Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee, , 2:22:38 to 2:28:57
DPS details mandatory parliamentary privilege training for staff and the commencement of the Parliamentary Information and Cyber Resilience program.
Topics: Parliamentary privilege, National security
Speakers: Jaala Hinchcliffe, Nicola Hinder, Hon Jane Hume, Unknown Speaker
>> Okay. Uh recommendation three is about induction and annual mandatory training and I'm wonder whether the induction and mandatory training has been updated in accordance in
>> so the principles haven't been um
finalized yet really do one before the other
>> but as I gave um in evidence at last estimates um we have and and a big shout out to the sergeant and the usher for this um every month they hold parliamentary privilege training um which DPS PS staff are invited to go to. We had 11 sessions or we will have 11 11 sessions this year. The next session, and this is a call out to DPS staff, the next session is on the 4th of November. There's when I looked um late last year, last late last week, there was only 12 seats available. Um so DPS staff, if you haven't been, you need to get yourself onto that. Um we have made it mandatory for our um for new staff on induction to go to parliament uh privilege training. We'll also work once the principles have been um finalized, we'll work with the usher and the black the usher and the sergeant on that in terms of that training and we're also looking at how we can um work on some uh online training as well um as a refresh. I also mentioned that we do um SCES training uh which is a a training just for our SCES cohort. Thank you again to the deputy clarks who came on the 5th of August to train all of our SCES and do an up an update to our parliamentary privilege training.
>> Okay. Um I suppose it may be too early to ask this but I will be asking for an understanding of um the uh completion rates particularly by seniority and contractor class when that has been done. I should ask uh h have have have you done the training and and I suppose I should ask whether both of you have done the the training that specifically we're talking about now.
>> We both went to the training on the 5th of August. Um and um I've been to um many training including many training sessions including training that I had the deputy clerks come and take at Akley when I was there when we were getting ready to move into the MAC.
>> Right. Okay. Uh the what are the d can you tell me what the any departures have been from that first from the draft to the final principle since the 12th of May? Have they been
>> the um the principles uh didn't uh had didn't refer to the procedures that we put in place on the 2nd of January. So we're um making sure that those procedures are a u mentioned in there. Um and we've also talked about um the um some of the additions in there including um the level of authorization um and whether that should be left to the accountable authority to um decide given that the these principles should be able to be applied across parliamentary departments and I am conscious that I have got um more staff at a higher level >> than in the other parliamentary departments. So there's been a discussion about that as well.
on notice, could you please give the committee an aggregate count and uh actually look, don't worry about that one. I'll I'll come back to that. I think I'm probably jumping the gun a bit. I do want to ask about the Department of Cyber Security if I can. So um obviously you're well aware of the very publicized well publicized incident involving services Australia. I'm however I'm interested to know whether you're aware that this obviously was an AI agent that accessed information that was not secured appropriately and I want to understand whether the department has undertaken any work to identify uh information that is similarly not secured uh to an approach by an AI agent in your
>> Uh good morning Senator uh Nicola Hinder deputy secretary and chief operating officer. I'm also going to ask Mr. Mike Webb to join us at the table in case you are after more technical details. Um but the one thing that the department has been focused on to a very high extent over the course of the last 12 months is as we have recognized to this committee and in other submissions. The department has recognized that the operations of the parliamentary computer network needed to be uplifted >> during the course of the last 12 months as well. The department has also been uh uh the subject of a very beneficial review by the Australian National Audit Office into cyber security and information management. As a result of that, the department was successful in the budget round to receive funding to be able to uplift information across the PCN. And that's in the Mike always laughs at me with this because I should know the acronym and I don't. the picker parliamentary information and cyber resilience program. As part of that that is going through a comprehensive review of the matters and detail systems that we operate on the PCN and undertaking uplift across them all. I think it is also fair to say though as well that it is a very dynamic environment when it comes to cyber security. Um, everyone across the room, everyone that sits in our ICT area is very mindful that it is a brave new world and there are vulnerabilities being exploited um, at every opportunity. DPS has got a very strong approach to cyber security and we are taking it very seriously as evidenced by the uplift work that we are undertaking. To date, while we have had some impacts that have flown through, the majority of our work has actually shown improvements in the fundamental operating basis of our system and that will continue to improve.
I've got some more questions about this.