dailynewsnblog
Key events
Cyber criminals have hacked into the Sri Lankan finance ministry’s computer system and siphoned off US$2.5 million, Agence France Presse reports.
It is the most amount of cash ever stolen by hackers from a state institution in the debt-saddled country, which is recovering from a crippling economic crisis in 2022 after Colombo defaulted on its US$46 billion external debt.
The money was destined as debt repayment to Australia, finance ministry secretary Harshana Suriyapperuma told reporters in the capital.
Four senior officers at the Public Debt Management Office (PDMO) were suspended after the breach, he said.
Authorities were alerted to an attempt to break into the ministry’s e-mail server, and investigations showed that a US$2.5 million payment owed to Australia had disappeared.
“Criminal investigators are looking into this and we are not in a position to give further details,” Suriyapperuma said, adding that Sri Lankan authorities were seeking help from foreign law enforcement agencies.
Australia’s High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, Matthew Duckworth, said Canberra was aware of “irregularities” in payments owed to it.
“Sri Lankan authorities are investigating the matter and are coordinating with Australian officials, who are assisting the investigation,” Duckworth said on X.
“Australia remains committed to supporting Sri Lanka’s return to debt sustainability.”
Hastie says US alliance has eroded Australia ‘sovereign capability’
Dan Jervis-Bardy
The Liberal frontbencher, Andrew Hastie, says doubling down on the US relationship has eroded Australia’s sovereign capability, including its defence industry, as he warns the country must “get serious” about national security to rebalance the alliance.
In a speech to the Robert Menzies Institute in Melbourne last night, the shadow minister for industry and sovereign capability said the reliance on the US meant “strategic trade-offs” that had hastened the deindustrialisation of Australia and “weakened our hard power”.
He said it had cost Australia “sovereign capabilities like a robust defence industry”, and “strategic freedom of action” in ways that we are now becoming clear amid the Middle East war.
Hastie said under Donald Trump the US “should not be expected to guarantee much except its own strategic interests”, which meant Australia must “get serious about our own national security” by rebuilding its industrial base and a defence force “with teeth”.
To put it bluntly, if ANZUS is going to continue for another 75 years, we need to invest in our industrial base and our defence force.
The former soldier has been an outspoken critic of Trump and his war in Iran, striking a different tone to the opposition leader Angus Taylor.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories before Nick Visser guides you through to the holiday weekend.
Andrew Hastie says doubling down on the US relationship has eroded Australia’s sovereign capability, including its defence industry, as he warns the country must “get serious” about national security to rebalance the alliance. More follows.
At least two children have been treated in hospital after dingo attacks in recent days at the same remote Western Australian campground. More details coming up.
And hackers have broken into the Sri Lankan finance ministry’s computer system and made off with $2.5m that was destined as a debt repayment to Australia. More on that, too, very soon
