Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition have moved a series of amendments which would affect the bill and the government will be opposing them; however, I do want to respond briefly. We believe it is very much the minister’s responsibility—he is, of course, responsible to the parliament for his decisions—to initiate inquiries into major transport security issues, or even a series of minor incidents that may alert the minister to the possibility of a weakness in the system that it may be of public benefit to inquire into, or offshore security matters that may have implications for Australian transport and facilities security.

Apart from the fact that the minister is required under this bill to initiate the investigation by the inspector, the inspector is otherwise entirely independent as to how the investigation is conducted and as to the content of the report, which may of course be tabled in the parliament. The only reason it would not be tabled in the parliament is if the public interest test suggested that it was not in the public interest to have it tabled. That would seem, on the surface of it, to be a good out for a government that did not want to table it, but in many of these instances it would be very much in the public interest to have it tabled. In inquiries into either major domestic or major international transport security issues, I am sure that even the opposition would understand that there may well be public interest involved in not tabling some reports. The government is satisfied that ministerial initiation of these inquiries by the inspector is the appropriate way to go. As I said, the minister is responsible for bringing those decisions back to the parliament.