Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to this bill, which in some respects is not particularly important but in other respects is quite important. This Aviation Transport Security Amendment (Screening) Bill 2012 will have implications for a lot of us, especially those who travel overseas in the future. Perhaps in time it may have implications for domestic travel, although that is not the intention at present.

We have had brought home to us very vividly in the last couple of days, with the death of the alleged bomber at Lockerbie, what an explosion on an aircraft can do and what dreadful mayhem it can create in the loss of life and property when a plane comes out of the sky. It is just horrendous, the death and destruction that can ensue. We saw this also with the aircraft going into the World Trade Centre and crashing into the Pentagon in the 9/11 circumstances. There have been other instances across the world, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, where aircraft have been blown up, and that has been going on right back to the Second World War. But with the fragile peace in the Middle East and the number of terrorists who are abroad at present, it is a time when we must be ever vigilant.

In addition to those horrific circumstances like Lockerbie and 9/11, we have also had some near misses where people have come onto aircraft with shoes full of explosives. The incident that, more than any other, triggered this bill was a flight on Christmas Day 2009 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Northwest Airlines flight 253, where one passenger had part of the explosive cocktail in his underwear; a frightening circumstance that he would blow himself and everyone else on the plane to bits. Luckily, he did not get the opportunity to trigger that dreadful cocktail. The point was that the product he was carrying on him was not detectable through a metal scanner. Indeed, whether you have a powder or a gel, if it is a form of explosive cocktail then it needs to be detected. This set the minds of the world's security people on edge and we have now come up with new forms of scanners. The Australian government, through this legislation, will introduce scanning initially to our international airports.

The coalition does not oppose the bill and we accept in a bipartisan spirit that the enhancement of national security is a duty for all of us. However, we recognise there are people with genuine concerns—some about health and some about privacy. These concerns led to the government conducting an inquiry through the Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications, of which I am the deputy chair, and were addressed. It was a very interesting inquiry—not a particularly long one, but certainly a very interesting one.

The first concern was the health aspect. This new form of scanner is different from the metal scanner we are all used to at airports where you walk through and lights are triggered at your feet, legs, hips, waist and upper body and a signal goes off that you do not have metal on you. As I said, if you had a powder or a gel, it probably would not be detected. With the new scanners, you go into a tiny cylindrical room about the size of a telephone box and two masts with antennas on them revolve around you for a period of just two seconds. They transmit a signal that is returned to the antenna and it forms a 3D image. As it comes off your body surface or the surface of any other things you might be carrying, this triggers different light patterns on a generic picture. From that, you can tell whether people have got dangerous materials on them.

One issue that occurred to me before we even got to these new scanners is that my wife has got a hardened plastic knife at home—not that I fear my wife with a knife; I do not—for cutting vegetables. It is incredibly sharp and it is as long as a normal carving knife. I have often wondered whether it would be detectable if someone had one of those down the leg of their pants or under their skirt. But these hardened plastic knives would certainly be detectable under this type of operation.

We had one of these scanners in Parliament House, up on the first floor, and members of the committee, ministerial staff and others were allowed to see this thing and experience it. I went into the scanner and I took off certain items of metal and left other ones on. It certainly picked up all these bits of metal I was carrying. In fact, I thought I had emptied my left pocket and there was a 10c piece in it. That 10c piece came up on the image loud and clear. In the words of Oliver Goldsmith's poem 'fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray'. There is no doubt that this technology will detect not only metal but other objects, and that makes security when we travel in aircraft that much better for all of us.

The other worry lots of people had was about privacy. I think people are entitled to privacy. When you go through one of these walk-through metal scanners, the only other way they can check whether you are carrying some other product is to either strip search or, rather intrusively, frisk you. No-one likes that. People quite rightly object. When the idea of something that could, so to speak, look right through you came on the market, a lot of people had a certain reluctance to participate. They were diffident about it. Probably one of the reasons for that was that an earlier model—not of this exact same technology but of similar technology—allowed anatomical differences in the male and female body to be seen on the screen. A lot of people took objection to that, and perhaps rightly so. Even though the people who were doing the screening were to be in a booth, that did cause some problems. But this new model that we saw here in Parliament House makes a generic figure. There are no anatomical distinctions between these figures. They are not exactly stick figures—they are more bulky than that—but there is no differentiation between male and female, for example. The upper torso, lower torso, legs, arms and head are quite clearly evident, but only to that extent. As the signal comes back from the antenna it is converted into a 3D image and superimposed upon this generic figure which is roughly the size of the person who has gone through the scanning machine. And let me tell you that every bit of metal on you shows up, and I am sure that every bit of plastic or powder or gel that does not come from the normal reaction to your body will also show up on that screen.

I think people need to accept that. Some people said they wanted to have an opt-out provision and to be frisked. I do not think that is necessary. There is no intrusion into people's personal privacy in the strict sense of the word. I think we are going to follow the UK system, where if you are asked to go through the scanner and you do not then you do not go into the secure area of the airport, plain and simple—no fights, no tantrums, you just do not get in.

As I said earlier, some people are concerned about the irradiation factor. We called in and took evidence from a whole range of people and agencies such as ARPANSA, the Department of Health and Ageing, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the radiation regulators in the states and territories. Between them, they issued a health and safety information sheet which said:

There is no evidence to suggest that millimetre-wave body scanners, or other devices in this frequency and at the power density used by scanners, are a health risk for the travelling public or the operators.

I think that is a pretty reasonable assessment of it.

This will enhance safety at Australian airports for people travelling overseas, initially. I personally would not mind if it were extended to domestic flights, but that is not the intention at this stage. I think we cannot be too vigilant about things like this. All these added moves make our lives safer, make our travel more secure and remove anxieties. We have all seen what happens on an aircraft when a gas bottle explodes—something as innocent as that—and the damage that caused to the aircraft. Just imagine if it had been a proper explosive device and what that might have done to that aircraft. We should never put ourselves in that position. We should not suborn ourselves to people who carry explosives in their shoes or in their underwear. We should remove all those people from world travel so that intercourse between the nations of the world can continue freely and without any intrusion that might impact on our safety.

The committee unanimously supported the recommendation made following its inquiry, and that recommendation was that the legislation should be endorsed. I, for one, strongly endorse the legislation.

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