Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am rising to speak on the Transport Security Amendment (Serious or Organised Crime) Bill 2016. In making my comments on the bill today, I want to reiterate the view that the Greens put in our report when the regional and rural affairs and transport committee inquired into this bill last year, which is that we believe preventing serious and organised crime in our ports and airports is a critical issue. But the question remains whether trying to tackle that by tacking that provision onto existing bills, which primarily were intended to deal with threats of a terrorist nature, is an appropriate way to enact appropriate security measures.

Although we see merit in trying to align the powers of the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003, we still have some significant concerns with the legislation in its current form. And this is important because this bill has the potential to affect up to 260,000 Australian maritime and aviation workers. We believe that there is the potential for the proposed new background checking to be very punitive for people with particular histories of involvement with drugs. Access to employment is very important for those with a history of drug or alcohol abuse and should not be denied to people who have successfully rehabilitated their lives. We are concerned that, by attempting to add a secondary purpose to the maritime security or aviation security ID cards, the bill's measures could unreasonably exclude work opportunities for a large pool of already disadvantaged Australians seeking work. The fact remains that these cards—the ASIC and MSIC cards—were and should still be primarily identity cards, not security cards.

We are also concerned with the history of this bill. Submitters representing the workers have shared their concerns that they still do not feel that they have been appropriately consulted and engaged with the development of this legislation. We remain hopeful that, if there are amendments to this legislation being considered and in the rollout of this legislation, there will be more effective consultation.

In particular, our concerns about this bill also relate to whether it is tackling what are the fundamental security concerns because if we are serious about tackling the security holes that exist in our maritime and aviation security policy settings we need to work out whether tacking these issues onto another bill is the best way to achieve appropriate policy. It seems the reason ramping up the checks on maritime and aviation workers is being focused on is that it is the area that fits with the government's ideological agenda, it is relatively easy to do and it gives the impression that they are doing something whilst there are gaping holes in other elements of our security regime.

During the inquiry into this bill we saw lots of submissions that talked about the existing flaws and loopholes in the maritime crew visa background and security checks, and the fact that foreign aviation workers can be excluded from the need for ASIC cards. There is also the issue of exclusion of managers from stevedoring companies and trucking companies who are responsible for things like personnel recruitment, rosters, allocation of ship berthing and directing security. These are positions which are unquestionably vulnerable to infiltration by people seeking to cause damage or to engage in illicit activities, and yet these are not being addressed. In fact, managers, operators and workers in container packing yards, for example, who are often backpackers, have no requirement for MSIC checks. These yards are sometimes only metres outside of the security container terminals and the workers have the responsibility to place customs locks on containers, but they are exempted from the MSIC program.

Then there were the issues raised during our inquiry into flag-of-convenience shipping and the huge flaws and the huge, gaping holes in the regulation of these ships. In seeking to deregulate the domestic shipping industry we have been opened up to many, many more flag-of-convenience vessels. What we risk is that we have a much higher-risk workforce predominating in our shipping industry and a far fewer number of MSIC registered seafarers who are working our domestic shipping routes. This imbalance in itself—the fact that we have a majority of seafarers that are plying our ports, plying our shores and going in and out of our ports are on flag-of-convenience ships rather than on Australian flagged vessels—is a particular security concern.

In the Senate inquiry into flag-of-convenience shipping on the Australian coast there was a startling admission that the federal government's Department of Immigration and Border Protection made where it warned that there are features of flag-of-convenience registration, regulation and practice that organised crime syndicates or terrorists may seek to exploit. Reduced transparency or secrecy surrounding complex financial and ownership arrangements are factors that can make flag-of-convenience ships more attractive for use in illegal activity, including by organised crime or terrorist groups. This means that flag-of-convenience ships may be used in a range of illegal activities, including illegal exploitation of natural resources, illegal activity in protected areas, people smuggling and facilitating prohibited imports or exports.

Here we have a bill that is presenting this image that we are getting serious about organised crime when we know that we have got many, many more areas where there are gaping holes. Some of these areas have been identified and they are alarming. The fact is we have flag-of-convenience ships that are involved in the carriage, storage and delivery of really dangerous cargoes, including ammonium nitrate. There is huge evidence that with regard to the background checks for maritime crew visas for foreign workers who are engaged on flag-of-convenience shipping there is a lot that can slip through the net. So we have ourselves in a particularly vulnerable situation. We have critical infrastructure of oil and gas production, exploration and storage where we have foreign workers with inadequate checks having access to that. Yet we are focusing on increasing the security checks on Australian workers. We have Australian city ports where there are no security checks at all and where foreign crew on foreign flagged ships and flag-of-convenience ships are free to come and go through open gates. These are where we really have the problems and where we really need to focus our efforts if we are serious about addressing serious and organised crime.

We really think it is important that we are addressing issues of serious and organised crime, but we feel that this current legislation is failing to deal with the real problems. So the Greens do not believe that this legislation should be supported in its current form, but we are open to seeing this legislation improved. We understand and have considered the Labor Party amendment being proposed to this bill. We think that amendment, if passed, would significantly improve some of the aspects of this bill. In particular, rather than imposing these background checks just on Australian workers for serious or organised crime, the fact is it should be serious and organised crime considered. If an Australian worker is denied a visa there needs to be a process of appeal because it is important not to be denying Australian workers a visa unilaterally, with many people missing out on their opportunity to be working in our ports. We have to have an appeals process, particularly if you compare that with the situation of the many foreign workers on flag-of-convenience vessels who do not have to have the same checks. We have all of these gaping holes. We know that we can have foreign workers coming through our ports without the same checks, but we are unnecessarily and inappropriately having to have very restrictive arrangements on Australian workers working on our ports.

We look forward to the rest of the debate on this legislation and we look forward in particular to discussing the amendments that have been proposed by the Labor Party. I am hoping that we can see some vastly improved legislation that we will be able to support.