Senate debates

Monday, 20 March 2017

Bills

Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016; Second Reading

10:02 am

Photo of Alex GallacherAlex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I would like to speak on this very important piece of legislation—the Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016. It is probably widely known to, particularly, representatives in this chamber who move through airports on a regular basis—internationally and domestically—how important transport security is. Maintaining a modern system of transport security is a critical function of any government. Recent history illustrates the need for ongoing vigilance, especially in the aviation and airport sector. Labor has a very strong view that aviation security must always come before partisan politics. This legislation provides some simple but necessary changes that will ensure Australia is up to date with the modern system of transport security.

Australia is a signatory to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as the Chicago Convention, which governs international aviation. Recently, ICAO—the body which is established under the Chicago Convention—increased standards for screening of persons, goods and vehicles in security controlled zones and airports, and there is a need for Australian legislation to be updated to reflect this higher standard. The important point is the increased security in cleared zones.

In a previous life plus one, I actually worked at an airport for over a decade, and I have to tell you that the security in those days was hit-and-miss and problematic, but we lived in a much more benign environment. It has improved strongly since the seventies. The introduction of the aviation security industry card was a very positive step, but what happened alongside the growth of the airline industry was the introduction of a much more competitive framework which meant that employment standards for people in the aviation industry changed—or, arguably, at least their take-home pay dropped. So you had much more part-time employment, much more casual employment and much more competition in the catering sector that supplied airlines. You had competition introduced into the baggage-handling sector of supply of airlines and competition introduced into the freight-forwarding sector. So a plane gets off the ground with a full complement of passengers sitting in seats, and below deck there is an enormous amount of cargo, mail and the like.

There are a number of disparate sectors that combine, if you like, to make that efficiency happen in the economy. Naturally enough, through a free and open market economy, competition to provide those services has increased, and, arguably, it has increased the number of people accessing secure zones at airports. In fact, that is not an argument—that is a fact. The number of people accessing secure zones at every airport in Australia has increased. What has not increased, in my view, is the level of scrutiny and insurance. To be perfectly frank, in the old days it was a great job and you did not stuff it up. These days, it is much more of a part-time—indeed even casual—type of employment. Unfortunately, that degree of competitive pressure increases the potential for risk.

I can remember when the ASIC was introduced. I can remember an actual case with an Australian soldier. He served in the Australian Army working for a freight-forwarding company. He had been working for the company for three years. He could not get an ASIC. It took an inordinate amount of time for him to get an ASIC clearance, and the reason, quite simply, was his surname. His surname was one that attracted the attention of the authorities who approved the ASICs, and they took an inordinate amount of time to approve it. In that time he was virtually denied the opportunity to work at the airport and in the secure areas.

This legislation will authorise the screening of persons, vehicles and goods which are already in the security zone at an airport. So you will have a card to say you are okay to access an airport, but on a regular basis you may well be scrutinised throughout the course of your duties. At the moment, if people leave Adelaide Airport to go for a break they go through a security section and they do not come back that way. So they take their boots off, go through screeners and, if they have gone outside for a medical appointment or to access the car park, they come back through a secure screening point. All visitors are obviously screened. These are critical functions undertaken very well.

At the moment when you are on the job around the airport unloading, loading, moving baggage and freight, and being a security officer you are not subject to scrutiny inside the airport. Recent events, including the bombing of a Metrojet flight in Egypt in October in 2015 and the attempted bombing of a Daallo Airlines flight in Somalia in February last year, underscore the potential threat. I think Australia is at of the same level of risk as anywhere else, but it would be prudent, given the discovery and prosecution of people who have smuggled drugs into Australia, to make the obvious conclusion that criminal activity may not be just related to those. There have been occasions around the airports of Australia where there has been inside knowledge and inside assistance, and people have been prosecuted for assisting in various nefarious activities—the smuggling in of drugs and the like. So obviously there is a need to increase and authorise the screening of persons.

How each airport will use this authority will be a matter between the airport and the Office of Transport Security. Security plans are approved for each airport, so naturally enough the office will go and have a look at the potential risk and they will come up with a security plan. That security plan will then be put in application. The government has indicated that these new arrangements will apply at nine airports—mainland capitals plus the Gold Coast and Cairns. So obviously someone has done a risk assessment of those airports and security plans will be put in place.

The legislation sits alongside enhanced security awareness training for employees and contractors who work in security zones. That training and awareness is probably where most of the good work that we do can be done—deterrence, deterrence, deterrence. People need to be aware that they need to be approved for entrance into an airport and that they need to qualify for their aviation security identification card. They then need to be absolutely aware that whatever facet of their employment they are undertaking in that secured area can also be security checked. I think this is useful and good legislation.

It is important to note, given developments in the current world environment, that the explanatory memorandum to this bill includes the following commitment in a formal statement of compatibility with human rights. On equality and nondiscrimination it says all people have the right to be treated equally and, in keeping with Australia’s egalitarian screening regime applied to aviation passengers, selection of airline or airport workers, visitors and contractors for screening inside the security restricted areas of airports will be purely random. Individuals will not be selected according to their race, religion, gender or other personal characteristics.

As I said earlier, I was aware of one particular case where a person did not get their ASIC for an inordinate period of time. It impacted on his employment. The person was Muslim. He had served in the Australian Army creditably. He was in the transport industry and when the initial ASIC came in he made representations. We were none the wiser. It was over a six-month period that he was seeking his clearance. No clearance was forthcoming. His job was under jeopardy and pressure.

It is extremely important that when this security checking is undertaken of security cleared people in an airport we do not have any stereotyping searches and we do not have anybody doing anything but introducing it purely at random. It should go across all categories, including management. Mine sites do this particularly well with their drug and alcohol policies. Their staff report to work on a day and if their number comes up they go and do the random relevant drug and alcohol testing. As a bit of advice to people: if you do it on a purely random basis it has an immense deterrent effect. No-one who works in that area can be sure that they are not going to be called up and security checked on that day. So a random basis is robust and effective. Labor is strongly of the view that random testing free of any focus on race, religion, gender or personal characteristics will underpin a much more secure Australian airport environment.

On privacy in a case where a frisk research is necessary, an individual may request that the procedure occur in a private room or within a screened area. A frisk search will always be undertaken by someone of the same gender as the person being searched. Airports and governments need to ensure that arrangements exist for this to occur on those occasions. Given our knowledge of various airports around the world, I am sure the facilities exist to be able to undertake those activities.

This bill, the Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016, also authorises greater delegation of powers under aviation and maritime security legislation, such as powers to approve security plans and variations to these plans. This will permit quicker responses—and I think this is absolutely to the heart of security, that we need to be able to respond efficiently, effectively and quickly. The last thing that operators of airports need is to know the challenge exists and not be able to deal with it quickly. This bill will authorise the greater delegation of powers and permit quicker responses.

While some of the language from the government is around removal of regulatory constraints—red tape removal—Labor believes that transport security is too important to be a mere exercise in extending light-handed regulation. While regulatory settings should always be reviewed, Labor supports this legislation first and foremost because it updates security measures to be consistent with world standards, and because it includes an additional and sensible option that enhances the object of removing threats to aviation security.

In Australia we have an enviable safety record. It is a credit to our existing system of regulation. It is a credit to our workforce in the aviation sector—diligent, hardworking, loyal, alert and aware participants in a vital sector of the economy. Having been a worker in that sector, I can attest to the fact that people are smart, they are alert, they are aware, they do look after their environment, and they do look after their industry as best as they possibly can. This legislation will simply build on that existing record. With more than 150 million passengers flying through Australians skies each year, Labor will always support sensible measures that protect Australian citizens and continue the nation's reputation for airline safety. I know in my own home port of Adelaide that we have seen the introduction of international carriers—I suppose the only nagging concern I have there is that the only international that does not fly out of Adelaide is Qantas: they do not take an international route out of Adelaide. But we know now that we are getting China Southern, and we have Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines. It is one of life's great mysteries why the great name Qantas is not in that space, but perhaps that will fix itself over time.

We believe this bill is sensible, effective, efficient legislation, and we strongly support it. It is vital to the safety of the 150 million passengers flying through Australians skies each year. The legislation builds on what we believe is Labor's strong track record in aviation and airport security. When Labor was in government, we oversaw the strengthening of the security regime applying to air cargo, committing $54.2 million to install X-ray screening technology at freight depots. That is probably paying off as we speak, with the introduction of a lot of the new Middle Eastern carriers who are sourcing fresh fruit, meat and other produce out of Australia. That X-ray facility is probably eliminating a lot of red tape and a lot of hurdles to export for our primary producers. I have certainly seen and heard in the Middle East that they are very satisfied with some of the produce that they are able to airfreight out of our airports.

Labor invested an additional $200 million in the nation's aviation security funding which facilitated the introduction of the new and improved technologies at the airport, including the latest body scanners. Those are in effect at all of our airports—and I am not sure which came first, Australia or overseas, but I certainly had to pass through some scanners on a recent trip overseas. The next generation of multi-view X-ray machines and bottle scanners are capable of detecting liquid-based explosives. If we were able to get away without the 'take out your water bottle'—and we all know the case of someone who is in the queue in front of us, who happens to have transgressed most of the advice that they got before they got to the airport, and they go to the scanner with a bottle of water or oversized liquid containers—perhaps if we did have a proper X-ray proposal that picked up the dangerous things that we are looking for, there would be a couple of benefits there: we would get through the line more quickly, and there would be less waste at the various airports.

In relation to increased policing around airports—as we travel around Australia and the world and we see the additional presence at airports—it is an unfortunate necessity. It is not pretty to see people standing with guns at airports but, unfortunately, it seems to be the way of the world, as we speak. Improved security at regional airports is one area where we probably need to be very vigilant. The size of aircraft operating to some of our regional areas now is not insignificant; I know if they are over 30 tonnes, we need to have security facilities in place. If people are truly looking for a weakness in our system, then it probably is in our regional airports—and probably quite properly, given there have been no incidents and the number of passengers is relatively low. It could be an area of concern, but I am sure that those who own the airports will know to put in place good plans. I am sure that the workforces in those areas will recognise the need for those plans and, provided they are introduced with consultation and cooperation, I am sure that those security plans will be very good. They will continue to protect the 150-odd million passengers that are transported by our aviation industry. I support the legislation before the chamber.

10:21 am

Photo of Malcolm RobertsMalcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I rise to speak in support of the Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016. This bill will amend the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 to allow people, vehicles and goods to undergo aviation security screening within an area or zone at a security controlled airport. The bill will also amend the Aviation Act and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003 to allow the secretary of the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development to delegate his powers in the acts to more junior Australian Public Service employees.

The declared purpose of the aviation and maritime acts is to safeguard against unlawful interference with aviation, maritime transport and offshore oil and gas facilities. This bill seeks to introduce measures at Australia's major international airports and ports to mitigate what is known as 'the insider threat'. Airport workers such as baggage handlers, caterers, cleaners and engineers have special access to passenger aircraft so they can carry out their important and valuable roles. However, there is potential for this access to be exploited, either willingly or through coercion, to facilitate an attack against a passenger aircraft and its passengers and crew.

The Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, in consultation with the aviation industry, has developed a new model for strengthening airside security at Australia's nine major international airports to address the insider threat and to ensure Australia meets its international civil aviation obligations for airside security. These measures, introduced through the bill, are part of a broader suite of regulatory amendments that give effect to the models three components: controls to ensure people, vehicles and goods entering airside areas at Australia's major international airports are authorised to do so; screening of people, vehicles and accompanying goods entering and within the airside areas of the major international airports to detect unauthorised weapons and explosives; and security awareness training for airport and airline employees, including contractors who regularly work within airside areas at the major international airports.

The bill will introduce regulation making powers into the Aviation Act that will enable people, vehicles and goods to be selected for security screening when they are inside an airside area or zone at security controlled airports. This complements existing provisions in the act that provide regulation making powers for the screening of people, vehicles and goods before they enter an airside security area or zone.

The underlying aim of this bill is sound in that it strengthens security measures regarding airport workers, a surprising number of whom are Muslims or other recently arrived immigrants. However, absurdly, this bill subordinates itself to political correctness by refusing to target profiled high-threat groups for screening, and instead boasts:

All people have the right to be treated equally. In keeping with Australia’s egalitarian screening regime applied to aviation passengers, selection of airport and airline workers, visitors and contractors for screening inside the security restricted areas (SRAs) of airports will be conducted on a purely random basis. Individuals will not be selected according to their race, religion, gender, or any other personal characteristic.

Note that screening is to be conducted not in accordance with the threat advice of the Australian Federal Police and ASIO but on a non-discriminatory basis. According to the government, it seems that being non-discriminatory is more important than complying with the advice of our security and intelligence agencies, more important than saving Australian lives. In other words, according to the government a law abiding Christian Aussie from Toowoomba is considered equally likely to be an airport security threat as the killer of Curtis Chang on the streets of Sydney or the Lindt Cafe killer Man Monis.

The fact is that the only way police or security services solve crimes is by targeting individuals with the most likely threat profiles as a first step. Given that screening resources are limited, preventing security screening on the basis of threat groups necessarily means that resources will be spread too thinly and some dangerous elements are likely to be missed. In other words, genuflecting to the politically correct nonsense that airport security screening must be carried out in a non-discriminatory way actually weakens our ability to identify threats to aircraft security. Given that this will mean that some potential threats to our air security will be missed, political correctness risks the lives of Australian travellers.

In the interests of our air travel safety and that of our children, I implore the government to stand up against political correctness and allow prioritisation of screening of those profiled as members of threat groups such as Islamists, particularly those born overseas. Political correctness does not unite; it separates, disrespects and devalues. Accordingly, I foreshadow that I will be moving an amendment to remove this politically correct limitation from the bill and allow our security services to use their finite resources to target individuals profiled as members of high-threat groups such as Islamist immigrants from the Middle East.

The effect of these proposed amendments will be to remove the requirements in the Aviation Transport Security Regulations 2005 for security screening to be conducted randomly and to then amend the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 to require that screening of individuals be conducted prioritising individuals profiled as members of high-threat groups in accordance with the advice of the AFP and ASIO. One Nation's sensible and highly necessary amendments will allow our airport security personnel to focus their finite resources on the groups of greatest threat, in accordance with the advice of the Australian Federal Police and ASIO, leading to greatly enhanced security and safety for all law abiding Australians.

The fact is that current airport security laws and regulations suffer from divided aims. They try to provide for effective screening, but this aim is compromised by their efforts to also avoid offending vocal minorities. However, if we want to do everything possible to protect Australian families travelling by air, we need to have a single, clear objective untrammelled by fashionable left-wing deference to other political and control objectives.

The fact is that, however much some here may try to duck and weave, run and hide or try to obfuscate the real issue, politicians who support the politically correct goal of nondiscrimination over the safety of our airports are failing to protect Australian families from terrorists. Let us be clear: only Pauline Hanson's One Nation stands uncompromisingly for doing whatever is necessary to safeguard our families. Only One Nation has the guts to say the things that need to be said and to do the things that need to be done. These amendments are an important part of that commitment from us. Of course, I can see across the chamber increasingly red-faced Greens, on a daily basis already starting to fulminate with confected rage that anyone should dare to question their politically correct shibboleths. But let me be clear: Pauline Hanson's One Nation does not question the Greens' sacred politically correct beliefs at all; we refute them utterly. The very idea that anyone would rather risk the safety and security of Australians than admit that their absurdly naive, rose-tinted vision of the world is a child's fantasy is simply offensive. Actually, it is offensively stupid.

Then of course, there are those who do not actually believe in the Greens' 'kumbaya' nonsense but fear the raised voices and clenched fists of their rent-a-crowd supporter mob and their leftist media allies. Such people know that compromising our security is simply wrong, but they lack the courage to tell the truth for fear that the political correctness lynch mob will come for them. To those senators, for whom folding like umbrellas in the face of every squawking minority has become a way of life, we urge you to take the next evolutionary step and join the ranks of the vertebrates. Carpe diem. The time has come for all of us in this country to stand up against the politically correct nonsense that currently hamstrings our security procedures at all airports.

10:32 am

Photo of Fiona NashFiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank all senators for their contribution to this debate. The Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 will ensure that Australia's transport security framework remains responsive to the evolving security environment and efficient as the transport sector grows. The bill amends the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003 to introduce and strengthen airside security measures at Australia's major international airports and to increase the efficiency of government regulatory assessment processes.

A terrorist attack on Australian aviation could result in loss of life, severe economic consequences, public loss of confidence in both the government and the aviation sector and damage to Australia's reputation as a safe and secure destination for international air travel. The bill will strengthen Australia's already robust aviation security system by allowing the implementation of screening in airside areas. This security screening will be applied to airport workers who have access to passenger aircraft in the course of their employment as well as their vehicles and any items they carry.

This new airside security screening will form part of a package of measures to mitigate the insider threat to Australian aviation, which is planned to be rolled out at Australia's highest risk airports over the next year. Implementation of these measures will be progressive, allowing industry time to undertake any necessary capital works and to hire and train staff. Aviation workers who are subject to security screening under the new arrangements will be afforded the same protections as passengers to ensure they are not subject to racial or religious discrimination and that their privacy is protected. These measures will ensure Australians continue to enjoy safe and secure air travel and that Australia remains at the forefront of international best practice.

The bill also implements measures to allow the Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development to delegate his powers in the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003 to lower level Australian Public Service employees. Given the predicted growth in the transport sector and the evolving security environment, these amendments will give the government administrative flexibility. This will ensure that regulatory submissions can be effectively assessed in statutory time frames and that industry demands can continue to be met. The secretary remains responsible for determining which powers under the acts are appropriate to delegate. Significant and complex regulatory powers will remain at senior levels, while only simple regulatory decisions will be delegated to lower level employees.

I thank members for their very constructive contribution to this debate again and I commend this bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.