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

The bill that we are debating today, the Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill 2020, is very similar to an earlier bill in a previous parliament. The Transport Security Amendment (Serious or Organised Crime) Bill 2016 in fact passed the Senate, and it returned to the House of Representatives with amendments for them to assent to. But it languished there for several years until it lapsed at the end of the previous parliament, because I think, at that stage, those opposite were basically too busy undermining each other to actually address some of the serious issues and the substance of those issues.

I spoke several years ago to the earlier bill, and I'd reiterate some of the points that were made then. Firstly, and critically, preventing serious and organised crime at our ports and at our airports is a critical issue that needs to be done well. It needs to be done well and it needs to be done appropriately, with a framework that protects workers and protects our security. But what we need to be asking is whether expanding a framework that was legislated to address terrorism risks is an appropriate way to be addressing the issues of serious and organised crime.

We've got two major concerns with this legislation and, unless these concerns are addressed, we cannot support it. The first issue is what impact this bill will have upon workers both in the maritime industry and in the aviation industry. As the Maritime Union of Australia, the MUA, have noted in their submission, the two cards that are core to this legislation, the maritime and aviation security identification cards, MSICs and ASICs, are right-to-work cards. You can't work in our ports or our airports unless you've got one of these cards. The changes that are proposed in this bill have got the potential to impact up to 260,000 workers, so you've got to get it right. There are a lot of workers whose very livelihood and very ability to work are going to be impacted by this legislation. If the process goes wrong, it can be devastating. Again as the MUA have noted, in some cases the MSIC renewal process is taking months and is rendering some workers ineligible to access their workplace while agencies fumble the checking processes.

Actually having a system that works, is timely and is effective is critical to both protecting our security and protecting the rights of workers to actually work. In some cases, you've got issues where workers may have an offence from decades ago that's been long dealt with, but it can cause delays every time a card is renewed—let alone the processes that are proposed in this bill, where what has to be assessed is whether they may in the future commit offences to do with serious or organised crime. It's not about whether they have a history of that but whether they may do that in the future. You can just imagine the processes, how long it might take and the impact on workers that that assessment may have. We've got to have a framework that is better managed and actually takes seriously the need for security and takes into account the need for some certainty for workers as well.

The second major issue that we've got with this bill is its focus on aiming to improve security by tightening up the conditions under which workers can get an MSIC or an ASIC, while at the same time we have got workers on foreign owned vessels, on flag-of-convenience vessels, that are able to access the country without these checks and balances. So I reckon it's really reasonable that, before you tighten up the controls on our domestic workers and make it more difficult for people here to get work, you actually have to be addressing some of the huge security holes in our framework as they apply to foreign seafarers. This is something that this legislation doesn't do. One of the issues that has been raised with us is the poor storage of ammonium nitrate. There was a tragic blast in Lebanon last year—a massive, huge blast—that involved poor storage of ammonium nitrate. One of the issues that the MUA have raised is that the government continues to issue temporary permits to ships that carry dangerous goods such as ammonium nitrate without checking whether they adhere to the safety standards of Australia and without carrying out crew safety inspections. It's really important that we ensure that we are applying frameworks fairly, systematically and without engaging in what is basically the theatre of saying, 'Yeah, we're improving security,' in one area while neglecting it in another.

The Senate has done quite a lot of work over the last few years looking at the issues associated with foreign flagged ships and flag-of-convenience ships, in particular. The risks that have been highlighted from flag-of-convenience shipping are very real. They have not been addressed by this government and they are not being addressed in this legislation. We had a Senate inquiry into flag-of-convenience shipping, and basically nothing has improved since that Senate inquiry. The International Transport Workers' Federation basically said after our report came out, 'Under the legislative abuses'—of the government at the time—'Australian seafarers, properly trained, security-screened and resident taxpayers, have been sacked and their jobs in a domestic transport sector given away to whoever comes over the horizon without a word of inquiry about their background.' Basically there is so little transparency in flag-of-convenience shipping and there are so few controls on the background of those seafarers that we have this huge gaping hole in our security that's not being addressed that needs to be addressed. Our Senate report said of flag-of-convenience ships:

The committee maintains that these vessels present serious security risks to the Australian coast, which need to be properly addressed.

All the while, this is happening in the context of lack of support for Australian shipping and an increasing proportion of shipping being done by foreign-owned flags-of-convenience ships.

I think it's important to note, if you also think about the working conditions on these ships—and I'm sure many of us here have read the media reports and know about the incredibly poor working conditions—and the incredibly low wages that these foreign exploited seafarers are under, the risk is that they are susceptible to pressure. They are susceptible to perhaps doing things that aren't necessarily aboveboard because of the pressures that they are under. They're not being paid properly and they've got families that are really struggling in their home countries. It means that they are very vulnerable to being under pressure from people to get them to perhaps do things that we don't want them to do, that are in fact a security risk to us here in Australia. These are some of the really substantial issues that need to be seriously addressed by this government that just haven't been.

In the 6½ years I've been in the Senate, and I've been the Greens' transport spokesperson, issues relating to Australian shipping and the issues of foreign-owned and flags-of-convenience shipping are things that we have been hammering away on, yet nothing has been done. Nothing has changed. Those risks are all still there.

In conclusion, we think it's really important that we are addressing issues of serious crime, but this current legislation is not dealing with the underlying issues and we can't support it in its current form, given the problems with how it's been implemented. I said 'in conclusion', but I just want to raise one further point, and that is the lack of consultation with the workers and with the unions in the changes that are now being proposed. Last year the ACTU said:

The ACTU shares the concerns expressed by our affiliated unions that the changes proposed in this bill have been developed without the typical level of consultation with affected workers and their unions—consultation which has typically resulted in more effective and well-targeted security…

So what we call upon the government to do is to actually go and talk to the unions, talk to the workers and listen to what they have to say, and actually propose some changes that are going to really work both for the workers and for increasing the security of our country.

We have a series of Labor Party amendments which are being put forward today. We believe that they do go some way to addressing our concerns, so I really call upon the government and the crossbench to seriously look at the ALP amendments and to support them, because with those amendments, if they are supported, we may end up with a bit of legislation that addresses some of these issues—at least as far as it goes for our domestic workers. We hope that we can arrive, through the scrutiny and debate that's appropriate in this place, at some improved legislation that we can support, because this is an important issue and it really deserves serious, careful consideration so that you end up with legislation that is both looking after the security of Australia and looking after the security and job security of Australian workers.