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

I just want to go back to questions we were asking, particularly regarding foreign seafarers and comparing those foreign seafarers with the MCV card as opposed those with the MSIC. I want to draw the attention of the committee to an article on 12 March which went through a particular bust that was done of alleged cocaine importers. But they have the cocaine, so it's not so alleged!

We had the Australian Federal Police Commander Kirsty Schofield, the Australian Border Force acting commander of investigations Garry Lowe and the New South Wales police state crime command director Detective Chief Superintendent Darren Bennett, all of whom appear to have played key roles in busting this group. I congratulate them for the work that they've done. But I want to draw attention to this question of what the circumstances are with these MSICs and MCVs. What seemed to happen in this particular sorry story was that not only was there many hundreds of thousands of dollars in cocaine seized but $100,000 was also located in a shed in New South Wales. Further, they went on to find other evidence which showed that the estimated value of a kilogram block was $230,000 and that those could attract two to three times that amount on the street.

This is probably the critical question, because, again, it comes back to the MSICs, which are required for and expected by employers in the shipping industry. Employers expect workers to have MSICs; they expect their workforce to be able to work in any secure area on and off the port. So they all have MSICs and they're expected to have MSICs; they're part of the conditions of them performing their duties. And because a lot of those employers are also law-abiding, along with their workforce, they're more than happy to have MSICs. It actually goes through detailed requirements requiring checks from various places, which I'm about to ask the minister about. But this raises the serious concern about those who don't have MSICs—these foreign seafarers, who are now doing more and more of the local shipping around Australia's coast and, of course, are plying in and out of our ports around this country.

Regarding the joint agency operation that I mentioned, the article says:

The joint-agency operation marks the third time authorities have nabbed boats attempting to import large quantities of cocaine since the pandemic crisis started. But the method of at-sea transfers isn't anything new.

The at-sea transfer is a well-known method that a lot of organised crime groups use ... what certainly has changed is the way in which we actually have to deal with these sorts of vessel importations when they arrive on shore; there's a real COVID overlay that we have to apply, particularly if crew on the vessels are from a foreign country.

It talks about the complexity but, most importantly, it also talks about the fact this is one of three major busts that have randomly been discovered—and in this particular case by overseas intelligence. It also goes to the point that all of the seafarers that are potentially involved in this particular illegal activity do not have an MSIC pass. They have not been properly checked to see what ASIO might think of them, what information criminal intelligence agencies in Australia might have on them or what information the Department of Home Affairs has regarding immigration checks. So all of these checks and inspections aren't a regular go-to for maritime crew visas. If they were, we would see a situation where the average time it would take to act on them would be like the 80 per cent that take an average of nearly three weeks or 15 working days and some that go to three months and six months. But, somehow in the case of maritime visa holders, they're able to turn around and say that they have the capacity to come up with the answers within 24 to 48 hours.

Often the checks we do on Australian crew are appropriate checks, though there have been some examples where it has not been appropriate. We've had one example where a person working in the industry had been involved in a fight many decades ago at a very young age and every year when he goes to get his card there is a further delay. He's given evidence to the Senate inquiry more than once, and I congratulate him for coming forward and being open to scrutiny from everybody and saying, 'These are the circumstances that I find myself in, and when I try to get my security pass it's delayed and delayed.' And we've seen him miss ships as a result of it.

So we go back to this question about MSIC and ASIC and the two different standards that apply. We've got ammonium nitrate carried around our borders, all around this country. We saw the case where 2,500 tonnes of ammonium nitrate blew a huge hole in Beirut. Most importantly and most horrifically, that ammonium nitrate exploding resulted in not only substantial financial damage but also loss of life, loss of limbs and many injuries. We see examples where ammonium nitrate is now being moved all around this country by foreign seafarers. They don't have to wait 15 working days—which is actually three weeks—or six weeks, or three months or six months; they get their licence within 48 hours.

What's clear in the way this is approached by this government is that there is a failure to properly check the people—potentially the most dangerous individuals—who are potentially plying drugs on our borders. The government argues that that's all too expensive—that it is too expensive to do that. What about the lives that are affected? What about the fact that we don't take action to make sure that drugs and weapons are not imported into this country?

It's appropriate to turn around to make sure that the maritime crew visa is extended to having the same obligations as, or similar obligations to, MSIC. When you're off a ship, as we spoke about this morning in Geelong—two people have left a ship and can't be found. I gather they're MCVs; they're certainly not MSICs, because MSICs require even further detailed checks. We've now got people roaming around the countryside as a result of the inappropriateness of the systems we use to know what is actually happening on ships coming to and from our ports.

Three separate, major cocaine busts—Minister, can you step us through the MSIC, which we got part way through before question time came up, and then the maritime crew visa and highlight the differences between the two?