Australia’s federal government will overhaul a $1.7 billion cyber security plan set up under Scott Morrison in the aftermath of the hacks of Optus and Medibank.

A national cyber office — led by a new coordinator for cyber security — will be established under the Home Affairs Department to lead the renewed strategy.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said the Optus and Medibank hacks exposed flaws in Australia’s cyber laws.

“In those events, we were meant to have at our disposal a piece of law that was passed by the former government to help us engage with companies under cyber attack,” Ms O’Neil said.

“That law was bloody useless, not worth the ink printed on the paper when it came to actually using it in a cyber incident. It was poorly drafted.”

Ms O’Neil said that, when Optus was hit, there was no emergency response function within the Australian government, and it was able to respond only because a cabinet minister became directly involved.

That hack exposed the customer data of millions of Australians, including passports, drivers licences and Medicare details.

The government hopes to have its cyber coordinator in place within a month, to develop an emergency response plan and to be a central position in managing attacks with “spine”.