of $100,000 university degrees. That’s been their philosophy. They don’t seem to understand that education benefits not just an individual, it benefits the nation. And we think that if someone studies hard and does well enough to be eligible to go to university, then a society like ours should be encouraging them to do so. This is also a government that has ripped $3bn from Tafe. So if they talk about support for education programs that benefit the workforce, why have they cut $3bn from Tafe?

Why are there today 140,000 [fewer] apprentices and trainees than there were when this government came to office?

This government seems to always be prepared to sit back and watch those people who frankly don’t need government support. They’ll always do OK – people who are wealthy enough to pay high fees. But what it will do is discourage working people from going to universities.

I’m proud that Labor’s tradition when it comes to education is pretty clear. The Hawke and Keating governments increased year 12 retention from three out of every 10 kids to eight out of 10 kids. And the Rudd and Gillard government significantly expanded access to university education. And that makes a difference to the country.

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi has responded to Dan Tehan’s announcement to double the cost of arts degrees:

“Arts graduate minister Tehan’s jobs rhetoric is empty. He’s part of a government that would rather throw a tantrum at humanities students and slam them with higher fees than do the hard work of creating jobs across the economy.

“The government’s juvenile Murdoch-driven loathing of students and the humanities is on clear display today. Education isn’t just about getting you a job – it’s a public good and it’s certainly not about punishing students who wish to study humanities and the law.

“This is the government recognising the abject failure of their 2018 funding freeze and crawling back with their tail between their legs and another disastrous approach to uni funding.

“We need free Tafe and uni for all students to meet rising demand during the recession and ensure access to education for all throughout their lives. Anything short of that won’t do.

“Our unis are in crisis with rolling cuts to jobs and courses around the country. Without a substantial funding increase thousands more jobs will go and education quality will suffer.”

There is a lot of speculation about why Scott Morrison decided to announce the cyber attack today.

The question was asked. A few times. There was no straight answer, other than to “make Australians aware”.

But it was a spur of the moment decision to hold the press conference given the prime minister was meant to be headed to the Snowy 2.0 site for an Eden-Monaro byelection event with the Liberal candidate.

You can follow along with that, here:

Paul Karp is watching the Fair Work Commission which will hand down its decision on the minimum wage today.

And yes, as many people have pointed out, Dan Tehan holds a bachelor of arts from the University of Melbourne.

Not sure that is going to change his mind, however.

Tanya Plibersek and Labor have officially responded to the government’s planned changes to university:

“Young people have been hit particularly hard by this recession, and the Liberals are leaving them behind again.

“Scott Morrison wants students to foot the bill for his government’s uni changes, with fees for some degrees more than doubling.

“A couple of years ago, Scott Morrison cut uni places. Now he expects people to be grateful he’s reversed some of those cuts. Even after today’s announcement, thousands of Australians will still miss out on uni.

“There’s double the number of year 12s who want to go to uni next year, but the Liberals refuse to open up enough places for them.

“Youth unemployment’s gone through the roof in this recession: about one in six young people can’t find work, the worst situation in 20 years. If young people can’t earn, they should have the opportunity to learn. But many of them won’t be able to go uni because the government’s not providing enough places.

“It’s a shame Scott Morrison wants young people to join the dole queue instead of letting them study.

“Every one of Scott Morrison’s Liberal party cabinet ministers went to uni, but they don’t think our kids deserve the same chance.”

Helen Sullivan has the international coronavirus blog up and running:

Q: Is the motivation of these attackers to obtain state secrets and commercial intellectual property, or is it the personal data of everyday Australians?

Scott Morrison:

It is difficult to understand what one’s motivation might be for that.

What is of interest to us is that it is occurring and what we are focused on is the practices that they’re employing and we have some of, if not the best agencies in the world, working on this and that means that they are putting all of their efforts in thwarting these attempts. I can confirm that they have thwarted many, but this is a very complex area and it requires constant persistence and application and that’s what they’re doing.

I raise this not to raise the concerns of Australians but in many ways to reassure Australians that we understand what’s going on here and we are addressing it to best of our capabilities and we’re in a position to do that better than most countries in the world.

We know what is going on. We’re on it but it is a day-to-day task that we’re applied to and we will continue to do that to keep Australians safe and if there are further updates from I or the minister, we will do that and any other agencies and we will keep working closely with them.

As you know, as a result of this, I made some changes to my program this morning which I am now going to return to. I will be standing up again later today in another context but I appreciate you coming together this morning.

Q: Why do you think these institutions in these sectors that you’ve outlined have been targeted?

Scott Morrison:

It is quite broad-based and we have seen similar activity across a broad base in many other jurisdictions around the world. What that does is just highlights that this is part of the new world we live in.

Regrettably, this is not peculiar.

This is part of the many threats that Australia has to deal with and I think that highlights the government’s early action under the former prime Minister, and I remember being there with him on the day when the cyber security strategy was released.

That was a forward-thinking plan, with a forward-thinking investment and they are investments that I have continued on as prime minister – at the time I was Treasurer.

They were important investments for us to make and I am glad we made them and we’re continuing to make them.

As I flagged today, we will be making more because this is what keeping Australians safe looks like to make those investments. There can’t be any guarantees in this area.

It is an area of rapidly advancing technology but that’s why our tech experts have worked closely with the sector to give the technical advice and information that Linda [Reynolds] has outlined for you today. I really encourage people to avail themselves to that.

Many who have been working with us already have that information.

Do the government know which state-based actor?

Scott Morrison:

I am saying the threshold for being able to answer your question along those lines is very high. What I can confirm, with confidence, based on the advice, the technical advice that we have received, is that this is the actions of a state-based actor with significant capabilities. There aren’t too many state-based actors who have those capabilities.

Q: You say we haven’t reached the threshold for public attribution – that won’t stop people speculating it is China, particularly in light of their anger and trade retaliation for your inquiry into coronavirus. What do you say to people who will link it to China and naturally think it is China, given they have form in this field?

Scott Morrison:

I can only say what I have said. The Australian government is not making any public attribution about these matters. We are very confident that this is the actions of a state-based actor. We have not gone any further than that. I can’t control what speculation others might engage in on this issue or, frankly, any other. I have simply laid out the facts as we know them and as we have disclosed today.

Q: When did this attack start and when was it brought to your attention? Also, you said you’re raising it to raise awareness in the community and business and governments but is there something about the scale of this attack that is unprecedented?

Scott Morrison:

I don’t know if I would use that word. As you’ll recall some time ago, I spoke of these issues in the parliament, so this is ongoing activity. It hasn’t just started.

This is a constant threat to Australia, as it is to many other nations and you would be aware of many other nations having highlighted similar activity in their jurisdictions.

This has been a constant issue for Australia to deal with and so I wouldn’t say that there has been any one event or any one instance. We have been dealing with cyber security threats from state-based actors for some time and I’ve alerted the public to that before.

It has been an issue of ongoing management, defence and cooperation, working with private operators, other governments, all levels of government and other organisations.

Q: Is this the act of a friendly nation?

Scott Morrison:

I have made my statement on the issues you raised.

Q: There was quite a list of sectors and levels of government that you’re talking about. Can you break that down into entities – are we talking hundreds here, thousands who have been targeted?

Morrison:

There are many that have been targeted but, in terms of their success, that is not as significant.

We will continue to work closely with the agencies. Today is about raising the awareness and those who are engaged in this are not doing this to help us. That’s certainly not their intention. You could describe it as malicious and that is why our awareness levels need to be raised.

Who was it?

The threshold for public attribution on a technical level is extremely high. Australia doesn’t engage lightly in public attributions and when and if we choose to do so is always done in the context of what we believe to be in our strategic national interests.

What I can confirm is there are not a large number of state-based actors that can engage in this type of activity and it is clear, based on the advice that we have received, that this has been done by a state-based actor, with very significant capabilities.

Were Australian’s personal or financial details at risk?

Scott Morrison:

The advice I have is that the investigations conducted so far have not revealed any large-scale personal data breaches.

Can our partners and allies help?

Morrison:

We work closely with, particularly our allies and partners when it comes to managing issues of cyber security threats. That is a constant topic, as you would expect, particularly through Five Eyes partners. I spoke to Boris Johnson last night about a range of matters, including this one and there are a number of engagements with our allies overnight.

The press conference moves to questions – Scott Morrison says he told Anthony Albanese about the issue last night, and has also spoken to the state and territory leaders:

To reinforce the point, we raised this issue today not to raise concerns in the public’s mind but to raise awareness in the public’s mind. This is the world that we live in. These are the threats that we have to deal with.

The fact that these threats present is not a surprise in this world in which we now live and the actions that we are taking are the actions that we need to take and we will continue to be as vigilant as we possibly can be.

The defence minister, Linda Reynolds, reads from her own statement:

All Australian organisations who might be concerned about their vulnerability to sophisticated cyber compromise can take these three simple steps to protect themselves.

Firstly, patch your internet-facing devices promptly, ensuring that any web or email servers are fully updated with the latest software.

Secondly, ensure you always use multifactor authentication to secure your internet access, infrastructure and also your cloud-based platforms.

Thirdly, it’s important to become an ACSC partner to ensure you get the latest cyber threat advice to protect your organisation online.

Today the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the Department of Home Affairs have published a very detailed technical advisory which is available at cyber.gov.au. This advisory provides all the necessary steps that Australian organisations must take to detect and also to mitigate this threat.

He finishes on this:

Australia has some of the best agencies in the world on these issues and Australians, like I, I believe have confidence in those organisations and they are doing their job and they are doing it effectively but that is not to diminish or discount the risks that we now face in this modern world.

These risks are present, they will continue to be present. It is part of the world in which we live and it is why these investments are necessary and the protections we put in place are necessary. The way we have to work together is necessary and we will continue to do everything we can to keep Australians safe.

The PM continues:

We have also invested a further $156m to build cyber resilience and expand the cyber workforce as one of our election commitments and we invested additional funding for a whole-of-government cyber uplift program, but in this environment, of course, and increasingly, there is always more to do and we must continue to work together. Cyber security is a whole-of-community effort – government, industry and individuals.

That is why we are raising this matter today, to raise awareness of this important issue and to encourage organisations, particularly those in the health critical infrastructure and essential services to take expert advice and to implement technical defences to thwart this malicious cyber activity.

Scott Morrison:

The ACSC has also been actively working with targeted organisations to ensure that they have appropriate technical mitigations in place and their defences are appropriately raised.

Thanks to the cooperation between the affected entities, the Australian Cyber Security Centre and a range of private cyber security providers, we have been working together to thwart this activity. The purpose of raising this matter here today is to simply raise awareness of these specific risks.

They’re not new risks but they are specific risks and the targeted activities and to advise you how Australians, and particularly these organisations, can take action to protect themselves. The government’s 2016 cyber security strategy backed a $230m investment over four years.

This has strengthened Australia’s cyber security foundations and stimulated private sector investment in cyber security and positioned Australia as a regional cyber security leader. The government will release a new cyber security strategy in the coming months and that will include significant further investments.

Scott Morrison:

We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting and the tradecraft used. The Australian government is aware of and alert to the threat of cyber attacks. Our government’s expert agency on cyber matters is the Australian Cyber Security Centre. It has already published a range of technical advisory notices in recent times to alert potential targets and has been briefing states and territories on risks and mitigations. Regrettably, this activity is not new. Frequency has been increasing.

A reminder, ahead of Dan Tehan’s university speech, which comes amid record highs in unemployment, and a one-in-one-year recession (as well as you know, climate change), that among those who will suffer the most are those kids born under the Coalition’s “baby bonus” scheme, where Peter Costello urged parents to have “one for mum, one for dad and one for the country”.

Australia is still holding on though.

First it was Andrew Hastie – now Peter Dutton is defending Anthony Byrne.

Byrne is a Labor backbencher, and deputy chair of the parliamentary intelligence committee. But he has some friends on the other side of the chamber – here was Dutton talking about him on the Nine network this morning:

Oh I certainly like him and I think he’s so done a great job in the intelligence committee. I think he’s got a very sensible perspective on dealing with counter-terrorism laws. He’s an area expert – a subject matter expert and he’s really done very well in that committee. I don’t know the detail of what’s going on in the Liberal party, obviously – in the Labor party obviously ...

I am not going to criticise, frankly, I’m not going to criticise him for the language. It was a private text message. Now, if you can say hand on heart or Richard can or I can, that you haven’t used bad language in private then you know good luck to you but that’s not the reality for most adult Australians.

And if it’s something that he said publicly on The Today Show this morning, that is inappropriate for kids to hear, well he should say sorry. In terms of people getting worked up about the language within the text, that’s not the issue here, the issue is that there’s corruption, deep corruption within the Victorian branch of the Labor party and it needs to be dealt with – and it needs to be dealt with sooner than later.

The prime minister is holding a press conference in the Blue Room at 9am.

Everyone is out and about on the Eden-Monaro byelection campaign trail today.

Anthony Albanese and the Labor candidate, Kristy McBain, are at a childcare centre at Jindabyne.

Scott Morrison and the Liberal candidate, Fiona Kotvojs, are headed to the Snowy 2.0 site.

Matt Canavan and Susan McDonald and the Nationals candidate, Trevor Hicks, are holding an event in the Senate courtyard.

On criticisms that the government is dismissing the skills that come with arts degrees – such as critical thinking – Dan Tehan says:

No, not at all. We want students to be able to critically think. We know that’s going to be an important skill when it comes to jobs of the future but we also want to make sure that those students have got the skills in the areas of where the jobs will be. So if you are going to do philosophy, we want you to think about doing a language. If you are going to do ancient Greek, do IT with it. Just make sure that you are thinking about getting the skills that you’ll need to get a job beyond your degree.

The government wants to shake up the university sector, doubling the cost of an arts degree, but decreasing the cost of “job-ready” degrees – Paul Karp has covered off the changes here.

Dan Tehan was asked to explain why on ABC News Breakfast this morning:

What we want to do is first make sure that we’ve got additional places in the system because we know as a result of the coronavirus pandemic we’re going to see more demand for places in the higher education system and also we want to incentivise students to undertake courses that will give them the skills to take the jobs of the future. We need young Australians to help us grow our economy through the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic and what this is all about is incentivising people to look at teaching, to look at nursing, to look at allied health, to look at engineering and to look at IT because we know that the jobs of the future will be in those areas.

The conversation then moved on to Anthony Bryne:

Q: What about Anthony Byrne? These text messages today in the paper where he is talking in really bad terms about women and ethnic minorities. What you make of his dealings?

Albanese: I have counselled him about the nature of those text messages, they are inappropriate. But when I am at the childcare centre here in Jindabyne this morning, or when I am meeting with small business in Thredbo with Kristy McBain, guess what? They will be talking about jobs, talking about the economy and talking about the withdrawal of support. They’re not really interest in text messages between two individuals, provide for some headlines. Australians are focused on what is happening to them and that is my focus as well. I am not going through the details of the text messages between individuals.

Q: I too care about Eden-Monaro. Unfortunately for you guys, the media is talking about branch stacking in the ALP right now. If you want to be prime minister, have you not got to sort out your ranks? What is going on with Anthony Byrne? He is the department head of the parliament intelligence committee?

Albanese: No, he is the deputy chair. And the chair, Andrew Hastie, the Liberal party chair, gave him a glowing character reference just this week and said that he was serving the national interest on that committee, which is a committee that operates on a bipartisan basis. We dealt with these things when we intervened into the branch on Tuesday night. Daniel Andrews took swift action. He showed real leadership about what was happening in the Victorian branch.

And the national executive responded appropriately. Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin – I cannot think of two people who have been involved in political life who have more integrity than Steve and Jenny. They have been put in charge of making recommendations. They will do that. They are now in charge of the branch as the administrators and that is a good thing. We have acted swiftly. And what I am doing is getting on with the job of issues that are of concern to Australians.

Anthony Albanese was also asked about the Victorian Labor branch-stacking allegations while on the Seven Network this morning:

Q: You have some other issues at the moment that we want to get to. The Victorian ALP branch-stacking scandal. The Victorian politician at the centre of this, Adem Somyurek is now threatening legal action against those who secretly recorded him. Are you confident that you and federal MP Anthony Byrne will not be implicated in this if it all airs in court?

Albanese: I am certainly confident that I knew nothing about any of this until Sunday night when it was shown.

Q: You knew nothing about any of this?

Albanese: I knew nothing about it. I was told there was going to be something on 60 Minutes, I watched the show. I met Adem Somyurek I think once in my life, I have probably been in the same room as him a few times. I’m not familiar with him.

Dan Tehan was asked about the future of jobkeeper while speaking to the ABC this morning:

So what the government is doing at the moment is having a review of jobkeeper. It’s methodical. We are getting all the data that we need to make the key decisions going forward, which will strengthen our economy as we come out of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now we said that we would review jobkeeper in June and that’s been undertaken.

I know that the Treasury are giving a lot of thought to the recommendations that will go into that review and then the government will consider it in July. So that will be done in a very considered, methodical way and in a way that we think will ensure that we continue to grow our economy and grow jobs out of this coronavirus pandemic.

Scott Morrison, when asked about the future of jobkeeper and jobseeker yesterday, didn’t give any concrete answers.

There are reports that the wage subsidy will become more targeted, something that has been floating around for awhile.

That most likely means businesses that look like going under, or will never open again, but are now remaining “running” under jobkeeper – the so-called “zombie businesses” – will fall off, and industries that need the support will see it directed to them.

In terms of jobseeker, which the Covid supplement has doubled to $1,100 a fortnight, the signs are pointing to it being raised from the old $40-a-day rate, which no one considered livable – but don’t expect it to sit around the current rate, either. Neither the government or Labor support it sitting above the pension (although the easy solution would seem to be to raise the pension, but that apparently is crazy talk).

Anthony Albanese was asked about what he wanted the government to do, while speaking to the Seven Network this morning:

The real unemployment rate is already about 11.3% if you take those people who simply have given up looking for work and this is having a devastating impact.

We need sectional packages to support industries like the arts and entertainment sector. We need to make sure that those workers who have missed out completely from jobkeeper, like the dnata workers – they used to be called Qantas Catering. It is not their fault that the company got taken over but they have missed out on support here.

We can’t leave people behind. The truth is, today is exactly 100 days until jobkeeper stops and people literally will fall off a cliff.

The idea that you can just withdraw all that support at one point in time, childcare workers have already been thrown off jobkeeper from next week, and it is going to have a real impact. The government needs to put in place an economic strategy that has jobs, jobs and jobs as its three priorities.