Air Marshal Darren Goldie AM CSC
The federal government has appointed Air Marshal Darren Goldie as its first national cyber security coordinator.
Goldie has operated for over 30 years in the Royal Australian Air Force, with his most recent position being Air Commander Australia, where he was responsible for building the Defence arm’s capability and resilience.
From 3 July, Goldie will be responsible for leading national cyber security policy, coordinating responses to major cyber security incidents, preparing whole of government incident efforts and strengthening the Commonwealth's cyber security capabilities.
Additionally, he will work with the National Office of Cyber Security and other key policy, operational and security agencies within the government.
“The cyber challenge that Australia faces along with the rest of the world is dire,” Goldie said at a press conference announcing his appointment. “That challenge will continue to increase in its complexity and severity and I think we are all in this together as a nation and it behoves us all to continue to be educated.”
As part of a roundtable on cyber security, the federal government announced it would create the national cyber security coordinator back in February of this year. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at the press conference that since then, he discussed with Minister for Cyber Security Clare O'Neil and other unnamed ministers about who would be selected for the role.
"I must say I was very pleased that, to me, the Air Marshal stood out as someone who had that proven record of leadership, of being able to coordinate across the security space, in our defence forces and I believe he is an outstanding choice," he said.
Albanese went as far to say that he viewed Goldie's appointment as a “vital component of what modern government needs to do to respond to what are new and emerging challenges”.
Meanwhile, O’Neil added Goldie’s new role will set out to streamline the government’s cyber security reach.
“This is really important because what we have seen in the Australian government, common to governments overseas, is that cyber security responsibilities are strewn across a whole range of parts of government departments and indeed in the private sector and the community as well,” she said. “So Goldie's role in part will be to bring all that activity together.”
The establishment of a national cyber security coordinator comes following the high profile Optus and Medibank breaches last year.
