Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, , 9:13:35 to 9:30:16
Senators raise concerns about gym capacity, change rooms, and the management of security camera footage at the new leased office facility in Sydney.
Topics: National security, Procurement
Speakers: Celia Perkins, Senator Jessica Collins, Meghan Quinn, Speaker 30, Unknown Speaker, Raff Ciccone
>> I'd have to take that on notice, Senator, but we have quite a degree of flexibility in the terms of the lease.
>> Perhaps Mr. West might be able to answer that one. You've overseen the infrastructural upgrades.
So uh as I indicated in my testimony last week um we don't at this stage anticipate undertaking works. We do anticipate un um using the flexible workspace it is designed to be within the parameters of its design. So the we are able to move walls without um what I would call construction. We're able to move desks. Um so we anticipate that. As far as I'm aware at the moment we're not uh anticipating what I'd call constructional work. So, I don't believe so, but we will take on notice whether we would be required to if we needed to
>> You've you've done you've done about $83 million worth of works in there previously. Did you have to uh get that? No. And what about having a zone 5 area in there? Will you have to get that approved?
>> No, Senator. Um just to clarify and thank you that that makes your question a bit clearer. Uh uh the terms of the the lease uh arrangement, I just want to um perhaps correct something. Senator Ble asked in the previous set of questions, the overall contract value is for is for the totality of the lease, not annually. It's just an important distinction to make. But in the terms of that lease arrangement, it is both uh the the 10-year lease and extensions and the fit out. So, in the way I describe that um security elements and the broader fit out, defense is responsible in the terms of the lease for that. And within um that we have um as Mr. described um the ability to to add the extra cabling for more ICT and so on and so forth. It would be if you wanted to do quite significant um structural work as described.
>> Just um Secretary the the um contract that I tabled before, can you just confirm for me that that's for the lease at Defense Plaza Sydney, >> And if it's not, what is it?
Uh so I am not an expert in the way um or have the history but I do believe uh the numbers line up um but is it
>> look without going back to the team and sourcing the original documents I believe this is from a previous answer we've provided that the property team provided so I have no reason I'm I'm happy to check again.
>> Okay. Well, I'm just a little confused before because you said that the lease was signed in 2020 and yet this is saying um the
>> No, Senator, we in the discussion with the chair, we were talking about the approvals uh to proceed with the lease. We've discussed this u with you before Senator um uh once the approvals from government are uh undertaken then there's often a period of um negotiation uh and I believe we've confirmed in the past that the execution of the lease and that would have involved a period of um uh um negotiation around the terms the fit out and so forth was executed in early February.
>> Okay. Who uh was the minister that signed the lease in February 2021?
>> So the signature of the lease would have happened within defense the delegated authorities that flow from the minister
for finance. >> Who is the minister responsible for that
>> Um so I know we've had this conversation also before. Senator um uh this was um uh just following a federal election but the this was a decision held over you know approved in the previous government. Um, I'm I'm going to uh take on notice who in my organization signed the lease, but it would most likely
>> That's okay. I don't need to know the person. I just want to know that the minister overseeing it. Um, I've checked February 23 was uh Defense Minister Miles, but just wanted to clear that up. Um, just back to Defense Plaza Sydney. Um, our soldiers have to pass a BFA every Uh, what's the gym like? How how how much capacity does the gym have at Defense Plaza Sydney?
>> Uh the gym is about half the floor plate of of a floor of the building. So 14th
>> So how many people can you fit at the gym at a time?
>> Um so Senator it would seem to have reasonable capacity for an office gym. It's part of the work we're doing with army on the um transition plan. What
would you say for re um how many people are going to be uh in Defense Plaza? >> Let's say at the you know, not full capacity. Are we talking hundreds? >> It's going to be hundreds of people at Defense Plaza.
>> Uh Senator, Defense Plaza has currently 1,146 work points.
>> Okay. And uh how many people do you think you could fit in the gym?
I I could take that on notice, but I use a lot of defense gyms around the estate. I would I would estimate that it's about twice the size of the Campbell Park gym. It's a good gym.
>> I don't know. Let's not worry about the gyms. >> Well, um >> how long have you got mindful due respect? A few more questions. So, >> half half a floor is going to fit about 10 people at a time when you've got uh serving personnel that need to do exercise every single day. I'm just trying to understand how you're going to cater for that. uh passing your BFA every year is a requirement.
>> So we've taken on notice the capacity constraints of the gym. There will be oper operational requirements about how many people can operate it safely to the we're happy to take that on notice. Uh of course we would be uh factoring that into the elements uh that we need to provide for services. Um just to be clear, not all of the 500 or so people are moving uh to the defense plaza. Some are going to uh to the braick instead. So you're talking sort of hundreds of people, not thousands of people.
>> Yeah. And you'll you'll be coming back with the numbers of people that you'll expect to have in there on a daily basis. >> Um how many Thank you. How many There was a question asked previously. How many uh change rooms are there?
>> I'd have to take that on notice.
>> Thank you very much. I would appreciate that. Just back to the um the question of security cameras. Uh we never really got an answer on that one. um what measures are in place uh to ensure that the cameras in the rest of the building, particularly in the lobby, uh and if there is a car park for a select few of people underneath uh or out on the street as you enter the building. uh what what measures are in place to ensure that that security footage uh doesn't go to people, companies, private companies, governments uh that we don't want to
have that footage. Uh, Senator, I can only repeat uh comments I've made earlier that for every facility that we operate and we operate many lease facilities, we undertake a security risk assessment and then we match the security treatments to the assessed threat. Um, we wouldn't treat Defense Plaza Sydney any different to any other facility uh unless uh there was a change in in in that threat setting. Okay. Uh we have many many uh office facilities in many many locations and our people do move freely throughout the community.
>> Not all of them have forces command in them. Uh what is the security assessment of Defense Plaza Sydney and the footage that could be captured through cameras
in the lobby. Senator, as I've um mentioned earlier, uh the current tenency of Defense Plaza Sydney includes a great many different elements of the defense organization. Um the incoming uh forces command uh colleagues don't materially change the overall threat
>> I'm asking what happens with the security footage.
>> Why don't we take that on notice?
>> Who who owns it?
>> I'd have to take that on notice. So you
don't know you you're you're you're the deputy secretary of security and estate group and you don't know where the security footage goes, who owns it, what happens to it, what are the limitations around it, what are the constraints around it, what what measures are you going to put in place to protect our people.
>> So Senator, we've said we will take that on notice. Um I just note that's a very specific, very technical question. It would be known uh within the department. um and we we're happy to take it on notice. But as uh Miss Perkins has said, the current assessment is that the addition of the particular people who will be particularly moving don't change their overall threat assessment at this point. Obviously, we keep that under review. Um part of the assessment about who goes where as a result of the change would have gone to the functions and capability and risks of the activities that they're undertaking. That is part of the operational concerns that we undertook as we did the integrated assessment about the transition
>> All right. A question on policy then. What what policy have you put what measures have you put in place to protect the security footage that is taken in that lobby. I'm not asking who owns it. I'm not asking where it's going. I'm asking what have you done? You've made an assessment of it.
>> So we've made
>> is your assessment that you don't need
to do anything. So, we've made an assessment that there's no material change to the risk factors at as a result of a few hundred people moving from one location to another.
>> I'm not saying moving, I'm saying going in and out on a daily basis
>> and transitioning in and out um as well. Uh so, we're happy to take on notice uh to provide you the approach that we take which has been articulated at a high level in these estimates and previous um committee discussions. We take out this this we take the approach to protecting our staff, both APS, ADF, and contractors seriously. We do risk assessments across all 10,00 locations that people operate out of. We then put in place mitigation strategies. Um, it is the case that uh there are ongoing assessments about technology. Uh we can all be photographed and and tracked in ways that we weren't able to before. that is a concern across the whole estate and it's part of uh we talked earlier about the Luan incident. So it's something that we have front of mind when we talk about the security of our staff. It's no different uh in terms of entering and exiting existing locations or new locations. We do an assessment on the basis of the facilities and the functions that are occurring within.
>> Okay. What is your security assessment specifically? That was all sort of broad policy. What is your security assessment specifically of Defense Plaza Sydney and the security that they have, the security cameras that they have, the infrastructure that Have you done will you have Yeah. What what what's security going to have at the front? What what's your what's your And you mentioned before, just so I can get this question right, get the answer right, I want to be really specific about this. You mentioned about you you make assessments on the security vectors. What is your assessment of Defense Plaza Sydney and the interaction the public, people we don't know going in and out of the building alongside our defense personnel.
Senator, for Defense Plaza Sydney and for every Defense site that we operate, um the process is essentially the same. So I won't speak specifically to Defense Plaza Sydney. We've already taken that on notice, but I'm happy to
>> just your security assessment of it. You just specifically
>> assessment, >> if I can describe how it will help us frame how we can come back to you on this. >> We undertake annually a defense security threat assessment. We do that with very close consultation with AIO. uh and that sets out and CDF referred to some of them this morning the the core security threats and risks as they acrew to defense across a number of vectors foreign intelligence collection counterterrorism insiders maverick individuals and so forth. We then require at every base or facility level uh the local base leadership, our senior ADF officer and and the base support team to undertake a risk assessment for that site and then to use both the existing physical and other security controls in place and any additional issues that they identify as important to that site uh that they can then uh work with us to apply locally. There is a requirement for every site to do that annually where they can enact those controls or additional controls if required locally. They do that. If they were require more support, they escalate that through a formal process.
>> We're about to break for I'm going to have to stop you there. I was very very specific about my question. It's about your assessment of Victoria Barracks and you just used words there about security control. So my I'm going to I'm going to reframe the question for you. What security controls have you put in place for the camera infrastructure that is in of Defense Plaza Sydney?
>> We've taken that on notice, I think, Senator.
>> No, no, no. It's security controls. What security? What do you do? How how do you stop it from, >> you know, being used, sold, watched by people that you don't know? We're happy
to take it on notice, but there's a series of assumptions uh in that I'm hearing in in relation to your qu question uh which is presuming that there's an additional vector for security cameras in in uh this particular location. Uh I am not sure uh whether that is true or not. Uh and so we are happy to take it on notice. Um uh there is video cameras in lots of different locations etc. that vector of concern is not just in this location um and would exist now uh against the existing functions and so we've taken it on notice happy to provide it but I just want to be clear that uh not necessarily agreeing that there has been that there is an increased risk from the movement of a few hundred people into a facility that fits over a thousand >> but we're very happy to take it on
>> just to um you oh you were treasur you went Department of Finance previously, but there was a a shift before to change the camera infrastructure, wasn't there? You know,
>> so there there's there has been uh a tightening of security across a lot of different vectors uh including anything that um the video cameras, drones, uh lots of different things there that that comes under the whole different set of uh security procurements, including purchasing IT equipment, etc. phones. So, we are aware of all of those
security. I'm I'm just asking about few years ago there was a change of the um video c the security cameras uh because we couldn't control where those images were going. >> That was the national senator that's not
correct. Um a number of years ago under the direction of the deputy prime minister we undertook an audit of all defense sites of the um country of um origin of manufacturer of CCTV cameras. um they are closed circuits um and and they they by definition weren't internet connected um but it was part of a broader approach around um controlling the supply chain uh and we um worked through and where we had uh Chinese manufactured CCTV cameras removed and replaced them across the defense estate.
>> So what I'm asking is have you checked defense plaza Sydney >> for those sorts of
>> Look we've taken this on notice in a couple of different ways. Uh I I I want
to check that that was part of the work
that we did. Well, I just want to be really sure that um it's it's a number of years ago that activity uh and whether a distinction was made between on the owned or least estate. In my view, it should have been the least estate, but I need to check and and we will take that and come back to you on that. Senator,
>> uh, just as the the deputy secretary of the security and estate group, you do not know whether you've checked that element of security at Fence Plaza.
>> Senator, when we did that work, I I would pour over the list every week. It's been a number of years since we did that work. I would like to just refresh and make sure we get the correct answer for you.
>> Okay. Thank you very much.
>> All right. Now, I understand Senator Shoebridge, you've got seven minutes.