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Anthony Albanese has declared Optus should be made to pay for new personal documents after the sensitive details of almost 10 million customers were stolen in a data breach.
The prime minister told parliament on Wednesday the hack had caused millions of Australians "stress and worry", while lashing the coalition for calling on the government to cover the costs of issuing passports.
"That's not our approach, we believe that Optus should pay, not taxpayers," he said.
"When customers hand over their data to companies in Australia they expect that it will be kept safe and this kind of data breach should be an absolute wake up call to corporate Australia."
Mr Albanese said Foreign Minister Penny Wong had written to the telco's chief executive about the matter.
Taking up the issue in parliament, Mr Albanese said the opposition had failed to legislate tougher privacy laws during almost a decade in power.
"That is a big difference between us and those opposite somehow attempting to to play politics," he said.
The prime minister revealed he had been briefed by cyber security agency, the Australian Signals Directorate, on Friday and spoken with the Optus CEO on Saturday.
A review into privacy laws is ongoing.
Meanwhile, Australia's banks and financial regulators have met to discuss how they can help protect the almost 10 million customers whose sensitive details were stolen in the Optus data breach.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government had been "working around the clock" and on Monday he had brought together Treasury, the banks and regulators to address privacy and data retention concerns.
"We want to ... make sure that if there's more that can be done by financial institutions to monitor risks and protect consumers, then that should be done," he said.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said affected customers shouldn't be out of pocket, and called for the government to waive fees, or pay for them and seek to be reimbursed from Optus.
Mr Dutton said the coalition was open to legislation that would impose fines on telcos for similar breaches in the future.
Health Minister Mark Butler said it was "deeply unfortunate" the government was only notified Medicare details were included in the breach in the last 24 hours.
The government is being urged by the coalition to waive the fees for new passports needing to be issued following the breach.
Opposition cyber security spokesman James Paterson and opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said Mr Butler should provide advice on "what direction he has provided his department to actively protect the confidential personal Medicare numbers".
The FBI is joining the Australian Federal Police in probing the alarming incident.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus revealed the international cooperation as the group behind the breach scrapped its ransom demand and claimed to have deleted the 11 million customers' records it scraped from the telco's website.
The attempt to force Optus to pay $US1 million ($A1.54m) by Friday was dropped hours after the group released a batch of 10,000 Australian customers' sensitive details on a data breach forum on the clear web.
The illegally obtained information includes passport, Medicare and driver's licence numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and information about whether a person is renting or living with parents.
Several state governments have struck agreements with Optus to protect customers whose driver's licences were compromised.
In Victoria and NSW, people can get replacement cards and Optus will cover the costs.
Optus says it has sent emails or SMS messages to customers whose details were compromised and apologised for the concern it has caused.
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Queensland will have no regular reliance on publicly-owned coal plants and get as much as 80 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2035 under an ambitious energy plan.
It relies heavily on the rollout of wind and solar projects in regional Queensland, supported by a big investment in pumped hydro schemes to act as renewable energy storage.
In detailing the plan at the CEDA State of the State on Wednesday, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced a pumped hydro site 70 kilometres west of Mackay known as "the battery of the north".
"It will be the largest pumped hydro storage in the world with five gigawatts of 24-hour storage," Ms Palaszczuk said.
A second two gigawatts pumped hydro scheme near Gympie has a target completion date of 2030 and will store enough power for about two million homes.
The Queensland Energy and Jobs plan represents $62 billion worth of investment in public and private sectors to 2035, including a down payment of $4 billion committed by the state government over the next four years.
It means the state will legislate new renewable energy targets of 70 per cent by 2032 and 80 per cent by 2035.
The plan would also deliver a 50 per cent reduction in electricity sector emissions on 2005 levels by 2030, and a 90 per cent reduction by 2035/36, Ms Palaszczuk said.
Existing publicly-owned coal-fired power stations will become clean energy hubs including grid scale batteries and gas power stations that will eventually be fuelled by hydrogen.
"These sites will continue to be critical to the future, just with different fuels - the sun, wind and hydrogen," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"We won't convert coal power stations until there is a replacement firmed generation."
The state plans to build a gas-to-hydrogen plant at Kogan Creek on the Darling Downs by 2027 that will initially produce power from a blend of the fuels.
In 2035, when stage two of the Mackay pumped hydro scheme comes online, Queensland will have no regular reliance on coal, Ms Palaszczuk says.
"We will keep our coal-fired power stations as a backup capacity until replacement hydro energy storage is operational," she said.
A new energy workers charter and job security guarantee will mean workers are given job opportunities in publicly owned energy businesses or elsewhere in the public sector.
"This energy workers charter is world leading and an Australian first," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"I want to recognise the advocacy of unions led by the electrical Trades Union and the Mining and Energy Union on landing this charter and jobs guarantee."
A $200 million down payment to the regional economic futures fund will support communities that are home to coal plants.
"We will now have the investment certainty to fabricate transmission towers in Queensland, build components to wind turbines and recycle and manufacture batteries," the premier said.
"I welcome investors in this room today to join this conversation on how we can strengthen regional economies around these clean energy hubs."
It's anticipated the plan will create 100,000 new jobs by 2040, with the majority in regional parts of the state where 95 per cent of the investment will be spent.
A new "SuperGrid" will help connect green energy generators, and it's hoped as much as 22 gigawatts of new renewable capacity will be unlocked.
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Australia's banks and financial regulators have met to discuss how they can help protect the almost 10 million customers whose sensitive details were stolen in the Optus data breach.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government had been "working around the clock" and on Monday he had brought together Treasury, the banks and regulators to address privacy and data retention concerns.
"We'll do our best to resolve these issues as soon as we can as part of a suite of broader efforts," he said.
"We want to ... make sure that if there's more that can be done by financial institutions to monitor risks and protect consumers, then that should be done."
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said affected customers shouldn't be out of pocket, and called for the government to waive fees, or pay for them and seek to be reimbursed from Optus.
Mr Dutton said the coalition was open to legislation that would impose fines on telcos for similar breaches in the future.
Health Minister Mark Butler said it was "deeply unfortunate" the government was only notified Medicare details were included in the breach in the last 24 hours.
The government is being urged by the coalition to waive the fees for new passports needing to be issued following the breach.
In a joint statement, opposition cyber security spokesman James Paterson and opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said Mr Butler should provide advice on "what direction he has provided his department to actively protect the confidential personal Medicare numbers".
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said passports had multiple layers of security and were still safe to use.
"Any costs associated with replacing documents, frankly ... it shouldn't be the commonwealth government or any other government that is bearing the cost of what is at its heart ... a stuff up by Optus," he told Sky News.
Meanwhile, the FBI is joining the Australian Federal Police in probing the alarming incident.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus revealed the international cooperation as the group behind the breach scrapped its ransom demand and claimed to have deleted the 11 million customers' records it scraped from the telco's website.
The attempt to force Optus to pay $US1 million ($A1.54m) by Friday was dropped hours after the group released a batch of 10,000 Australian customers' sensitive details on a data breach forum on the clear web.
The illegally obtained information includes passport, Medicare and driver's licence numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and information about whether a person is renting or living with parents.
Several state governments have struck agreements with Optus to protect customers whose driver's licences were compromised.
In Victoria and NSW, people can get replacement cards and Optus will cover the costs.
Affected customers in Queensland and South Australia can organise replacement licences free of charge, while the ACT and other jurisdictions are still working through the issue.
The hackers said they would have alerted Optus to its vulnerability if the telco had a secure method to contact or a bug bounty.
Optus says it has sent emails or SMS messages to customers whose details were compromised and apologised for the concern it has caused.
But it insists payment details and account passwords were not compromised.
The privacy commissioner has urged Optus customers to be vigilant and not click on any links in text messages.
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All the government's resources are being thrown at helping protect Australians who had their details stolen in the Optus data breach, says Health Minister Mark Butler.
Mr Butler said it was "deeply unfortunate" the government was only notified Medicare details were included in the breach in the last 24 hours.
"All the resources of government are going to protecting consumers in the face of this extraordinary breach of their personal data," he told ABC radio.
The government is being urged by the coalition to waive the fees for new passports needing to be issued following the breach.
In a joint statement, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham and opposition cyber security spokesman James Paterson said it "wasn't good enough" affected customers had to foot the bill for the telco's mistake.
"Victims of the Optus cyber hack should not have to wait or pay significant amounts of fees to secure their personal information, and obtain a new passport," the statement reads.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said passports had multiple layers of security and were still safe to use.
"Any costs associated with replacing documents, frankly ... it shouldn't be the commonwealth government or any other government that is bearing the cost of what is at its heart ... a stuff up by Optus," he told Sky News.
Meanwhile, the FBI is joining the Australian Federal Police in probing the alarming incident.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus revealed the international cooperation as the group behind the breach scrapped its ransom demand and claimed to have deleted the 11 million customers' records it scraped from the telco's website.
The attempt to force Optus to pay $US1 million ($A1.54 million) by Friday was dropped hours after the group released a batch of 10,000 Australian customers' sensitive details on a data breach forum on the clear web.
The illegally obtained information includes passport, Medicare and driver's licence numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and information about whether a person is renting or living with parents.
Several state governments have struck agreements with Optus to protect customers whose driver's licences were compromised.
In Victoria and NSW, people can get replacement cards and Optus will cover the costs.
Affected customers in Queensland and South Australia can organise replacement licences free of charge, while the ACT and other jurisdictions are still working through the issue.
The hackers said they would have alerted Optus to its vulnerability if the telco had a secure method to contact or a bug bounty.
Mr Dreyfus told parliament a whole-of-government response had been launched, with the AFP not only working with government and industry but also the FBI.
The attorney-general also expressed concern Optus did not report the exposure of Medicare numbers in the breach.
Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie described the government's response to the hack as "lacklustre and slow".
They said the Department of Foreign Affairs was advising on its website that "if you choose to replace your passport you'll have to pay" as the department was not responsible for the data breach.
Optus says it has sent email or SMS messages to customers whose details were compromised and apologised for the concern it has caused.
But it insists payment details and account passwords were not compromised as a result of the attack.
The privacy commissioner has urged Optus customers to be vigilant and not click on any links in text messages.
© AAP 2022
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