Federal police urged to investigate 'concerning' subsea cable fault

Two crucial subsea cables connecting Australia to the world experienced faults simultaneously off the coast of Perth over the weekend, prompting urgent calls for an investigation by the Australian Federal Police. Bevan Slattery, CEO of the cable company Subco, expressed concern on LinkedIn, noting that the two separate cables within the Submarine Cable Protection Zone suffered faults "straight after each other and in close proximity."

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Australia has 16 subsea cables that carry 99 per cent of our international communications. It's really fundamental to the Australian economy and our daily life, and if they were to be disrupted or cease, it would have a massive impact on our country.

These international cables are fundamental to Australia's connectivity, carrying 99% of the nation's international communications. Dr. David Brewster, a senior research fellow at the National Security College at the Australian National University, explained that disruption to these cables would have a "massive impact on our country," affecting everything from cloud-based applications to everyday internet searches. He stressed that Australia's economy and daily life are deeply reliant on these undersea links.

Subsea cables, lying on the ocean floor and typically about the width of a garden hose, are susceptible to damage from ship anchors or deliberate sabotage. Dr. Brewster pointed to incidents in Europe and around Taiwan in recent years where cables were cut, often attributed to state actors. While the cause of the Perth cable faults remains uncertain, the location within a designated protection zone adds to the concern.

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We've seen numerous incidents in Europe and around Taiwan over the last, say, three or four years of cables being cut. It's difficult to be absolutely certain of the reasons in some of these cases, but in a great number of cases, it's fairly obvious that they were done by state actors, Russia and China.

To mitigate such risks, Dr. Brewster advocates for laying more cables, stating, "The more cables you have, the less vulnerable you are." He also raised concerns about the increasing ownership of these vital infrastructure assets by foreign tech companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon, suggesting it creates additional risks and limits the government's ability to influence their operation or repair. Currently, there is no single regulator overseeing these privately owned cables.

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The more cables you have, the less vulnerable you are, and Australia certainly needs a lot more cables than it currently has to mitigate the threat.