BEN CASHMAN:
It's great to welcome Minister Collins here today to The Project Lab offices in Hobart, and her team. The Project Lab is a management consultancy spread across the state. We have offices in Launceston and Hobart, and our mission is to make Tasmania the most liveable island in the world. And a really core part of that is helping small businesses that are the lifeblood of our economy and our communities really thrive and grow. Part of the work we do is around cyber. Now there are many aspects of cyber – we have cyber risk and security – but really, it's about helping those businesses that are doing really good work continue to do it long into the future. This time of year, as well, is really important to focus on making sure as business owners we’re safe, we’re resilient. And some of the work we can do there to help improve our businesses is being supported by Minister Collins and some of the other state government. So I'd like to formally welcome Minister Collins.
JULIE COLLINS:
Thanks, Ben. It's terrific to be here at The Project Lab in Hobart. It's also terrific to have with us the Council of Small Business, the federal representative and CEO Luke, and of course our local state representative here Rob Mallett. People of course know Luke and Robert are big supporters of small business, as am I. And so it's great to talk to The Project Lab about the important work they're doing.
As we've heard, this festive season a lot of small businesses will be increasing their transactions. This will be putting some of them more at risk of cyber attacks. What we want to do as a government is support small businesses to build their resilience and improve their cyber security. Today, of course, we're launching the Cyber Wardens program. The Cyber Wardens program is one of three programs that we've announced to support small businesses and their cyber security. So we're talking about three programs. The Cyber Wardens program, which is around $23 million with the Council of Small Business. We’re also talking about the health check. We’re also talking about building resilience, but importantly dealing with small businesses and giving them a line that they can call when they're under attack and indeed post attack. So the Cyber Wardens program is now up and running, and I think Robert’s going to talk to you about being a cyber warden and what that means. The program should support around 50,000 businesses across the country.
The federal government is investing more than $40 million in supporting small businesses, and the cyber security impacts that they could have. We know that cyber incidences were up 23 per cent last year. We also know that the average cost for a small business is around $46,000. This could have a very serious impact on small businesses. So coming into this festive season, as small businesses and many of their activities pick up, we say to them ‘be cyber aware’. We are working on programs that we already have up and running, the Cyber Wardens program to support small businesses, but organisations like The Project Lab here are also able to support small businesses build their cyber security and their resilience to cyber attacks going forward. I'll now hand over to Robert to talk about it, and I’ll do questions later.
ROBERT MALLETT:
Cyber security is the biggest headache that small businesses don't know they've got. Over these next few years, we will all be invaded. There'll be a silent killer that will come in through our emails, and they want us to click their emails. That could lead us to oblivion as small business owners. So now that we've got a Cyber Wardens program – which is not difficult to use, it doesn't take excessive time, but will take you through all those basics that every single small business owner and their staff need to know, is fantastic. Less than 15 per cent of all small businesses actually use an IT professional. So they try and do it themselves. So at least the Albanese Government has come up with $23 million to actually support small businesses to actually be able to do it themselves, to become cyber safe and to be able to teach your staff to be super secure. It doesn't just extend to staff – it then extends to your family. What you do at home can be equally as important as what you do in the workplace, especially for small businesses because we take our laptops home. We take our phones home, and we're equally as at risk of being scammed, spammed or money stolen from us, no matter where we are. So the Cyber Wardens program is fantastic indeed. So it's not something that's just going to last a couple of years. This is something that needs to be ongoing for a decade, so that small businesses, generation after generation, can actually start getting on top of the criminals are trying to steal our money.
JOURNALIST:
When you speak to your members, do they find this is one of their top three concerns about how to protect themselves?
MALLETT:
They’re concerned, small businesses are concerned that cyber security is a risk. Many of them don't know how to attack it. They're not sure how to protect themselves properly. They just don't. And when you get an email from the tax office that says you owe money or you're going to jail, it's an automatic thing to click on it and click the link and say what's going on. I don't know how much I owe them. When in fact, the first thing you should be doing is clicking on the sender's email and seeing if you recognise that at all, because it's likely to be junk. And if it's junk, flick it.
JOURNALIST:
You've taken the course, is that right?
MALLETT:
I am a cyber warden. I travelled to Melbourne, and I went through the program and we went with Telstra who are a major partner of the Cyber Wardens program. It was really interesting. Some of it you start off and think, ‘this is a little bit simple’. But just amazing – you get into the program, half an hour in, and you start realising ‘gosh, I'd forgotten that, I didn't know that’ and so it's a fantastic opportunity. Even if you think you know it all, go through the program. It takes about an hour and 10 minutes, and you walk away feeling much more secure, that you actually know what you're going to do.
JOURNALIST:
So when you go and do your business now, you feel much more comfortable dealing with these types of issues?
MALLETT:
I feel much more comfortable looking at emails that I'm not sure about. And knowing that if I'm not sure I flick it, don't click it. Because I know that that person – if it's urgent, they'll come back to me. If somebody wants me for one reason or another, they'll come back to me. If it's a slightly dodgy looking email, and so many of us because we need so many different email addresses these days, it's not always immediately apparent what that email is coming from. So absolutely feel much more confident when I'm dealing with 50 or 100 emails coming through every day that I know that I'm not going to make a mistake.
JOURNALIST:
How detrimental can an online cyber attack be to a small business?
MALLETT:
An online cyber attack for a small business can end up being the death of that business. Not only then becomes the death of the business, the family can get disrupted. Families fall apart, and mental health issues absolutely take over. One of the biggest issues we have to find is get small business people, the owner – small business people, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of attacks every single day. We need small businesses who have been attacked, own up, stand up, tell everybody else that you've been attacked. Do not be embarrassed. These things happen to the best of us. But your standing up, your owning up and your telling us about it will actually support small businesses across the country to be able to stop this in the future.
JOURNALIST:
Is that something that – you were talking about the lack of knowledge, but the pride of people feeling embarrassed, does that also make them feel not as capable or comfortable admitting to being cyber attacked? Is this something you're hoping to change with this being a cyber warden as well.
MALLETT:
Small business owners are the proudest people in this country. We vacuum the floors, we buy the stock, we pay the staff, we pay the rent, we sell a product. We know everything about our business. One of the things we know least about is how with the way AI and spammers and scammers are now attacking us, we're not experts when it comes to that. And so we can be easily fooled. Let's not be easily fooled, and so we need to reach out. We need to. There is never too much information you can get about being cyber secure.
LUKE ACHTERSTRAAT:
CEO at COSBOA, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia. It's great to be here at The Project Lab, and what a great Tasmanian success story The Project Lab are. Ten years in business and consulting, and 85 staff. So an example of a small business growing and shooting the lights out with ongoing success. So thanks very much, Ben. COSBOA is really pleased with this federal government's focus on cyber security. They've really identified that small business is the key. This idea of actually upskilling and promoting cyber awareness for small business was very much overdue, and we thank the government for their attention on this particular issue. A range of programs, $40 million of funding being rolled out the door in consultation with COSBOA and our various members, we think it's going to have a really big impact. It's about reducing risk for small business. In the lead up to Christmas, a lot of our small businesses will be expecting to make over half or even two thirds of their annual revenue this Christmas. So this festive season, they need to really mitigate their cyber risk – do the Cyber Wardens program, make this summer about creating some good habits for yourself. We all have our New Year's resolutions on the 1st of January, be that exercise or diet goals, let's make another New Year's resolution to be cyber fit, get cyber healthy, and really make sure that your small businesses is set up for success into 2024. Use those resources available and spread the word. Share that with your employees. share that with other small businesses. to really reduce what can be one of the most fatal and scary risks that might occur to a small business during the course of their entire history. Thank you.
COLLINS:
Questions, questions on cyber security first, then other questions?
JOURNALIST:
We’ve obviously seen in the last 18 months, with big business being the victims has there been a bit of a conversation from the big businesses have gone through that small businesses probably need this support a bit more.
COLLINS:
Well working as a Government on the Cyber Security Strategy more broadly, we've identified small businesses as one of the risks and that they need our support. Small businesses are 97 per cent of all businesses in Australia, they contribute half a trillion dollars to our economy last year, $500 billion last year, they employ over 5 million Australians. It's important that we work with small businesses to help build their resilience and to help protect them from cyber security attacks. As we've heard, these can be fatal to some small businesses. But for those that it isn't, it still has a really big impact. We're talking about an average of $46,000 per impact, per incident, per small business.
JOURNALIST:
For small businesses that $46,000 mark, that's a reasonable amount of turnover isn’t it?
COLLINS:
It certainly isn't. It's very difficult for small businesses to understand, you know, when they're hit with a cyber attack, what to do, where to go. The Cyber Wardens program is about building resilience and protecting them in the first place. And then our other programs we’re rolling out next year that actually supports small businesses during an attack and post-attack. But importantly, we'll also have that health check. So this will be able to get small businesses to understand what data they hold, where it's held and what they can do to protect it and whether or not they even need to hold it.
JOURNALIST:
I just had one more question in terms of this is Christmas time, obviously, that we're coming up to this very important time to really be thinking about your cyber health, because, you know, if you go down now Christmas shopping could be impacted?
COLLINS:
Well as we've heard, this is a very critical time of year for many small businesses. For many small businesses. They do a lot of increased turnover during this Christmas New Year period. So it is important that with all those additional transactions that they understand that puts them more at risk, and they need to be cyber aware. And the Cyber Wardens program can support them to do that by doing as we've heard from Robert Mallet that bit over an hour, an hour and a half, to do the Cyber Wardens program so that they can be more cyber aware to protect their businesses.
JOURNALIST:
Not sure if it's relevant or not, but Tassie had that leak earlier in the year I guess, will something like this bring more peace of mind to small businesses across the state.
COLLINS:
This is all about supporting small businesses so that they understand their business better. They understand how to protect the data they hold and what data they should hold and where it is held. This is about supporting small businesses to become more cyber aware and more cyber resilient. We're saying to small businesses if you think you have an issue, come and join the program and we will provide that support through COSBOA and the Cyber Wardens program.
JOURNALIST:
Can I ask on another issue? Just on housing, in your housing portfolio, Infrastructure Australia has released a report today about a shortage in trades and labour and the workers to build it. Is this something that the Government is concerned about? A shortage of workers to actually build the houses that that are needed?
COLLINS:
Absolutely. We signed our Housing Accord with the industry, with the construction sector, with the three tiers of government, the other tiers of government. Because we are serious about working with them on addressing the housing shortages across Australia. We had an initial target of 1 million. At National Cabinet, we've increased that to 1.2 million homes from 1 July 2024. To meet that target, we of course, need to skill up more Australians to be able to build houses, we also need to look at different construction methods, we need to look at supply chains. We're doing that whether it be Brendan O'Connor through Jobs and Skills Australia, whether it be through our Free Fee TAFE, or whether it be through the National Reconstruction Fund, making sure that we have the supplies and the materials, we need to be able to hit that 1.2 million homes across Australia. We've obviously also as part of that decision got states and territories committed to do planning and zoning and other reforms to make sure that we can get those homes out of the ground more quickly.
JOURNALIST:
Are you confident that you can do it by just skilling up Australians?
COLLINS:
Well, we know that of course, we need to have some skilled migration, and we need to skill up more Australians. And as I said, we're doing that through Fee Free TAFE, through additional university places. Right across government, we are aware of some of the constraints in the construction sector and what we need to do. We also know that some of the constraints that have been in the construction sector are starting to alleviate and will particularly early next year, which means that we can fill the supply of more homes with particularly public and social housing.
JOURNALIST:
And you just touched on, you know, in terms of skilled migration yesterday and the Migration Strategy, Clare O'Neil as the Minister, you know, there's a carve out in this Migration Strategy that they won't be looking for the skills on demand for full tradies because essentially, there isn't a shortfall but this report does suggest otherwise and yourself said that there is a shortfall so how does that align with the migration strategy?
COLLINS:
Well, of course Jobs and Skills Australia and the sector and the industry have identified that we do have skill shortages when it comes to tradies whether that be electricians, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers. So what we're doing is we're working to skill up more Australians, we're looking at alternative construction methods. But importantly, we are also looking at the Core Skills Pathway, which will mean that overseas people will be able to come into Australia in 21 days or less in terms of the processing of their visa. So this is the second tier of visas that were announced as part of the Migration Strategy yesterday. We are aware we do have a shortage, we're working with the sector and the industry, we want to address it. The Master Builders Association put out a release yesterday welcoming the Strategy. This Strategy has been worked on right across government. There are obviously some really specialised, very highly skilled places such as you know, quantum mechanics and things like that, that are on that very top tier. But we absolutely understand that we have a skill shortage when it comes to tradies across the country. In the short term, that'll mean more skilled migration. Long term, we want to skill more Australians.
JOURNALIST:
On another topic, Minister can we expect more cost of living measures in tomorrow’s Budget update?
COLLINS:
What we've been doing is providing cost of living support to Australians in a way that puts downward pressure on inflation. We know that we have to get that inflation genie back in the bottle and you can see that some of the things that we've been doing have had an impact. Whether that be the Commonwealth Rental Assistance, largest increase in more than 30 years, they have said has put downward pressure on rental inflation. Our direct energy bill relief that people would have had on their energy bills, we know that that has reduced energy bills by more than would have otherwise. We know that that is also putting downward pressure on inflation. So you know, we're always looking across government about what we can do to put cost of living support to families and to small businesses. But importantly, we need to do it in a way that doesn't add to inflation.
JOURNALIST:
So obviously, you don't want to add to inflation, but inflation remains high for many coming into Christmas. Are there any changes? Or can we expect anything tomorrow?
COLLINS:
You'll have to wait to see tomorrow. But importantly, we already have cost of living relief. We've got cheaper medicines, cheap childcare, with the energy bill direct relief that we're providing, you know, we're working with small businesses in terms of the Instant Asset Write Off, you know, we're talking about almost $300 million of cash flow support for small businesses. So right across the board, we're providing that cost of living support where we can in a way that doesn't add to inflation.