Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill 2020. I say with interest that the government have not looked at how you actually make our ports and our airports more secure. There are some fundamental failings on the part of the government. In actual fact these changes go to some critical elements of security in this country. Of course Labor supports legislation that will keep our ports and airports safe—and, as a person who has worked in airports and around our ports, I know how important the safety of our airports and ports is to both the national economy and the tens of thousands of people working on and off our ports—but striking the right balance with protecting the human rights of essential workers in these industries is critical. This bill, however, does not strike that balance. Instead, it compounds many of the existing inefficiencies with the current regime for approval of the aviation security identification card, ASIC, or the maritime security identification card, MSIC.

We have a number of concerns with this bill, many of which have been outlined in the Labor senators' contributions to the bill's review by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee—namely, that the bill will see working people denied natural justice, will entrench inappropriate standards for the domestic shipping workforce and will see an unnecessary and unsettling delegation of authority to the minister on a policy area that demands parliamentary scrutiny.

Firstly, the legislation's creation of a greater delegation of authority to the minister responsible for the definition of serious crime is problematic. It's a problem because it creates additional unsupervised means by which an employee would unfairly be stopped from receiving an ASIC or a MSIC—two cards that aviation or maritime workers require in order to work at our airports, ports or offshore facilities.

As outlined in the committee's report and specifically in the Labor senators' dissenting report, this legislation is significantly flawed on a number of grounds. Currently ASIC and MSIC applications are checked by ASIO, the AFP and Immigration. These checks are already time-consuming, sometimes taking 90 days or more to complete. Even in instances in which a worker has been previously approved for an identification card many times over the course of their career without incident, they are repeatedly forced to suffer through this limbo. This waiting period regularly holds them up from taking part in their livelihood, depriving them of the work and the resulting income needed to support their family. Particularly now, during a period in which aviation and maritime workers are facing job losses, reduced hours and wage cuts, the unintended consequences of this legislation would be a cruel blow to these workers.

This legislation could be improved by creating maximum time frames for the approval of ASIC and MSIC cards so that workers and employers are granted some certainty. Labor will move these amendments to this bill. When the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee reviewed the bill they heard stories of seafarers like Brendan McKeen. Brendan had to wait 90 days when renewing his existing identification card. He said that in that time the ship came and went and he missed an opportunity to take on work that he could ill afford to miss. The reason for the hold-up is an incident in a Queensland pub more than 30 years ago. Brendan has no other conviction, no other crime, and yet the system as it stands regularly punishes him for no legitimate reason. An unfair impediment to people working and earning an income to support their family should give senators pause, particularly during, and as we rebuild from, the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the government, instead of taking responsibility for the regular delays in processing clearances for workers and the effect this has on who works in the industry, has put forward legislation which could delay processing times even further. Moreover, the government's last-minute amendment to this bill before it passed the House, to expand the role of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to complete criminal intelligence assessments that would stop workers being granted an ASIC or MSIC, should be of concern to all senators and the general public. We have a last-minute amendment, not circulated in advance, to give the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission dramatically expanded powers that they are currently not resourced to do and to handle. It would see workers lose their clearance entirely on the basis of untested intelligence. This isn't what good governance looks like. This isn't due process. It is a cruel, low blow to workers, wrapped up in trumped-up national security concerns.

If this bill passes unamended, a worker's livelihood will be subject to intelligence, which doesn't have to be intelligent—intelligence that the agency does not need to disclose and that might not even be that credible. Denying or delaying someone's right to work because of some sort of rumour of intelligence denies the natural justice we are all entitled to. Imagine if such a law were brought to your workplace or to parliament, where a simple rumour could deny you your job for 90 days or so, without end. As a unionist I'll not stand workers being regularly denied natural justice in their workplace. As a senator I'm not convinced that this legislation does not contain the power to unfairly take away a person's livelihood.

Moreover, the bill does not provide an avenue for workers to appeal an unfavourable decision—if they have had their ASIC or MSIC denied to them. There is no appeal process. It's all done on the quiet. It's done without transparency and there's no appeal process. Imagine if that was in your workplace or in this parliament. The government's failure to legislate a means to appeal to allow workers to hear the allegations against them speaks to this government's lack of regard for workers at airports, at ports and at sea. It doesn't have the necessary transparency that is inherent in a well thought out piece of legislation.

Another issue in this legislation is that it entrenches the lack of standards for flag-of-convenience shipping. Flag-of-convenience shipping is a contentious business practice in which a ship's owners register the ship abroad to take advantage of less stringent laws or regulations, similar to the practices of some multinationals who operate heavily in Australia or in the United Kingdom but who remain registered in overseas tax havens. During the committee's hearings, multiple witnesses confirmed that the current provision in this legislation would not apply to the crew of foreign flagged ships. These crew only need maritime crew visas, available generally within 24 to 48 hours—in contrast with domestic crews, flag-of-convenience crews are not checked by ASIO, let alone by Interpol—while domestic Australian crews can wait up to 90 days just to renew their cards and may have them arbitrarily delayed or denied.

This legislation deepens the existing double standards while doing nothing to deal with the existing national security concerns inherent in Australia's growing reliance on flag-of-convenience shipping. Previous Senate inquiries into issues surrounding flag-of-convenience shipping have noted that its current registration, regulation and operation arrangements make it particularly susceptible to the influence of organised crime syndicates and terrorist groups. So let's make this very clear. The government are not serious about terrorist groups. They're not serious about organised crime. They're serious about looking like they're doing something whilst impeding the right to appeal and proper transparency. That bill says it all about this government.

In evidence to a Senate Regional and Rural Affairs and Transport References Committee hearing in 2016, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection said:

Reduced transparency or secrecy surrounding complex financial and ownership arrangements are factors that can make FOC ships more attractive for use in illegal activity, including by organised crime or terrorist groups.

This means that FOC ships may be used in a range of illegal activities, including the illegal exploitation of natural resources, illegal activity in protected areas, people smuggling, and facilitating prohibited imports or exports.

Yet the government does nothing.

It might be of interest to senators that the sorts of things transported on flag-of-convenience shipping are not just cars or clothes; they are chemicals and goods used in our mining industry—chemicals like ammonium nitrate, the explosive chemical that was at the heart of the great tragedy in Beirut on 4 August last year. Australia regularly issues temporary permits to foreign ships that carry chemicals like ammonium nitrate. They'll be going past a capital city of yours, or dropping in to say hello. More than 85,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was moved through the port of Newcastle this year, most of it moved by flag-of-convenience ships with workers who never get checked by ASIO or the AFP for terrorist activity, criminal activity and the like. They are ships flagged in Singapore, Panama, Liberia, Russia. What does this government do? Nothing! They are ships crewed by foreign workers who are not subject to the same background checks we demand of our domestic workforce. The government likes to talk big on borders and security but not when it's in the interests of multinational corporations who shirk their tax and labour standard obligations by running flag-of-convenience shipping. They're in the pocket of big corporations rather than for Australians. Does that surprise you? It doesn't surprise me.

A practice that undermines our domestic maritime workforce deprives our country of valuable tax revenue and poses significant security and safety risks. In a report by Greg Sheridan, Teresa Lloyd from MIAL, Maritime Industry Australia Ltd, the body that represents the Australian cargo industry, was reported as saying:

There are now just 13 Australian-flagged or controlled cargo vessels. Thirty-odd years ago there were 100. Britain still has 470 such commercial ships.

Admiral Barrett, as a board member, also spoke. He said:

If you don't have the capacity to requisition ships, there's not much you can do in an emergency.

The article went on:

A national government has legal authority in a crisis to requisition civilian ships, which carry its flag or are controlled by its companies, but has no authority over foreign ships.

This goes to broader issues about how this government operates in the shipping industry and how it operates on behalf of big corporations against our national interests, our employment interests and our national security interests. As I've just said, flag-of-convenience shipping has already undermined our domestic seafaring industry. This bill will deepen the double standard. This legislation provides additional support to flag-of-convenience shipping that will further offshore our domestic shipping industry.

I'm also concerned about the unnecessary and unsettling delegation of authority to the minister in this matter. It will prevent parliamentary oversight on possible expansions of the scope of requirements to have ASIC or MSIC cards. This is further compounded by the failure of the government to provide an early draft of the regulations that should be associated with this legislation, despite the idea of this legislation having been in the works since they first promised it in the 2013 federal election. The Senate committee reviewing this bill was denied any preview of the accompanying regulations. That should give any senator who is interested in transparency cause for concern about this bill.

The disturbing trend of governing by regulation denies parliament the same rights of oversight of legislation. of Giving the minister the ability by regulation, where the Senate must choose to allow or disallow the regulation, to expand the scope or definition of 'serious crime', change the definition of 'serious crime' and deny someone their security card grants the Senate very blunt powers of oversight. Instead, such things should be contained in legislation to this parliament. This delegation is unsettling because the serious crime bill doesn't include a definition of 'serious crime', which is farcical. Instead, that definition is ambiguously left to the department and the minister in question.

There are several definitions of 'serious crime' across a number of Commonwealth acts and regulations that the minister might have picked. The minister hasn't done so. You didn't even have to think about it; you only had to look at the options and consider the best ones. This has been in consideration since 2013. We're surely not at the point where ministers should have the right to unilaterally change standards. (Time expired)