The federal government has responded to reports the French company that won the $50bn contract to build Australia’s submarines has suffered a big leak of information, claiming it will not affect Australia’s submarine program.
According to a report in the Australian, 22,400 pages of documents have leaked from French shipbuilder DCNS which detail the secret combat capability of the six Scorpene-class submarines it has designed for the Indian navy.
In April DCNS won the $50bn contract to build and maintain Barracuda-class submarines to Australian specifications in South Australia.
The leak has raised concerns that if DCNS were to suffer a similar security breach for the Barracuda class then Australia may lose the stealth advantage of the submarines and have its performance capabilities revealed.
On Channel Seven’s Sunrise on Wednesday Malcolm Turnbull said the leak of classified information was of concern and it was a reminder that cyber security is of critical importance.
But the prime minister stressed that “the submarine that [DCNS] are building for India is not the submarine they are building for Australia, it is a different model”.
“The information is some years old now.
“We have the highest security protections on all of our defence information, weather it is in partnership with other countries or entirely within Australia.”
The defence industry minister, Christopher Pyne, said he had received advice from the defence department that the reported leak in regards to the DCNS project in India has “no bearing” on the Australian government’s submarine program.
“The [submarine program] operates under stringent security requirements that govern the manner in which all information and technical data is managed now and into the future,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The same requirements apply to the protection of all sensitive information and technical data for the Collins-class submarines, and have operated successfully for decades.”
Senator Nick Xenophon said he was “very concerned” about the reported leak.
“This is a very serious development – it must be investigated at the highest levels; there must be a public disclosure of what that investigation brings out; it’s something I want to explore in the Senate estimates process,” he said on Radio National.
Xenophon said the implications of the leak were massive and called on DCNS and the Australian government to explain what those implications are.
“This is really quite disastrous to have thousands of pages of your combat system leaked in this way.”
In a statement DCNS said: “As a serious matter pertaining to the Indian Scorpene program, French national authorities for defence security will formally investigate and determine the exact nature of the leaked documents.”
“The matters in connection to India have no bearing on the Australian submarine program which operates under the Australian government’s arrangements for the protection of sensitive data.”
