Two subsea cables carrying critical international communications suffered simultaneous damage inside a protected zone off Perth over the weekend, exposing dangerous gaps in Australia's oversight of privately owned infrastructure that carries 99 percent of the nation's international data traffic. The incidents occurred in close proximity within the Perth Cable Protection Zone, prompting urgent calls for a federal police investigation and revealing how vulnerable Australia's digital lifeline remains to disruption.
Bevan Slattery, chief executive of Subco which owns the damaged cables, called the back-to-back failures a concerning development. He wrote on LinkedIn that both cables experienced faults "straight after each other and in close proximity to each other" inside the Submarine Cable Protection Zone off Perth. Slattery urged the Australian Federal Police to investigate urgently. An AFP spokesperson confirmed the agency had received a report of crime and is assessing the information provided.
The Infrastructure We Don't See
Australia depends on just 16 subsea cables for nearly all international communications. That's according to David Brewster, senior research fellow at the National Security College at the Australian National University. "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," Brewster told ABC Perth.
These cables, about the width of a garden hose, lie on the ocean floor carrying every app, cloud-based application, and Google search that depends on international connections. "We don't realise that just about every app, every cloud-based application, every Google search, etc, depends on international communications in one way or another," Brewster said.
The damaged cables were inside the Perth Cable Protection Zone, which extends 60 nautical miles off City Beach to a depth of 2,000 metres and one nautical mile each side of the cables. Yet even designated protection zones can't stop determined interference.
A Pattern of Disruption
The Perth incidents follow a troubling international pattern. Brewster noted numerous cable-cutting incidents in Europe and around Taiwan over the last three or four years. "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," he said.
While undersea cables can be accidentally cut by ship anchors, they can also be severed deliberately. The distinction matters when critical infrastructure sits unprotected on the ocean floor.
Who's Responsible When No One Is
Australia's subsea cable network faces a fundamental governance problem. The cables are all privately owned and increasingly controlled by US tech companies such as Meta, Google, and Amazon. "That does create other risks as well, because it means that not only are these cables privately owned, but they're also privately owned by, in many cases, foreign companies," Brewster said.
The government has very limited power to influence how these cables are operated or repaired. No single government department or agency is responsible for the cables, with multiple departments holding jurisdiction over different aspects of the subsea cable sector.
"We need to nominate an agency to take responsibility for protecting the cables and any response," Brewster said. "Who do you call when a cable is being cut or disrupted? For many private operators, it's really not clear to them who takes responsibility within government."
Brewster argued the best protection strategy would be to lay more cables. "We've put many of the cables in what's called a cable protection zones, but it is extremely difficult to stop a determined adversary from cutting the cables. It's extremely difficult to stop cyber attacks on the cables," he said. "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."
Why This Matters:
Australia's economy and daily life depend on privately owned infrastructure that the government can barely regulate or protect. Sixteen cables carry virtually all international communications, yet no single agency takes responsibility when they're damaged or cut. Foreign tech giants increasingly own this critical infrastructure, leaving Australia vulnerable to both deliberate sabotage and corporate decisions made overseas. The Perth incidents reveal how privatization of essential services creates security gaps that markets won't fix on their own. Without stronger public oversight, coordinated government response protocols, and investment in redundant capacity, Australia remains dangerously exposed. When critical infrastructure sits on the ocean floor owned by private companies, the nation's digital sovereignty hangs by a thread the width of a garden hose.