Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am indebted to the honourable member for Chisholm for allowing me to take her spot on the list for the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2005-2006 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2005-2006. What we are dealing with in these appropriation bills covers a very wide range of activities of the Commonwealth where there have been adjustments to (1) the original budget outlays and (2) the actual programs that have been undertaken. In part that is because there have been necessary adjustments as the year has gone on, being initiatives as well as changes to what was originally proposed, because circumstances have changed. That is why we have debate on these additional appropriations. That is also why we have a half-yearly report to indicate, given what was proposed initially, where Australia has got to in terms of its budget half-way along. So a lot of the material that is contained in these appropriation bills was dealt with last December in terms of changes.

I will make a general point, just as I have in all appropriations debates: it is much harder now than it was 10 years ago to participate in a debate on the budget and further appropriations because the specifics of what is being done are clouded by the way in which they are reported. There is the new method of looking at how the budget is done, not on a cash basis but on an accrual basis, and also the way in which it is stated, with goals, outcomes and so on. If you look at the core statements themselves—appropriation bills Nos 3 and 4, as well as the statement of savings—you do not actually get a handle on what is practically being done. They satisfy the Treasury’s conditions for this mode of accounting but I do not think they would satisfy ordinary individuals in Australia or certainly me, as a member of parliament, or others, because what we are actually interested in is how the administered actions of government through practical programs impact on people or impact on government departments and the way in which they carry out their business.

What is covered in these appropriations is very important. I will give you one instance. There is an extra $155.8 million going to the Department of Defence. If you go to the general papers on this, they will tell you that the outcome that they are looking at is the defence of the Commonwealth of Australia and, if necessary, the defence of Australia by action overseas. That really tells us nothing except what the generality is. But in the minister’s second reading speech and also in what are invaluable papers—the portfolio additional estimates statements for the Defence portfolio, and there are also the Attorney-General’s and Transport ones, which I will be referring to—you actually find out what it is about—and the PAES are usually locked away in the Table Office. If you look at what it is about, you see that of that order of money $40.9 million has gone to provide a special forces task group in Afghanistan. That has been raised through mid-year because it is a specific response to the deteriorating strategic situation in Afghanistan. The fact is there was a specific request for more Australian troops to be sent there. That has been supported by the Leader of the Opposition and members of the opposition. In order to facilitate that, another part of it—$16 million—is there to fund the deployment of helicopters and support elements in Afghanistan. That is an extremely important part of our forward defence posture in an age of war on terror. As the opposition has pointed out, what is fundamental here is that we do not want to see—and certainly President Musharraf, next door in Pakistan, does not want to see—the reimposition throughout Afghanistan of the power of the Taliban, having been beaten in Afghanistan, by their being able to defeat troops on the ground and overturn the democratically elected government of Afghanistan, which is battling, after so many decades of hostilities, to try to rebuild its country with assistance from Australia and others. So practically, you can look at it and say, ‘Yes, that’s good and that should be supported.’

Also there is a series that particularly bears on security in relation to Sydney airport and airports across Australia. If we go to the particulars of the portfolio additional estimates statements in the Department of Transport and Regional Services portfolio, we find in the administered programs at page 17 a special provision of $4.9 million for aviation security and strengthening international air cargo security arrangements in Australia. Regionally—which bears on Bankstown as a regional airport, but the specifics of this are for those that are further away from the main cities—there has been a change in the way funds are allocated. In aviation security enhancements, there is a regional airport 24-hour closed circuit television pilot study which is important not only for members in regional seats but in my instance in Bankstown, with Bankstown Airport in the middle of Sydney, to be assured that we have a much better security situation and that we can cover, 24 hours a day, attempts to get into Bankstown, which is a very short distance from Kingsford Smith and 22 kilometres from the CBD. That is very important, and there is an associated allocation of funds for aviation security enhancements in regional passenger screening, because we know that there has not been enough previously given to screening people at regional airports. Most people then fly into Sydney, and there is a great deal, of course, between Sydney and Canberra and between the capital cities of Australia, but there is still an open security hole which this money is trying to be directed to.

Further, on page 18, we see that there is not only that allocation for international air cargo security arrangements but also a surface transport security enhancement, which would be welcomed, and a strengthening of the security and crime information service. There is an attempt to put that together. Regarding more specifics on this, I am indebted to the minister’s second reading speech, and I just wish we had a lot more material like this from the government so that we could make a better assessment of what is happening. Generally, $11.9 million of the $22.5 million to improve aviation security has been provided to the Department of Transport and Regional Services to improve the security of international passenger aircraft through increased inspection of air cargo. That is a vital thing that has not been done at a high enough level yet, and that money goes partway to helping to solve that problem. We know there is still a significant problem of container traffic through our ports and seaways, but this addresses that in aviation. There is $10.6 million allocated to the Australian Customs Service to increase airside patrols at airports.

Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, you would be aware, as would other members, that there has been a continuing concern and coverage in the media generated from concerns arising in the parliament that, while a range of measures to increase security have been taken for the broad travelling public, we have massive security holes in terms of airside security staff at the airport, people working for Qantas and the security area. In the past six months, part of the change in the funding provided was to try to pull those things together.

When these matters were dealt with previously, I asked the former Minister for Transport and Regional Services, the Hon. John Anderson, whether or not he could assure the House that the arrangements that had been made to ensure that people working at Sydney airport had been properly security cleared were now in place. I got a fairly strong answer to say that that had all been done, but I indicated to him further in argument that the information I had been given was that there was a key problem in terms of the hierarchy of security at Sydney airport and at others. That goes to the fact that it is not the government taking responsibility for what happens there: those services have been leased out. There are private companies which are the head companies to provide security services. They have given guarantees to the government that their people have been security cleared and so on. When you go down the chain, those major security companies which provide services to State Rail and Sydney airport then go to subcontractors. I indicated in argument that that is an area that particularly needs to be looked at: whether those subcontractors fulfil those requirements. And the subcontractors themselves go to sole traders.

I received some information just recently which indicates that, whatever changes have been made and whatever guarantees have been given that this is an area of concern in terms of security at Sydney airport—and at others, but particularly at Sydney—it has not been resolved. The major companies have difficulties with particular subcontractors, and there is competition between subcontractors and between sole traders to get work. The government has been told that there are issues to do with people passing security testing, and, more importantly, the cash rates that people are being paid, whether there is appropriate workers compensation being paid by these companies, whether or not there is an associated situation where there may in fact be fraud against the Commonwealth and whether there may be a deliberate use of social security payments to supplement people’s wages. This is an area that continues to need very specific scrutiny by the government.

I want to make a quick comparison here between Australia and the United States. At the end of the parliamentary break I went to Hawaii for eight days. It is a very different proposition going into the United States than it is travelling within Australia or, indeed, coming into this parliament. Our security situation in the parliament is strict, and we are strict in Australia as well, but in the United States, given the events of 11 September 2001, and the other events which have occurred and which have seemingly been foiled in the United States, there is a very high degree of concentration on providing aircraft security.

The difference between the way Australia does it and the way America does it is underlined by this simple fact: anywhere you travel in Australia, given the information there has been recently—highlighted by security footage that has been taken and the revelations that on the airside area it has been possible for people to put drugs or other material into people’s bags—it has been a pressing situation that people make sure that their bags are locked and secured. There is even a service now where you can wrap the whole thing up completely so it cannot be gotten into. In the United States, the situation was that they did not want any locks on the bags at all. They knew if we were coming from Australia we would have locks on our bags, and they simply told us: ‘We’re going to inspect them. It’s better for you to stay here and unlock them if we need them to be unlocked, because otherwise we’re just going to cut them open and you can forget having locks at all.’ They said, ‘Americans know not to lock their bags because that’s the kind of security environment we’ve got here.’

Security at airports in the United States has not been provided by private companies. It is not a question of head companies then going to subcontractors who then go to sole traders. The United States actually employs people directly. They are government employees that they security test, that they have responsibility for, that they use to try to guarantee that they will not have the holes in their security that have been alleged in ours and, in fact, proven in the past with the problems airside. It is a different approach to government. People do not well enough understand that the bastion of private enterprise, the United States, is also the bastion of federal government and state governments acting on their responsibility to ensure the safety of their communities. They do not worry about (1) being a rule-bound society or (2) the fact they see it as their direct responsibility to provide direct services and for the government to ensure the safety of the travelling public.

We have still got a big potential and probably actual security problem because we have not got government employees doing this work. It disturbs me that the allegations that have been put to me recently may have point and purpose, and it may well be the situation that some companies operating at Sydney and at other airports are breaking the law and that some companies may be telling the government and government authorities that the situation is entirely different—not just in security terms but in broader terms about workers compensation, the remuneration they get and so on. People may cut corners in order to get the work, but those cut corners may lead to the travelling public being in peril.

I entirely endorse the moneys that have been proposed for the regional area, not only to pick up on regional security at airports—televising in that pilot—but also to improve other regional security. I would also endorse what has been done here not only with aircraft cargo in the international container area but also specifically to knit together the crime prevention unit and to increase security on air side. It is also vitally important that this new combination, which has arisen as a result of matters raised within this parliament and has been revealed in terms of investigations of what the actuality is, goes forward with fully open eyes and with an effort to see that these private contractors are brought under very close scrutiny to ensure that the safety of the travelling public and the operations of those significant pieces of infrastructure are not undone.

As part of that, there is a further tranche of moneys involved in these appropriations of $54.6 million to the Australian Federal Police for their airport policing measures. There is $27.2 million for phase 1 of community policing at airports, $18.2 million to provide a first response counter-terrorism capability at relevant airports, and $9.2 million to establish joint airport investigation teams with the Australian Customs Service which will also receive an additional $1 million for this initiative.

The very last point is the key to ensuring that the current situation does not become a security concern. If the allegations that have been put to me are correct, the joint airport investigation teams—where Australian Federal Police will work more closely with the Customs Service—will take up a series of points that have been put to them and look structurally at just what the problems are. I would far prefer the situation we had previously where we had government instrumentalities in charge of those services, where there was a direct responsibility that could lead right back to a federal government minister and where there could be cooperation between the state and federal governments to ensure that our fundamental infrastructure is not compromised.

We have seen in recent trials and in trials going back some time now initial allegations about people who had come to the notice of not only the Federal Police but also the state police, ASIO and others. We have seen with people charged in relation to terrorist activities that Sydney airport has been a key part of the concern in relation to that antiterrorist activity. The fundamental backdoor that can be used is not John or Jill Public walking in off the street to fly to Melbourne, Brisbane or somewhere else. The screening services that we have there work particularly well. They are not as severe as the United States where they tell you to take your shoes and just about everything else as well because you may as well save yourself time. Likewise, when it comes to testing for explosives we have—and I have encountered this at Canberra airport twice now—the same kind of facility as they have in the United States. They test as a matter of course—they do not just test a selection of people—for explosives to ensure that people cannot take C4 and other plastic explosives onboard and damage everyone.

The most vulnerable part is that there could always be a significant chance that people working for the American federal authorities at those airports could take part in terrorist activities or could have slipped through the security net. But the comparison is very simple. There is a much greater chance of that, as has already been demonstrated in the past, if governments do not have control of the situation, if they are at arm’s length and if they are reliant upon information from private companies that probably do not know who they have employed. When they go to subcontractors and the subcontractors go to sole traders competing against each other, the security holes are there. The evidence that I have heard recently is disturbing and I would ask the relevant minister to please follow this closely for everyone’s benefit. (Time expired)

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