Huawei is the most audited, inspected, reviewed, and critiqued IT company in the world, Australian chair John Lord has said, arguing again for the Chinese technology giant to be allowed to take part in 5G build-outs across the nation.
Speaking to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Lord said that Huawei equipment has been used by telcos in Australia for almost 15 years, and there has never been a national security issue.
"After every kind of inspection, audit, review, nothing sinister has been found. No wrongdoing, no criminal action or intent, no 'back door', no planted vulnerability, and no 'magical kill switch'," Lord said.
"In fact, in our three decades as a company no evidence of any sort has been provided to justify these concerns by anyone -- ever."
Lord said Huawei is also offering to open an evaluation facility allowing government officials to carry out testing of its equipment at a classified level with access to the company's source code and hardware schematics, as it has in the UK, Canada, and New Zealand.
In this way, Australia's intelligence agencies can be sure there are no national security issues in any of its equipment, the chair added.
"We have end-to-end cybersecurity across our whole global supply chain ... and we also continue that end-to-end cybersecurity from the point of manufacture to delivery, implementation, and through the maintenance stage, so there's so many chances to check for vulnerabilities, and that's what we'll offer our clients," he said.
Lord also pointed out that all other technology and networking vendors have similar global supply chains, including Nokia, Ericsson, and Apple, with many parts made or assembled in China.
"When Huawei was excluded from the