Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Actually, I am not sure that I have. I think it was a very poor quality one and it fell off the fridge. What the ALP want to see, though, rather than fridge magnets and fancy campaigns—which, in the end, is all it boils down to—is baggage on domestic and international flights screened at every Australian airport. I think that it is sensible and would be a better use of taxpayers’ money. I would like to see government members disagree with that, just to see what their personal views are.

The ALP also wants every staff member at every Australian airport to have an ASIC with adequate background security checks—proper security checks. These are very important passes, and we need to make sure that everyone who has one of these passes is a person of the right character, a person who ought to have one of these, a person who is allowed to work in security sensitive areas. From time to time, there will be breaches and I am sure there will be mistakes, but it is important that the government does everything it can through legislation and through its will, through the minister and the department, to make these things happen—to actually use its strength in terms of ensuring that these security checks are done and that only the right people of the right character have an ASIC.

Australia also needs a full-time Inspector of Transport Security. You cannot be serious about transport security if you have somebody who is a casual. It is like a lot of things in life—if the government wants to be serious, then it will pay, and pay for properly, for the right person to work full time to look after transport security. You cannot get somebody for whom it is their third or fourth job and they are doing it to fill in time, they have got more important, pressing things to do with other businesses or they are front-of-mind focused on things other than transport security. If we employ the right person, we may not have some of the problems that we currently have.

Tasks like regional airport security need to get full attention from the government and full attention from a full-time Inspector of Transport Security. Again, I do not know why I even need to explain this to the government. If you are serious about transport security, you need a serious full-time inspector. Somebody who is working part time or has other things to do or someone who may or may not get to work, depending on what is required, is not what I see as a commitment from the government on security issues. A Labor government’s department of homeland security would have the capacity to coordinate Australia’s security arrangements, including security at our regional airports—an important part of our national security. Regional airports are just as critical as our major airports.

In parliament recently, the Minister for Transport and Regional Services compared aviation security identification cards, ASICs, with Parliament House staff passes. I will not spend a lot of time on this except to say how ridiculous and how demeaning to himself it was that he would even compare the two. This is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card or some sort of joke. An ASIC is a very important aviation security pass checked by the Federal Police. It has a heap of high-level security checks. This is not something you can compare to thousands of Parliament House staff passes. The two are just not in the same ballpark. But I suppose for the minister it was something to try to get out of hot water on the day.

In the last sitting fortnight, the minister defended the one-day-a-week status of the Inspector of Transport Security and then compared 384 lost or stolen ASICs with misplaced Parliament House passes. Again, the minister was really digging deep, scratching at the bottom, to try and find any excuse to save his own bacon. Three hundred and eighty-four stolen or lost ASICs is a very serious issue and one that deserves the full attention of not only an Inspector of Transport Security but also the minister. I do not think I would be overly concerned about somebody losing their staff pass to get into this place, especially given that we have heard recently that we have a senator running around this place with a bone-handled knife he likes to keep in his wallet just in case he needs to use it on someone. I think a much important issue would be the types of people who have been issued with ASICs.

In contrast to aviation security card holders, holders of Parliament House identity cards do not undergo criminal history checks or detailed background checks conducted by the Federal Police or ASIO. In the end, I suppose all staff come under the auspice and the protection of the people who employ them here. We all take responsibility for the people we employ and we ensure that they are of good character. We all ensure that we have done our own checks and we know the types of people we employ, and in the end we would be responsible for their actions.

A lost ASIC pass is extremely dangerous in the hands of a terrorist or an organised criminal syndicate. We have heard over recent years many instances of organised criminality at our airports. Labor has called for a full Senate inquiry into the Civil Aviation and Safety Authority, CASA, and is motivated by the release of the second interim report into the May 2005 Lockhart River crash, which resulted in the death of all 15 people on board. The circumstances surrounding the tragic incident are under continuing investigation, but it is clear that there is a serious concern over CASA’s ability to ensure the safety of the Australian public, particularly with regard to the agency’s regulatory oversight. There needs to be a Senate inquiry to ensure that this is done properly.

In conclusion, I just want to make a couple of points. The Howard government’s approach to aviation policy replicates its approach to industrial relations, and it is not a good comparison. It is a race to the bottom with the consequence that the security and safety of the industry and ultimately the travelling public is being jeopardised. Consider the decision by Jetstar recently that flight attendants will be forced to supplement their salaries by selling sandwiches, pillows, drinks and other items on a commission basis to passengers. This is simply not good enough for either safety on aircraft or the way that people receive remuneration for the work they do. Labor has made the point that this is short-sighted and does not bode well for passengers or employment conditions in the aviation industry. Well-trained and dedicated flight crew are essential to the safety and comfort of all passengers.

Australian passengers want to see a safe, healthy, vibrant aviation industry. I think Australians actually like to fly around. We live in a really big country. The tyranny of distance—much spoken about in Australian folklore—is real, and that is why we fly so much. We love to fly—mostly up and down the east coast, but occasionally across to the west coast as well—but we expect good quality, high standards. We expect safe aircraft and good, well-trained aircraft personnel and crew, people who know what to do in case there is an emergency on board, people who have been given the right training and instruction, people who can speak English properly, people who understand safety instructions, people who know how to read the safety cards.

All of those are little things which go unsaid, but when you hop on board there is an expectation that the person giving you the instructions knows what they are doing because they have been properly trained. Time and money have been spent on that person to ensure they are looking after your best interests, looking after your safety, and that they know what to do if a red light comes on in the aircraft—not just the pilots but also the crew. It is a whole team. When I sit on an aircraft I still feel confident that the crew and the pilots are of the highest standard in the world, that they have been paid properly and that they are focused on their jobs. I do not want them to be focused on trying to sell me an extra can of soft drink or something like that when they should be doing something else; I want to feel secure into the future that those standards are still met and that the focus of aircrew is about safety first and comfort second, and ensuring that we all make it from point A to point B in the best possible condition.

That should also be the way that this government approaches the airline industry. That should be the front-of-mind issue for them. But I am concerned that not only in this legislation but also in recent years there has been a shift away, and now we are seeing some more shifting away from those most important issues to other issues. That will diminish the security and safety of our industry in Australia.

As I said at the outset, Labor opposes this bill and we cannot understand why the government continues to ignore our concerns and those of the public when it comes to maintaining our enviable record in the aviation industry. It is a record envied by the rest of the world, and it has not happened by accident. Our good safety and security records have come about through a lot of hard work from a lot of people in the industry who deserve a lot of commendation—the airlines themselves, the airports and everybody involved doing a really good job, but based around some sound legislation and principles, codes of ethics and regulation.

This government should be very careful about watering that down or diminishing that area. So Labor does oppose this bill. The principal aim of aviation policy is to deliver safe and secure air travel for the public. Unfortunately, this bill ignores those basic principles and the government should simply go back to the drawing board, do a proper job and come back to the House with a bill that does what it is meant to do.

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