Australia's Cyber Diplomacy: Ten key points

In 2025, the contribution on Australia by SCI Director, Greg Austin, to a multi-year efort to anlyse global cyber dipmacy was published.

Here are ten short quotes drawn from the chapter:

• “There are two elements of Australian cyber diplomacy that dominate all else: the Five Eyes agreement… and an extremely close bilateral security alliance with the US.” 

• “With the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the cyber world for Australia became a much more dangerous place… Australia began to focus on cyber surveillance… in ways that tested civil and political rights.” 

• “APEC became an early vehicle of Australian cyber diplomacy… on counter‑terrorism, including the strengthening of critical infrastructure protection.” 

• “In pursuing human security in cyberspace, Australia has been active… but its actions… have varied in consistency and effectiveness… Australia’s actions in the area of international responses to cybercrime have been weak.” 

• “By 2014, cyber threats to Australia began escalating from espionage to geopolitical confrontation with China and Russia.” 

• “The emergence of AUKUS in 2021 signalled a sharpening of Australia’s alliance relationships on the cyber front.” 

• “The single most important characteristic of Australian cyber diplomacy has been the contrast between the professionalism of the… officials… and their relative lack of enthusiasm for the full potential of the globalised information society.” 

• “No successor [as Prime Minister] … has demonstrated the personal engagement with the information society… that Turnbull did.” 

• “The security aspects of cyber… policy… are the areas… political leaders identify most strongly with.” 

• “Australia has a fragmented and incomplete system for evaluating the effectiveness of its cyber policy… initial funding commitments [to evaluation] had been very low.” 

  
  

Greg Austin, ‘Australia’, in George Christou, Wilhelm Vosse, Joe Burton and Joachim Koops (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Cyber Diplomacy, 2025, pp. 613-632