On March 3, 2015, then-Attorney-General George Brandis and the then-Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, gave a solemn undertaking in response to the parliamentary committee that had examined, and approved, Tony Abbott’s data retention legislation. In the view of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, if the government was going to force companies to retain the private information of citizens, citizens needed to know they would be told if their stored information was stolen. “The Committee recommends introduction of a mandatory data breach notification scheme by the end of 2015,” its final report said.
Brandis and Turnbull supported that. “The Government agrees to introduce a mandatory data breach notification scheme by the end of 2015, and will consult on draft legislation,” they said. It was clear cut, and the government had more than nine months to get it up and running.
If Turnbull and Brandis had fulfilled their commitment, the Commonwealth Bank’s customers would not now be wondering why the bank had left them in the dark over a major data breach involving 12 million accounts, leaving it for Buzzfeed to tell them. Instead, the CBA deliberately refused to inform them that account information had gone missing and, to date, remains unaccounted for. The timing is perfect given it was only on Tuesday that an Australian Prudential Regulation Authority found that the CBA was complacent and had little interest in customer outcomes.
What happened to the promise from Turnbull and Brandis? They sat on their hands and did nothing while the Attorney-General’s Department, having secured its ambition to impose mass surveillance on Australians, dithered. Nothing happened until December 2015, when the bureaucrats finally released a discussion paper. The Greens’ Scott Ludlam had already asked Brandis why nothing had happened by that point. Brandis — ever the careful parser of words — had changed his position. “I should have said the government intends to introduce legislation before the end of this year,” he corrected himself in Question Time in October of 2015. Remember, his and Turnbull’s commitment was that the scheme would be introduced in 2015 — not just the legislation establishing it.
As it turned out, courtesy of Turnbull’s decision to call an early election, they didn’t even meet that watered-down deadline. It wasn’t until a year later, in October 2016 — after the Commonwealth Bank had decided to keep secret its massive data breach — that the bill was introduced. If that could be blamed on the election, the government then dawdled and the bill wasn’t passed in the House of Representatives, and then the Senate, until February last year — almost exactly two years since Brandis and Turnbull promised it would be done. And even then, there was a year’s delay between royal assent to the Act, and its commencement. So, in the shadows on the third anniversary of Turnbull and Brandis promising a data breach notification law by year’s end, the actual scheme commenced on 22 February this year, way too late for the CBA’s customers.
A cynical observer might think the government had been trying to protect big companies from public exposure of their stuff-ups. But of course, we know that couldn’t be true.
What a coven of liars – but that’s all right, “it’s only politics”?
The contemptible behaviour of the banks was encouraged by a thumbs up from the LNP and certain journalists, who continually kept saying “we’ve got your back”, most notably the Australian and AFR crews.
Aaron Patrick’s (AFR) performance on the Drum yesterday was truly bizarre, when he suggested that the struggle for people with low wages was an “emotional irrelevance” to any economic discussion; that continually referring to trickle down policy was ignorant snobbery (!?!). What’s next for Aaron, joining the Outsiders?
Urging us to “Listen to the experts”????
Like the wishful Patrick and his beloved BCA : ‘Just ignore the abundance of evidence contradicting the BCA BS line being peddled and those experts that don’t support that alt-right ideology’?
Yes, apparently any position can be supported by “experts for hire” these days. The opposing experts’ view however (Keane’s position on the Drum) just happens to be supported overwhelmingly by worldwide social data on wealth disparity – something Patrick would not address, and just continually kept sliming away from.
Imagine the implications if the editorial staff (seemingly existing in a world of theory and ideology) of a “newspaper” that ostensibly exists to “review financial news”, seemed to understood SFA about how the financial system works in reality?
Weep, or gnash your teeth! Truth, honesty, accountability; no more lodestone(s) of governance. How quick, democracy erodes. Transparency, merely a carriageway for deceit.
Quick, contact Michaelia, she’s good at chasing up mobs who allegedly may possibly perhaps have broken a regulation or law. And, just to make sure it’s handled properly, she’ll get the AFP, dozens of them, and the media, dozens of them, on the job.
Buzzfeed again?
How are they getting all these juicy drops? There is yet another story lurking in that direction.
I will endorse this criticism of Brandis and of Turnbull.
But the CBA cannot escape responsibility by claiming they were not compelled by the legislation to disclose their loss of customer personal information. The bank had a duty of care to customers and breached it and fully merits a class action. Where do I sign?
Quite apart from the legal consequences are these. A bank runs on trust. Its directors are selected upon that criterion above all. If trust fails, a run on a bank will break it in days (ask any Greek). The challenge for Australian customers is: where to take their business?
The entire industry in Australia, including its regulators, is undeserving of customer trust.
For Truffles to ask that he now be trusted to fix the problem is the kind of brazen, stupefying arrogance to which this government has sunk. He (and his learned friend Brandis) has eagerly participated in one Parliamentary wild goose chase after another while letting core business rot.
“For Truffles to ask that he now be trusted to fix the problem is the kind of brazen, stupefying arrogance to which this government has sunk.”
For mine the problem was evident in the msm the day after Trumble replaced Abbott. When questioned about his wealth Trumble batted further questions away by inferring it was vulgar to talk about money and the msm obligingly shut up.
He is PM of Australia, he has $200 million salted away in the Caymans and we should all just shut up and accept it? We get the government we deserve so long as we keep accepting such deferential treatment of the obscenely wealthy.
Yes the very best thing he could do for this country is pissoff and live with his millions in the Caymans, and if they wont take him, go anywhere else but back here
Explain to me again how banks are better than bitcoin?
I’ll explain it after the Royal Commission into Bitcoin submits its report. 🙂 Seriously, most national currencies still represent something concrete, Bitcoin only exists as data and only has the value its purchasers ascribe to it. They aren’t comparable, Bitcoin isn’t a currency – yet.