In 1995, as the internet was slowly becoming a thing in Australia, the government was more concerned about hackers hacking for hacking's sake rather than foreign governments trying to pry into our most secure systems.



The detail is contained in a cabinet memorandum from 1995 from the then Keating Labor government. It was released on New Year's Day as part of the annual release of 20-year-old cabinet documents. (We are still catching up from when it used to be a longer wait, and so 1994 and 1995 were released together.)

As the Turnbull government looks to overhaul Australia's foreign influence law, and the threat of hacking by foreign intelligence agencies looms large, by comparison, the Keating government in 1995 was far less concerned about foreign governments hacking our secrets.

The Australian Government Electronic Security Memorandum compiled for the cabinet by Australia's peak information intelligence organisation, Defence Signals Directorate (now known as Australian Signals Directorate) revealed concerns about government increasingly relying on computers and networks.