HUAWEI — SECURITY
544. Hon CHARLES SMITH to the minister representing the
Minister for Transport:
I refer to the US decision to blacklist Chinese telecom giant
Huawei for flouting sanctions on Iran and the alleged attempts to steal trade
secrets. I also refer to the fact that Vodafone previously identified hidden
backdoors in its software that could have given Huawei unauthorised access to the
carrier's fixed-line network in Italy. I also note Google's
pulling of support for Huawei phones and products.
(1) Does the minister acknowledge that there is evidence that
Huawei may be a national security threat?
(2) Will the
infrastructure that Huawei provides for the Transperth system provide or affect
any wi-fi systems to which Transperth users can connect, or any system through
which Transperth user data travels?
Hon
STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question.
The following answer has been provided to me by the Minister for Transport.
(1) Matters of
national security come under the jurisdiction of the commonwealth government.
However, as has been previously stated, the commonwealth Department of Home
Affairs advised the state government that it had not identified any issues that
would prevent the radio systems replacement project from proceeding.
(2) The Public Transport Authority's new
digital radio network for the Transperth system will operate independently from
the infrastructure that will be required to support any Transperth free public
wi-fi system.