PM: Australia's security focus is Asia and reveals cyber security blueprint

A NEW national cyber security headquarters will be set up to fight increasing online threats as part of a new security blueprint revealed today.

A NEW national cyber security headquarters will be set up to fight increasing online threats as part of a new national security blueprint revealed today.

The plan, Strong and Secure: A Strategy for Australia's National Security, has nominated cyber security as one of three specific areas for the country’s defence, law enforcement and intelligence communities to focus on over the next five years.

The new headquarters, touted as a world-class facility, will combine existing cyber security capabilities across the Attorney-General's Department, Defence, ASIO, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission before the end of this year.

Launching the plan in Canberra, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the strategy also called for an increased effort to foster effective partnerships between states and territories, foreign governments and business.

She said the third measure was to focus on enhanced regional engagement in the Asian region as the area increases it influence amid the rise of China and India.

Cyber security incidents have jumped 42 per cent in the past two years and the government is planning to focus on the issue as part of the roll-out of the National Broadband Network.

"Malicious cyber activity will likely be with us for many decades to come, so we must be prepared for a long, persistent fight," Ms Gillard said.

Ms Gillard said she decided to formulate a strategy because national security was the most fundamental task of government, we are transition to a new decade after the post 9/11 era and the massive eight per cent of Budget funds that are used in the area.

The plan will be updated every five years.

Her cyber security plan was announced alongside a strategy to deal with identified risks to our national security, including traditional and familiar risks such as espionage and foreign interference, state-based conflict and coercion.

"The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, specifically Iran's nuclear program and North Korea's continuing missile and nuclear programs, which are serious threats to world peace and regional stability," she said.

Other risks are terrorism and violent extremism and an increasing burden from serious and organised crime.

Ms Gillard highlighted Iran's nuclear program and North Korea's continuing missile and nuclear programs as serious threats to world peace and regional stability.

"Our principal national security focus will be on our own region, as the global economic and strategic centre-of-gravity continues to move east, bringing great opportunities but also risks and challenges that must be managed," she told the audience at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Ms Gillard said the government would develop a national security capability plan to complement the defence capability plan.

She hoped this would help end the "silo mentality'' that often stopped effective communication between different parts of the federal government as well as state and territory governments, foreign governments and business.

The focus on enhanced regional engagement reflected the shift in global strategic and economic activity to the region around Australia, Ms Gillard said.

She noted the relationship between China and the United States would "determine the temperature of regional affairs in coming decades" but was optimistic about their ability to manage change in the region.

"The remarkable growth we see in Asia could not have happened without an environment of relative peace and stability," she said.

"Continuing and deepening that climate of relative peace and stability is at the forefront of Australia's national security agenda."

Ms Gillard's announcement comes as Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Australia has more pressing security concerns than those posed by the rise of China.

Mr Abbott said the most important security threats Australia faced were "Islamist terrorism" and global instability.

"We live in an unstable world and it's important Australia can play its part in our region, and further afield, to do what we can to make the world safer and better, and that's why we are involved in Afghanistan, for instance," he said.

He said the economic, and therefore military rise of China, and cyber attacks were part of that mix of global instability.

"That's obviously an element," he said.

"But in the end, we have to be ready to defend our interests, our values, and our people wherever they are at risk."

He said the rise of China had been extremely good for Australia.

"The rise of China has enabled us to sell far more iron ore, far more coal, far more education exports to Chinese students," Mr Abbott said.

"Inevitably as China becomes more economically powerful, it will become more militarily powerful, and that does raise some issues.

"But in the end, the most important security threats we face are Islamist terrorism and an unstable world," he said.