Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill 2020. Transport security—the security of our ports and airports—is fundamental to controlling our borders and to our national security. In this time of COVID, this fact has been made even more acutely clear, as we saw when there was a breakdown of our maritime security clearances with the Ruby Princess, which saw passengers allowed to disembark and take COVID-19 with them around the country and around the world.

One might think that a competent, responsible federal government would recognise the mistakes of the Ruby Princess and prioritise any further transport security legislation appropriately to avoid any further bungles. Instead, what we have is this bill today—poorly thought out, ill defined, an inadequate tinkering with the regime covering the aviation security identification card, ASIC, and the maritime security identification card, MSIC. Both of these cards are an important part of securing the aviation, maritime and offshore oil and gas sectors from acts of terrorism and unlawful interference. Labor supports these schemes as an important tool to ensure that workers hold a valid background check and are not a threat to aviation or maritime security. We know that there are people who want to try and use air and sea transport and travel to bring contraband such as drugs and weapons into Australia or take contraband out of Australia. It's the federal government's responsibility to take sensible measures to deter and detect these crimes and to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Labor would support sensible measures, but this bill, the Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill, has a number of serious flaws the government has failed to address. It leaves a big hole in our border security by completely failing to address the issue of foreign crew on ships operating on Australian domestic routes and it adds an extra level of uncertainty for Australian workers, who already struggle with bureaucratic delays and inconsistencies. The government's own bureaucrats have warned that foreign crew on board vessels that use flag-of-convenience registration to operate in Australia are likely targets for organised crime syndicates and terrorists. The then Department of Immigration and Border Protection very clearly said in 2017 that the reduced transparency and secrecy surrounding the complex financial and ownership arrangements of these vessels make them and their crew attractive for use in illegal activity, including by organised crime or terrorist groups. The department went on to say that these 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.

There is no 'may' about it. Take the case of the ship Sage Sagittarius and its master, Captain Salas. In 2012 he became a person of interest in the New South Wales coroner's investigation into three highly suspicious deaths aboard the Sage Sagittarius. Captain Salas admitted to the coroner that he was involved in gun trafficking and trading in alcohol. Despite this evidence in front of the New South Wales coroner, the Liberal government still let Captain Salas back into Australian waters, in December 2015, as master of the Kypros Sea. That ship travelled between a number of Australian ports, primarily Gladstone and Weipa, in early 2016. Other examples of rogue elements on flag-of-convenience vessels include illegal fishing and people-smuggling. In August 2017 there was the incredible story of a North Korean crew exploiting the flag-of-convenience arrangements to smuggle 30,000 rocket grenades. In fact, Tonga shut down its use of flag-of-convenience vessels because at one stage al-Qaeda was actually found to own the vessels, which were transporting weapons, ammunition and crew to Europe.

Despite this proof of risks, this government has done nothing to ensure that these foreign workers are subject to robust background checking. Australian workers can be subject to a three-month wait for their MSIC, but foreign crew can currently get a maritime crew visa and come into Australia with as little as 24 hours notice and with no MSIC required. The inconsistency is brought into sharp relief when we look at the eight Rio Tinto ships trading in Queensland waters in 2020. Four of these ships had Australian seafarers and all of them required an MSIC. However, another four ships used the flag-of-convenience arrangements with foreign crew, who do not need an MSIC.

This is why I have introduced a private senator's bill to close this gap. The Migration Amendment (New Maritime Crew Visas) Bill 2020 will require the relevant minister to replace the current maritime crew visa with two new categories of maritime crew visa. The first is the international seafarers transit visa, which can only be used for crew entering Australia on a continuing international voyage. The second is the international seafarers work visa. This second visa will ensure that foreign seafarers who work off our coastline, often for years and years, on flag-of-convenience ships are subject to the same kind of background checking that Australians are subject to when applying for an MSIC. This is a commonsense piece of legislation, one to level the playing field to make sure that foreign workers are subject to the same kinds of background checks that hardworking Australians face when working in our seaports and off our shores.

I'm also introducing an amendment to this bill that delays the introduction of the bill, should it pass the parliament, until my private senator's bill is passed into law. Any risks to our transport security cannot be dealt with in isolation. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs should not be turning a blind eye to the risks posed by foreign crew. This amendment will force him to take these national security risks seriously.

While addressing transport security risks makes sense, what does not make sense is the way this government made a last-minute, dramatic change to its own legislation by introducing criminal intelligence assessments as part of the ASIC and MSIC schemes. I want to be clear that Labor supports well-targeted measures to address serious crime. Serious crime deserves serious responses. This government cannot be taken seriously when its response is to introduce an entirely new function to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission without any real examination of the legislation. The Minister for Home Affairs rammed this last-minute amendment through the House of Representatives after allowing members only minutes to consider its ramifications. There has been no Senate inquiry to consider if the government's criminal intelligence assessment legislation will do the job the government says it will. There's been no consultation with industry or workers, as there is with every other change to the ASIC and MSIC schemes.

In the supplementary explanatory memorandum, the government says that this change is about preventing persons who are known members of organised crime groups or known associates from obtaining an ASIC or MSIC. But the detail of this legislation goes significantly further than the government claims. The bill actually allows the ACIC to prevent any person from obtaining an ASIC or MSIC based on whether the ACIC believes the person 'may commit' a serious or organised crime or 'may assist' another person to commit a serious and organised crime.

I've got a great deal of respect for the ACIC; they do good work. But this bill is asking the ACIC to predict whether someone will commit a serious and organised crime, not if they have already committed a crime, not if they are a member of an organised crime group but whether, at some point in the future, they'll commit a serious and organised crime. For all of the ACIC's fine qualities, I doubt that fortune-telling is one of them. Labor has been advised by experts that merely having a suspicion that someone may commit a crime is a very low standard for denying a person an ASIC or MSIC. Further to that: 'The complexity of the ACC Act definition of "serious and organised crime" will make it very difficult for the ACIC to make and defend an evidence based assessment of whether a person may commit a serious and organised crime.'

There are already significant bureaucratic delays in the ASIC-MSIC system. All too often, Australian workers can't go to work, because the Department of Home Affairs contractors have bungled their paperwork or not finished it on time. A quarter of a million Australian workers currently hold an ASIC or MSIC. These Australians deserve a system that treats them with respect and allows them to do their job while also protecting our national security.

The changes that the government proposes will not produce that system. This is a rushed change. It is poorly legislated. The government must take its drafting of criminal intelligence assessments back to the drawing board. As I said, Labor supports well-targeted measures to address serious crime, but serious crime deserves serious responses, and this bill cannot be considered a serious response. In fact, there is not even a definition of 'serious crime' in the legislation. Instead, the government simply asks us to trust that they'll get it right in the regulation. It's a very big ask for the Morrison government. Get it right like they got right the price of Leppington Triangle land or like they got right the illegal, automated robodebt scheme or like they got right the response to COVID-19 and aged care? I'm sorry, but it is impossible to trust the Morrison government to get anything right.

That is why Labor will seek to amend the legislation to ensure the scope of the crimes covered under this legislation are targeted and not so unfairly broad that a range of workers are unnecessarily disqualified from the maritime and aviation industry when they do present a specific security threat, and to ensure that there is a legislated avenue of appeal for those who've been determined to have an adverse security status. People deserve to know why they cannot get a job and to have mandated processing times for ASIC and MSIC. This is a system that is plagued with bureaucratic bungling and delays, and it needs to be improved.

Other amendments will prevent the bill from being enacted until the Migration Amendment (New Maritime Crew Visas) Bill 2020 has passed into parliament; put more rigorous assessments, as I spoke to earlier, on foreign crew; introduce a statutory independent review of the act two years after it's passed the parliament and every five years after that; ensure oversight of the work of the ACIC by expanding the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security's jurisdiction to include the ACIC, as recommended in the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review; and remove schedule 2 of the bill, which introduces criminal intelligence assessments.

Our national security, the security of our ports and airports, is too important to get wrong. But this legislation is just another example of a government that isn't even getting the basics right. This is a bill with no maximum time frame to ensure that bureaucrats do their job on time and that hardworking Australians don't miss out on work; no legislated right of appeal; no background checks for foreign workers, but tougher checks for Australian workers; and no definition of 'serious crime' in a bill about, supposedly, serious crime.

Improving the security of our ports and airports is a great announcement—it gets a headline for the Minister for Home Affairs and the Prime Minister—but our border security is too important for laws protecting it to be based on what simply makes up a good press release. What we need here is strong protections at our borders, a robust framework: one that ensures that foreign workers are not easily able to come into the country while Australians face tougher security checks, one based on evidence and one based on the definition of 'serious crime'. There is too much that is wrong about this bill for Labor to support it in its current form.

I say to members of this chamber: our border security is not just a photo op; it requires a follow-up. It requires a government attentive to the challenges at our border. We know from COVID there was the Ruby Princess bungle; the bungles with quarantine, which is a federal responsibility; and a failure to actively manage the border, abandoning that responsibility to states and territories. And here there is a bill that purports to address the risks and threats of serious crime amongst the workforce on our borders but doesn't define 'serious crime' and doesn't address that significant threat posed by foreign workers.

For these reasons, Labor will be moving these amendments. I ask members of this chamber to consider them, and I ask members of this chamber to ensure that whatever comes out of this debate improves the security at our borders, at our ports and at our airports.