Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, it is with your indulgence and, I realise, maybe with some anguish, that I rise tonight to talk about something I think is quite serious for the wellbeing of this parliament. I do so with great regret. It has come to my attention—it has been publicised through certain circles—that, due to budgetary constraints and pressures, there is a proposition to reduce the perimeter security on this building to allow for budget savings, based on a budget risk analysis of the benefit of the reduced security. The proposition has been held off temporarily, because I certainly intervened.

A lot of people—certain classes of pass holder, including politicians—enter this building without having their baggage screened. I express my deep concern that if the Australian federal parliament cannot afford, due to budgetary restraints, to have the security we now have then we ought to shut the building down. If you cannot secure the perimeter of the building then why the hell would you worry about internal security? I am informed reliably that, if you want to control the budget, you could perhaps look at 2 January or 3 January this year. There was no-one here but there were a heap of people on the X-ray machines et cetera. Even with budgetary restraints there has to be a better way to manage the security of this building than getting rid of some of the security as you enter the building. I would be able to demonstrate that I could breach the security. Sure, you can slip something under one of the gates or throw something over the wall, now, but a person with something mischievous on their mind would be able to get something into parliament under what is proposed.

Certain classes of people will go through the usual security. I know there are some people in this building who think it is beneath their dignity—beneath their role in life, shall I say—to have to go through security, to go through the X-ray and all of that. I think that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

I congratulate the department and yourself, Mr President, on the upgrades to the building and on the reforms you have brought to its efficiency. We have to maintain the building. We have to worry about future maintenance budgets so the building does not fall down. But there has to be a way, and if it means doing what I am doing tonight and adding pressure on the decision makers in the Department of Finance or elsewhere for them to make an actuarial assumption that you can reduce the security and the risk benefit is in the positive that perhaps nothing will go wrong. Presently, if someone is planning to do something wrong, in theory, they, like everyone who comes into the building, would have to have whatever they are carrying—their luggage, their bags et cetera—put through the X-ray. I think that should continue to be the case for everyone, without exception.

So my appeal tonight, through the Senate, and to you, Mr President, is that we find the saving of $400,000 we are talking about. There has got to be a way to find the money to secure the building. I am sorry, but if I was even halfway mischievous—I will not say what I said the other day about how you could do some of this stuff. There are people who would be opportunistic, who would take advantage of any reduction in the security of the perimeter of this building. I think we should negotiate things like the tariff for the water, the tariff for the electricity or the deal with the AFP—I will not go into the detail. We should negotiate the costs of the building. But at the same time I think it is damn outrageous to have to put the proposition—

Senator Pratt interjecting—

this is not a laughing matter—to reduce the security of the building for, for god's sake, a budgetary restraint when I can think of millions of dollars that get, as they say, up against the wall, if you know what I mean. We really need to appeal to the Department of Finance for a quarantine from the pressures. I realise that the government has got a lot of pressure on it and all departments have to have restraint.

The most primary thing in this building is that at least you can come in here and know it is very difficult to do anything that could cause a catastrophe. My appeal simply is to alert people to the fact that we have got to have the argument. We have got to find a way to maintain the budget and to maintain the security so that everyone, despite some people thinking it is beneath their dignity, can be put through security along with everything they bring in. Thank you very much.

Senate adjourned at 19 : 3 1