Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to speak to this matter of public importance, which is an issue that I have raised on a number of occasions before. I do not think the matters that have been raised on other occasions—up to three and four years ago—have been sufficiently addressed. I think the member for La Trobe gave an inkling—probably inadvertently—as to why some of the issues about regional airport security have not been addressed. He highlighted the amount of money that would be required to do that. I think he gave an estimate that it would cost something like $400 million to secure our airports from terrorist attack.

He also made the point, in terms of the Labor Party calling for a homeland security minister, that the Prime Minister was currently that, and that in his view he was doing a great job. He also said that the main focus of the Prime Minister’s job is—as it should be, and I do not vary from that—the security of the nation.

That brings me to my key point, which is that we seem to have an illogical way of determining which airports or which aircraft are possibly at risk. I have raised this issue a number of times. One time, I was given a briefing by the appropriate departmental people, which did not tell me much, on the risk assessment process applied to our airports. Essentially, the logic goes, as I understand it, that some airports or aircraft are more at risk than others. And when you ask about that risk assessment process—and I think the minister said of it today that it is constantly changing, and I do not disagree with that at all—obviously the answer comes back that, because it is about security, you cannot talk about the process.

What I can talk about, and what I think demonstrates the illogical approach to security at airports, is that I can board a 50-seat Dash 8 Qantas aircraft in Tamworth and carry virtually anything I like onto that aircraft. I proceed to Sydney, where I disembark from that aircraft and am screened going into Sydney. And then, on some occasions, I can board the very same 50-seater aircraft again and and have my luggage screened et cetera. The question is: why are different airports being treated differently? Why is the aircraft, the 50-seater aircraft that I—

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