19 February 2021 Turning to the Zero Draft. To the delegations that have observed that many of their proposals are not reflected; Australia notes that no proposals are reflected in full. For example: the sentiment of NAM proposals – if not the verbatim wording - is reflected in many parts of the report (including, for example, para 16, 28, 36, 49 and 50). Australia commends the Chair and Secretariat for how well you have captured the breadth of views and plethora of suggestions. Australia can support every conclusion and recommendation in the Zero Draft with very little comment. Like Egypt, we see value in retention of the discussion section - but Australia would need to insert additional text to ensure balanced representation of our views. Conscious of time, we will provide those comments in writing. At the same time, we have also heard many delegations express concern about the length of the report, and the “some states” construction of the discussion section. Indeed, it is a rare occasion that US, Russia, UK, China are all in agreement: that we should focus on areas of convergence. In light of this, to focus our discussion, Australia would support transferring sentences/paragraphs from the discussion section that have the possibility of receiving consensus support to the relevant conclusion sections, and deleting the remainder discussions section. I emphasise that, while we would prefer to not delete discussions section, we do not want to retain it at the cost of running out of time to agree conclusions and recommendations. I will now highlight specific paragraphs that could be moved from discussion section, plus key Australian comments on the Zero draft [see: Australia’s comments on Zero draft provided separately]. Finally, Australia associates itself with the statement delivered yesterday by South Africa on behalf of the Survey co-sponsors. In closing, Australia reiterates our commitment to the successful conclusion of this process. Cyber threats are real and growing. The credibility of the UN as a forum that can make progress on this issue is at stake. These issues are of growing importance to every country every day. We have collectively put in a lot of hard work; Australia looks forward to this being reflected in our final consensus report. Page 3 of 3 www.dfat.gov.au/cyberaffairs