Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In supporting the motion moved by the member for Brisbane, the opposition’s full-time spokesman on homeland security, aviation and transport security, I would reflect on the events last week in Britain. I ask: can anyone doubt that this is a portfolio area that requires the full-time attention of a senior minister? That is what Australia will have next year under a Beazley government. What do we see today in the House? The government’s case being put by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, who is responsible for a whole range of transport and regional issues across Australia, from the protection of the sea to shipping levies to agricultural chemicals. He shares responsibility for security with the Attorney-General, who is responsible for everything from patents to bankruptcy law to saving Australia from the ‘spectre’ of same-sex marriage.

In any government that took its responsibility seriously, the Attorney-General would be a full-time job; transport and regional services would be a full-time job; and homeland security, including aviation security, would be a full-time job. Australia has never needed a European style interior ministry—for which in many ways we should be grateful. This is partly because in our federal system police and prisons are the responsibility of the states. But we live in a changed world—and we should be flexible and aware of some of those unwelcome changes due to terrorism. This involves new flexibility in attitudes of governments. This government has acted in many areas in response to security threats, and nearly always it has done so with the support of the opposition. Yet the inadequacies of our response in the area of aviation security are very glaring, as the member for Brisbane made clear. It seems obvious to me that the lack of a full-time minister in this area is partly to blame for those inadequacies.

The minister, in his response to the member for Brisbane, claimed that, for instance, in this particular incident in Sydney of the open gate referred to in the Daily Telegraph today there was no access to airside security. Minister, please go and speak to the officials at Mascot airport. I know that you are not listening now, but the people who read Hansard for you afterwards will be able to explain to you that in the previous two weeks there was an open gate which you could slide open and shut when you went into that building site about which you talked so knowledgeably in your speech. There was an open gate where any person could have breached the security of Mascot airport, our biggest airport, and could have passed through into a secure area. So it is not true to say that people did not have access to Sydney airport from that open gate at the building site of a new hangar; there was a sliding gate that people could open just two weeks ago.

Next month will mark the fifth anniversary of September 11—a day which still seems incomprehensible in its pure evil; a day which should have changed forever the way we think about aviation security. Last week’s events in London remind us that September 11 was not a one-off disaster, something that could not happen again in our lifetimes like the 2004 tsunami. It was a declaration of war by a ruthless enemy, an enemy who is still active and still thinking of new ways to attack us. We know that Australia is on its target list—something the two Bali bombings have made very clear.

In July last year the government appointed the Rt Hon. Sir John Wheeler, a former British Conservative MP and security minister in the Northern Ireland office, to conduct an inquiry into Australia’s aviation security system. Labor welcomed his appointment and we made a submission to the inquiry. Sir John and his team did an excellent job and reported to the government in September, nearly a year ago. The Wheeler report made a number of recommendations. The Prime Minister immediately announced, as if almost from the script of Yes, Prime Minister, that he accepted what he called ‘the thrust of the recommendations’. This was typically careful prime ministerial phrasing meaning that the government reserved the right not to accept any specific recommendations, just the thrust of the report. A year later we can see what this means in practice. The Wheeler report found a number of deficiencies in Australia’s aviation security system. I will give the House just a few quotes. First of all, the report said:

12. Policing at major airports in Australia is often inadequate and dysfunctional, and security systems are typically uncoordinated.

Another quote says:

18. The present Aviation Security Identification Card (ASIC) system has a number of weaknesses, and there is confusion as to what airport access an ASIC enables.

Another quote from the report of Sir John Wheeler says:

... in the current environment, consideration should be given to more comprehensive security control over regional flight passengers when arriving at major airports such as Sydney because of the risk to larger aircraft and facilities when passengers disembark at the apron.

The report continues:

25. While 80 per cent of Australia’s air cargo is carried on passenger aircraft, it is not all screened. It is clearly inconsistent for one category of aircraft user to be treated differently from another, thereby putting the safety of the aircraft in jeopardy.

These are all quotes from the report of government-appointed Sir John Wheeler. To use the Prime Minister’s terminology, the ‘thrust’ of the Wheeler report was that aviation security in Australia is inadequate and dysfunctional—mainly because of the overlapping jurisdictions and confused lines of responsibility. This is always a sign of weak leadership from the top. It was not Sir John Wheeler’s role to make recommendations about the structure of government, so let me once again make the obvious recommendation: Australia needs a single, full-time minister for homeland security—someone like the member for Brisbane—with undisputed authority over aviation security matters.

Australia also needs a full-time Inspector of Transport Security, a position currently occupied by former police commissioner Mick Palmer, from my home state of Victoria, when he has time to spare from his other duties at the moment. The opposition has been saying for over a year that Mr Palmer should be doing the job full time and that, if he is not available full time, someone should be found who is. Yesterday in question time, the minister said that Mr Palmer is not:

some kind of ‘el supremo’ who is in charge of all airport security in Australia.

…         …         …

It is not his role—

intoned the minister—

to take on some particular oversight of all of the transport security arrangements in Australia.

The obvious response to this is: why not? If Mr Palmer is the right man for the job, and the opposition agrees that he is, then he should be an ‘el supremo’ and he should indeed have oversight of all the transport security arrangements in Australia. We are still waiting for the government’s legislation giving the Office of the Inspector of Transport Security a statutory basis and giving the holder of this post real authority over the multitude of competing authorities.

Sir John Wheeler made 17 recommendations. Time does not allow me to go through them all, but let me say something about the more important ones. Wheeler recommended that the background checking process required to obtain and hold an aviation security identity card be further tightened and centralised in the Attorney-General’s Department and that this should be harmonised with maritime cards. The ASIC is becoming something of a scandal. The honourable member for Brisbane asked the minister yesterday about the reports that 384 of these cards, which give access to security sensitive areas of airports, have been lost or stolen. The minister did not deny the figure. As the member for Brisbane pointed out today, he simply replied by saying, ‘Well, people lose these cards all the time—they are like Parliament House passes.’ But holders of Parliament House passes, just as the member for Brisbane said, do not have to undergo criminal background checks. A lost or stolen ASIC is not just an inconvenience, Minister. It is a breach of security and it is potentially a threat to the lives of Australians. Doesn’t the minister watch TV? Doesn’t he realise that one of the suspects in the arrests over the weekend in London was an employee at Heathrow airport? Doesn’t he understand the parallels and the implications for the Australian people?

A stolen ASIC has great potential value to criminal elements as well, and the link between criminal activity at airports and security risk is something that Sir John Wheeler specifically commented on. Each one of those cards represents a real security breach. The minister said that 384 lost or stolen cards is a small number in relation to the total number of cards issued. Perhaps it is, but I do not find that reassuring when I think of 384 potential breaches of security at our major airports.

Wheeler also found that there are 188 authorities competent to issue an ASIC, that there is no single database of everyone who has been issued an ASIC and that there is no single set of criteria of eligibility for an ASIC. He noted:

... even at a single airport an applicant can be rejected by one employer and given an ASIC by another on the basis of the employer’s assessment of a criminal record.

In other words, airport employees are able to make  subjective judgments about whether a person qualifies. Sir John also highlighted another fundamental weakness of the ASIC system when he noted that there was confusion between the function of the ASIC as a background checking process. He said:

Many take the ASIC card to be a general access card, rather than merely to be an indication that the holder has had a background check to enable potential entrance.

It does not follow that everyone who is qualified for an ASIC should have access to all security sensitive areas, as currently seems to be the assumption of some airports. There needs to be a much clearer definition of what an ASIC is and what it is for and tighter regulations on who is allowed to go where among the tens of thousands of people who are currently holders.

Let me conclude by saying something about regional airports. The Wheeler report noted that the great majority of Australian airports—in fact, 147—have no specific additional requirements beyond those imposed on all airports, such as protecting secure areas and having a transport security program. Screening of either passengers or property is not compulsory at these airports. We have four security teams for 140 airports. What a joke! The minister does not seem to understand that, in the case of the September 11 hijackers, the terrorists entered from a regional airport in Portland, Maine, and then got into Logan airport from where they began their monstrous task. This is the potential that he should remember when addressing insufficient security at regional airports. (Time expired)

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