Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to speak on the Customs Amendment Bill 2014. This bill builds on the good work already undertaken by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, the Hon. Scott Morrison, in this portfolio area. It is another example of how the coalition government is maintaining a steady hand on the reins of government and focusing on getting the job done.

While the amendments in this bill are mostly minor, they seek to update what is essentially a Federation era act to ensure that the guardians of one of Australia's most important assets, its border, are legislatively equipped to best fulfil their duties. It begins to lay the very early groundwork for the merger of Customs and Immigration and the Australian Border Force subsequent to its establishment.

Specifically, this bill seeks to do six things. Firstly, it allows for class based authorisations to include offices or positions that come into existence after the authorisation is given. Secondly, it extends Customs controls to those places at which ships and aircraft arrive in Australia in accordance with section 58 of the act. Thirdly, it will provide for greater flexibility in relation to the reporting of the arrival of ships and aircraft in Australia, and reporting of stores and prohibited goods on such ships and aircraft. Fourthly, it seeks to improve the application processes for several permissions under the act. This legislation will also support initiatives to enable online applications for these permissions. Fifthly, it provides an extension of Custom's powers of examination to the baggage of domestic passengers on international flights and voyages, and to domestic cargo that is carried on an international flight or voyage. Sixthly, it provides an enhancement of the interaction of the infringement notice scheme with the claims process under the act in relation to prohibited goods.

This is a sensitive bill that fixes up a bit more of Labor's mess from their time in government. In this case, it involves border protection as it relates to Customs. Before I proceed, I would like to use this opportunity to remind the House that the previous Labor government's border protection failure was not limited to their incompetence when it came to the illegal boat arrivals. As the member for Banks told us, that was some 50,000 people and cost this country $11 billion. Can you imagine what $11 billion would have done to enhance customs and border protection? The opposition would not have had to make the cuts that they enacted while they were in government for six years. That $11 billion could have added to the protection and scrutiny of our borders and those coming across our borders.

If Labor had remained in government over $734.8 million—or close to three quarters of a billion dollars—would have been cut from the Customs budget over the forward estimates. That is their own figures. These cuts would have followed the 700 job losses that had occurred in Customs under Labor. In other words, they had a 12 per cent cut in the workforce. And they want to talk about efficiency dividends in the ABC! They had a 12 per cent cut in the workforce, and a $58.1 million cut in the 2009-10 budget for the Customs cargo-screening program. These cuts resulted in the reduction of 25 per cent in sea cargo inspection and a 75 per cent reduction in air cargo inspections, despite an increase in imports

As the previous speaker told us, it went from 60 per cent of air cargo inspections during the Howard government era to five per cent under Labor, because of the cuts. They pulled the budget on them so they could not do the job. Sea cargo inspections went from 40 per cent to 3½ per cent. The $11 billion that was squandered on changing a program that had fixed our borders to finding a solution to unfix them could have been used to fund proper scrutiny of our borders. As I said, the inspection of sea containers is one of the most disgraceful things.

We know that as a maritime country, Australia relies on exports and imports into the country by sea and by air, but the number of physical inspections of the massive containers that come through our ports got down to 3½ per cent and less. We heard that a half per cent of them were physically inspected. If you want to be a crim and bring stuff into this country, the best way is to play 'container lotto', and make sure that you bring it in by container, because you know that your chances of being caught are pretty remote.

We also know that over $44 million was cut from Australia's international passenger facilitation program. This has continued to put our Customs officers under the pump in intercepting contraband and prohibited items, simply because they have had their funding pulled. To call what Labor did to Australia's border services a failure is probably being generous, because in actual fact Labor's attitude towards Customs was the same blase attitude that it took towards Defence and national security; it was itself a form of negligence. That attitude, as we know, came right from the top—remember: Rudd-Gillard-Rudd. On 24 January last year, Prime Minister Julia Gillard declared that the 9/11 decade was over. David Wroe of the Sydney Morning Herald wrote:

Ms Gillard said the behaviour of countries would once again dominate Australia's national security thinking, ending an era in which ''non-state actors'', such as terrorist groups, posed the greatest risk.

What a way to base your international policy on the assumptions about what is a happening overseas rather than making sure you actually do the job properly here.

It is 18 months later, and the greatest risk to Australia right now is radicalised extremists returning to Australia and to the South-East Asian region, spreading their hate and seeking to harm Australia, its citizens and their interests. An article in the Australian published on 21 of August by Peter Alford quotes Indonesia saying that officially there are 50 Indonesians fighting in Iraq and Syria and at risk of return. However, the article points out that some security experts place that number at 500—10 times the official figure. There has been a good working relationship between our countries, and I have the greatest confidence in the ability of both Indonesia and Malaysia to counter such threats. In a world so uncertain, Australia cannot afford to be found sleeping at the wheel—and that is what we were doing under the previous government.

I have told you where the problem was; now I am going to tell you what we are doing about it. Since coming to government, the coalition has turned around the fiscal position of Customs and Border Protection. As previously stated, on 1 July 2015, the Australian Border Force will be established as part of the amalgamation of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. Not only will this amalgamation see costs relating to the duplication of back-of-house operations reduced; it will also allow the department and specifically the ABF to focus their resources on front-line operations, protecting Australians and keeping our borders secure. The coalition government will be delivering a $480 million package, which will include $98 million for enforcement operations and supplement the acquisition of six additional patrol vessels to the tune of $249.6 million, to support the National Border Targeting Centre to develop and advance its intelligence capability and systems; over $70 million to establish a Trusted Trader framework to reward those individuals who do the right thing and allow the ADF to focus their resources on high-risk areas; and a $53.6 million allowance for the consolidation of workforce and the establishment of an ABF college.

While we are on that, one of the ways that Customs does its job is by profiling. If you are a passenger coming through the airport—and we have all done this—you wonder why they stand there and look at you and say, 'You go that way and you go this way. You go and get your bag searched. You keep going through.' It is because nine times out of 10 they have done a profile on you before you have even got there. If you have come from a country where there is a high risk of people wanting to do nefarious things, it is a good chance that you will go to the bag search area. If you have got a clean criminal record in Australia and you have not been involved in drugs or any bad behaviour, they will probably send you along with the majority of people—straight out the front. This profiling was reduced. As we said, the intelligence capability of the systems were reduced by Labor cuts, but we are putting money back into it. We are taking the threats to border security seriously, and the investment this government is making, combined with the measures that we are taking to strengthen our legislative instruments, as in this amendment, are crucial to keeping our borders safe. I could go through other issues, but, as the other speakers have done that rather well, I will not take the time of the House to do so.

However, I want to conclude by saying a few things. The amendments contained within this bill seek to bring about a common sense approach to the problems that the Australian Customs and Border Protection Services faces on an almost daily basis. This is another example of how the coalition is keeping a tight grip on the reins of government and, in this particular case, getting on with the job of making our borders secure, not just from illegal entrants but, as I said, at ports and airports and in a whole range of others areas where people wish to enter Australia illegally. We have not even mentioned the fact that, if people want to misbehave and do something illegal, they do not necessarily come through the front door of an airport. They might find some remote airstrip somewhere in the Northern Territory or elsewhere. We have also seen people arriving at desolate and isolated spots on our coast, which also need border protection. We know customs has planes to do this; we know that customs is even interested in heading towards the use of drones to do this—because that is the modern way of surveillance.

We have stopped the boats; we are shutting down the detention centres; we are going to save those billions of dollars a year. We have not heard the latest figure, but I do know that so far there has only been one boat that is reached Australia in the last 12 months—compared to 350 or thereabouts in the same period of time. That is, one boat compared to so many boats and 20,000 people in the community who Labor is still trying to stop us from processing, and that is still costing us money though it is costing us a darn sight less than when Labor was in charge of the Treasury benches. We have stopped deaths at sea and we are taking children out of the detention centres. It really makes you grimace when you hear our critics talking about children in detention—we are taking them out; we are educating them; we are paying for them to go to school in detention centres, unlike the previous government. We are doing something to fix up the mess we inherited. We are doing what we said we would do and we are delivering on what we said we would do.

I recall vividly before the last federal election, as I went around my electorate doorknocking, people said to me: 'You can't stop them—the gate's open—there's no way in the world that you guys will be able to stop them.'

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