Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Hansard source

The minister says, ‘That is just wrong.’ It is like the last two days when he has made mistakes on both the matters. Minister, before you open your mouth about this and put yourself on the record, I suggest that you do not take the word only of those people in your office. Talk to people on the job who work in the environment every day of the week and you might find that some of the advice you have been given is not right.

The minister has also made mention of metal detection wands and the importance they play in regional airport security and the fact that the government have had a program of providing these wands to regional airports. That is a good thing to do, Minister. It is a pity that they are not used in those regional airports, isn’t it? As has been reported in a number of media outlets over the last couple of days, the simple fact is that in most of those regional airports none of those wands is used; they are all under lock and key.

I noticed in yesterday’s Adelaide Advertiser a story precisely about that problem which noted alarm at lax rural flight safety in South Australia. The article commenced by saying:

Hundreds of thousands of passengers have boarded aircraft at regional airports in the past two years without security checks, while detection equipment remains unused.

That is happening in South Australia, and I can assure the parliament that is in fact happening in a number of places. It might have been a good idea if the government had decided to get its top public servant on security on the job. In 2003 the government decided they would appoint an Inspector of Transport Security. It was a good idea. The trouble is it took them an entire year before they had filled the position, so 12 months later they appointed Mick Palmer—a good decision. I think Mick Palmer’s experience in the AFP suits him well for the task. The trouble is that since then he has hardly been given a task to do. Amazingly, since the London terrorist attack a year ago—and you would have thought the government would have a heightened concern for these matters—he has been on the job one day a week on average. It might have been a good idea to get the Inspector of Transport Security out checking Sydney airport and some of these matters that have come to light in the course of the last three weeks.

It has been five years, Minister, since the US attacks when we were all put on notice about these matters. It is clear that the government are incapable of putting in place the necessary practical measures. The government are behaving like the emperor with no clothes: all bluff and no substance. They are going around parading their rhetoric and everyone in the industry knows that is all it is: rhetoric without substance. The simple fact that is becoming increasingly obvious to the industry is that only Labor has got a demonstrated policy and a drive to get these things right. The government’s handling of this matter over the last five years has been one of incompetence. The Australian people and travelling public deserve much better. (Time expired)

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