{"id":37528,"date":"2020-10-07T04:35:41","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T04:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b1adfc41-a146-4e0e-91cf-9f1b36bb6c47"},"modified":"2020-10-07T04:35:41","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T04:35:41","slug":"budget-2020-australias-cyber-dollars-are-full-of-stale-hot-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/budget-2020-australias-cyber-dollars-are-full-of-stale-hot-air\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget 2020: Australia’s cyber dollars are full of stale hot air"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison<\/p>\n

<\/span> Image: IBM <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Australia’s federal budget papers<\/a>, which dropped on Tuesday night, make it clear just how little attention the government is paying to its cyber policies and to good governance generally.<\/p>\n

ZDNet has already reported how most of the Budget was pre-announced<\/a>, with those previously-announced figures included in the totals of supposedly new spending. In reality, though, it’s even worse.<\/p>\n

Yes, the “additional $201.5 million” to help deliver the nation’s disappointing Cyber Security Strategy<\/a> is just another part of the AU$1.7 billion over 10 years already announced<\/a> in August. <\/p>\n

Yes, the vast majority of that total figure is the AU$1.35 billion cyber kitty<\/a> for the Cyber Enhanced Situational Awareness and Response (CESAR) package already announced with much fanfare back in June.<\/p>\n

Yes, it’s a re-announcement of a re-announcement. New is not new.<\/p>\n

But look more closely and you’ll see that CESAR isn’t even an additional investment.<\/p>\n

“This measure will be offset by redirecting funding within the Defence Portfolio,” says Budget Paper No. 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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To be fair, CESAR was something that would’ve been built anyway. Eventually. Probably. It was just given a shiny name to become part of a Scott Morrison prime ministerial announceable. New is not new. <\/p>\n

Even this is a cyber throwback, according to Labor’s Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cybersecurity.<\/p>\n

“This government first announced<\/em> funding for an ASD [Australian Signals Directorate] threat sharing platform in the 2016-17 Budget,” Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cybersecurity Tim Watts tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“But you know, ANNOUNCING and DELIVERING are different things for this government. Still not delivered yet.”<\/p>\n

And all of this is spread “over 10 years”, or three election cycles. The Cyber Security Strategy still doesn’t specify a target date for any of this happening.<\/p>\n

According to Home Affairs’ Portfolio Budget Statements<\/a>, that would be too hard.<\/p>\n

“Due to the ongoing nature of the program, it is not appropriate to set an expected date of achievement,” it wrote.<\/p>\n

I guess that’s true, given that the strategy itself has so very few measurable targets.<\/p>\n

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