The federal government on Monday published an exposure draft on the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020. It seeks to amend the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 to implement "an enhanced framework to uplift the security and resilience of Australia's critical infrastructure".
The Australian government's Critical Infrastructure Resilience Strategy currently defines critical infrastructure as: "Those physical facilities, supply chains, information technologies, and communication networks, which if destroyed, degraded, or rendered unavailable for an extended period, would significantly impact the social or economic wellbeing of the nation, or affect Australia's ability to conduct national defence and ensure national security".
Within the broad definition of critical infrastructure, the Act currently places regulatory obligations on specific entities in the electricity, gas, water, and maritime ports sectors.
"However, as the security landscape evolves, so must our approach to managing risk across all critical infrastructure sectors," the Bill's explanatory document[1] [PDF] said.
As such, the amendments in the Bill are aimed at enhancing the obligations in the Act, and expanding its coverage to the communications, financial services and markets, data storage and processing, defence industry, higher education and research, energy, food and grocery, healthcare and medical, space technology, transport, and water and sewerage sectors.
It is proposed that responsible entities for these assets would also fall within the proposed new definition of "national security business". The Minister for Home Affairs would also have the power to declare a critical infrastructure asset as a "system of national significance".
The communications sector is defined in the Bill as those supplying a carriage service; providing a broadcasting service; owning or operating assets that are used in connection with the supply of a carriage service; owning or operating assets that are used in connection with the transmission of a broadcasting