Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Passports Legislation Amendment (Integrity) Bill 2015 amends the Australian Passports Act 2005 and the Foreign Passports (Law Enforcement and Security) Act 2005 and has consequential amendments to a number of other Commonwealth acts. It also repeals the Australian Passports (Transitionals and Consequentials) Act 2005. The bill is a result of a review of Australia's passport legislation 10 years after it was enacted. The importance of keeping this legislation up to date has been reinforced recently with some of the national security issues we have seen and that have exercised people's concerns. Our passports are a very key part of that. For anyone who has travelled around the world, and that is a lot of Australians, you protect your passport like nothing else in your possession. There is nothing that gives you greater panic if you are travelling than the thought that you have misplaced or mislaid your passport.

We understand the issues that you might face should that be the case. We understand what your own passport means to you and how you are really in no man's land without it. We also understand how valuable Australian identity and Australian passports are on the black market. And we understand that not only are there national security issues in this space but the broader issue of identity theft. When you consider that 40,000 Australian passports go missing, there are real concerns about in whose hands these particular documents end up and to what purpose some of these are used. Of those that are lost overseas in very popular tourist destinations, some are lost and some are certainly stolen. As I said earlier, when we are travelling, we guard our passport almost with our life. We are very concerned about our passport. We understand what it means not to have it in our possession or in reach whenever we are travelling.

This bill continues the work we need to do to keep the passports and the act up-to-date and relevant, particularly given some of the issues that have emerged. The bill seeks to refine and clarify the legislation—very important—and strengthen the government's ability to respond to any form of unlawful activity in relation to Australian travel documents. This changes constantly. The bill will include four principal amendments and a number of minor technical amendments.

Firstly, the bill provides for the issue of a travel document to a person on the Minister for Foreign Affairs own initiative to facilitate a lawful requirement to travel. This provision is limited to the following circumstances: to remove or deport a person who is the subject of a lawful removal or deportation order to or from Australia; to extradite a person who is the subject of a lawful extradition request to or from Australia; to effect an international prison transfer. A person should not be able to delay or obstruct a lawful expulsion to or from Australia by refusing consent to the issue of the document. There are already existing avenues for people to seek review of the substantive decision to extradite or to remove them. This will also enable Australia to comply with the requirements of the Convention on International Civil Aviation 1944, which stipulate that a contracting state shall issue a travel document to one of its nationals to facilitate their return within 30 days of request by another state to do so, whether or not the person concerned consents to the issue of the travel document.

Secondly, the bill will align the definition of parental responsibility far more closely to that in the Family Law Act 1975 and remove any confusion as to who is required to consent to a child having a travel document. For those constituents in my electorate, this will be very welcome. Child passport applications are one of the most complex aspects of passport operations. I think all members in this place will have had contact from people in this position. Due to the changing dynamic of family composition in Australia over the last 10 years, we have seen a noticeable increase in the number and complexity of child passport applications without full parental consent. For a small number of applicants, the current requirements can cause unnecessary distress, delays and confusion, and can make what is already a difficult family situation so much worse.

The bill provides that the following persons are required to consent to a child having a passport: parents who have not had their parental responsibility removed by a court; persons who under a court order have parental responsibility or with whom the child is to live; and persons who under an Australian law have guardianship, custody or parental responsibility for the child. Those persons who do not have parental responsibility for the child but under a court order can spend time with or have access to a child will no longer be required to consent to a child having a passport. I can only assume the number of people for whom this will be a very welcome decision.

It is inappropriate that the Passports Act as it currently stands may accord a person more parental responsibility for a child than is actually permitted by the court. It means that a parent who has been granted sole parental responsibility under a court order is no longer required to seek the consent of other persons who have access to the child. It is important to note that these amendments do not remove the legal requirement for a person travelling overseas with a child to seek consent to the child's travel from all persons who have had court awarded access to or spend time with orders for a child. It remains an offence under the Family Law Act to take a child overseas without consent from all persons in whose favour a court order is made in relation to a child.

Thirdly, the bill provides that the minister may refuse to process a passport application if there are reasonable grounds to suspect fraud or dishonesty in the application. It is a reviewable decision. It is really essential that the government send a very clear message that any kind of fraud in relation to Australian travel documents will not be tolerated. It is an offence under the Passports Act to provide false or misleading information, or to provide false or misleading statements or documents in relation to an application for an Australian travel document. This provision may be used instead of or in addition to a criminal prosecution for these offences. People need to take this very seriously. Fraudulent travel document applications threaten the security and the integrity of the Australian passport system. It is important to note that this provision does not prevent a person from being issued a travel document but they must submit a fresh application with the correct information and meet all other eligibility requirements.

Lastly, the bill modifies the existing offence framework in the Passports Act and adds an offence to strengthen the government's ability to respond to the fraudulent use of Australian travel documents. The new offence will target persons who make or provide false Australian travel documents with the intention that the document may be accepted and used as if it were a genuine Australian travel document.

These amendments are necessary to deter and respond to the increasing fraudulent use of travel documents and the wider implications of such activities in enabling organised and serious crime. We are seeing an increase in organised and serious crime in areas such as the one that has been exercising much of the concern of this House, terrorism; in drug smuggling; and in people trafficking. It is important that this bill is up to date.

I want to use a short part of my time to talk briefly about the issue of identity theft, which is often facilitated by the amount of information that people put online. I spend a lot of time talking to young people and to our police, and I know that the police are very concerned about even localised identity theft, let alone that to do with passports. The amount of information that a young person who is allowed to be on perhaps a social media site like Facebook puts on that particular site about not just themselves but their family is extraordinary. The young person does it without even realising, often, that that information is being monitored by those who wish to commit crime and fraud using a fraudulent identity.

This is one of the issues that the police are very concerned about. They actually believe that there are numbers of young people in this country who will need to change their names when they reach 18 and they go to the bank to get their MasterCard and other documents like the ones we are talking about today because their name will have been used to commit fraud and crime. That criminal wants a clean name so that any of their activities will not be linked to them personally; they are committed in somebody else's name. This is a very real issue for a lot of young people. We know that the criminals are online, harvesting information off these sites—probably with a folder with that person's name on it on their system—every time there is another simple little piece of information.

People put the most extraordinary things online on something like Facebook. It is not only birthdays. What is a key part that is on our passport and on our licences? Dates of birth. It is often addresses and things like their mobile phone numbers, their email addresses and all sorts of personal information about and photos of where they live, who they live with and what goes on. If they have left on some of the settings on their phones, depending on whether they have location services or geotagging, if they take a photo and they have this turned on, the hacker can not only have a look inside and follow them, but there is a whole lot of personal information contained on their devices that is accessible. This is just one of the areas.

The other thing that the police not so long ago came to talk to me about with identity theft was that they have a further belief that the criminals that are harvesting this information, sometimes from job search sites, are putting all of this information into a folder, and they are going to wait until this young person, who is then 35, has bought their first home. With the amount of information that they have available that they have harvested over a number of years from these sites, they will have enough information to be able to go and sell these young people's homes. They will have the 100 points that you need to make a major financial transaction, and they will be able to sell their homes. The police were warning me about this some time ago.

On this discussion on passports and the importance of our identity: as I said when I started my speech, when you travel, there is nothing that crystallises your thoughts or your concerns more than the fact that you may have had your passport stolen or have misplaced it. I think everyone who has travelled will know that moment when you thought: 'Where's my passport? Where did I put it?' You have that momentary panic that you do not know where your passport is at that moment. It is something that we guard when we travel.

I think the measures in this bill reflect the fact that, in 10 years, we need to make sure that we certainly address the issues of security in a broader sense and that our laws allow the government of the day to maintain the security that is so important around the integrity of our passport system.

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