A senior Huawei executive has criticised former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for urging the UK to boycott Huawei’s equipment when building out its 5G network.

Turnbull gave a strongly-worded warning about Huawei’s 5G technology at a speech in London last week where he urged Britain not to use Huawei’s telecommunications equipment as it poses a national security risk.

In response, Huawei’s director of corporate and public affairs for Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific, published a 1,301 word blog post where he said “Australia will pay” as a result of Turnbull’s comments.

A senior Huawei executive has criticised former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for urging the UK to boycott Huawei’s equipment when building out its 5G network.

Turnbull gave a strongly-worded warning about Huawei’s 5G technology at a speech in London last week where he urged Britain not to use Huawei’s telecommunications equipment as it poses a national security risk.

On Thursday, Jeremy Mitchell, Huawei’s director of corporate and public affairs for Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific, published a 1,301 word blog post where he said “Australia will pay” as a result of Turnbull’s comments.

In the post, he criticised the former PM for believing the “myth” that there was an increased security risk in a 5G network. “The myth falsely suggests the edge or radio access layer of the network can’t be sufficiently secured in a 5G network,” said Mitchell.

“This myth was born after the PM’s visit to the USA in February 2018. Problem is what they said (and Turnbull is now continuing to say) just isn’t true.”

Australia was the first country to ban Huawei’s 5G equipment and Mitchell says Australian telcos will now end up paying more money to build their networks with inferior technology.

“Now that Huawei is excluded from the Australian 5G mix, telco operators will be paying around 30% more for the second best technology,” he said.

Read Huawei’s blog post in full.