And .. the context that followed that you omitted:

    what we are seeking to do is to secure their assistance. They have to face up to their responsibility. They can’t just wash their hands of it and say it’s got nothing to do with them," Turnbull said when asked how the encryption should be broken.

I'm no fan of Turnball for many many reasons .. but he was not an idiot about technology and well understood mathematics (for someone not in the field professionally).

As stated above by another commentator he made a smart arse response to a smart arse question, as is intuitively obvious to the meanest intellect, and then clarified that legal steps would be taken to ensure to cooperation of the major invested actors.