Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to follow the shadow minister for defence, the member for Barton, in this debate and to put Labor’s arguments on the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Amendment (Maritime Security Guards and Other Measures) Bill 2005, which has eventually got to this place.

I am also happy to support Labor’s amendment to the bill. At first glance it might not seem to be directly connected to the operation of the act, but the fundamental elements reinforce issues relating to a bill that we debated earlier this week, the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Amendment (Security Plans and Other Measures) Bill 2006. That bill concerned the general safety of Australia’s offshore facilities and the question of access to Australian ports. Like the shadow minister for defence and a number of other members of this House, I spoke on that bill and pointed out that the measures being taken were more than timely. In relation to the proposed amendments to that bill, we argued—as we do with this bill—that not enough is being done.

Let me do a simple comparison between the provisions of the bill we debated earlier in the week and what happens in the aviation area. Even though a great deal is not being done to properly secure us in the aviation area—as any investigation into Sydney airport that goes beyond what the TV shows will demonstrate: any investigation at a deeper level will indicate that the securing of something that is as simple to secure as an airport is a difficult business, because of the manner of operation, historically—it is a hell of a lot harder when it comes to the operation of a port. The key point that I made the other day was that, whereas securing an airport is effectively a lateral situation, with a port there is a multilateral situation. It is horizontal and vertical. It is in the sky and under the sea, and in the approaches to the port by sea and by land, that we have to protect the port.

The provisions in the other bill and the provisions in this one tell us something about the government’s approach, but the opposition’s amendments tell us a great deal more. The reason is very simple: what has not been done to effect our maritime security is reflective of the fact that there have not yet been any maritime attacks within Australia on our fundamental infrastructure, our ports or our vessels. That has not yet happened. The attacks here and overseas have been on aircraft or involved the hijacking of aircraft to be used as ballistic weapons of great power because of the aviation fuel involved.

The attacks in 2001 were five years ago now. We are approaching the anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington and the attempted attack by the flight 93 plane, which was brought down in the fields in Pittsburgh. There were those attacks together with the train attacks in Madrid, the train attacks in London and a series of attacks. But there are only two examples of the attacking of vessels. One involved the MV Limerick, a passenger ferry; the other was USS Cole, then stationed in Yemen. That attack indicated that al-Qaeda and its associated organisations had a program that involved all facilities—both those regarded as general commercial aviation, as we have seen recently, and also ground based facilities, as we have seen in the attempted attack on the Australian High Commission in Singapore, attacks on facilities and embassies in northern Africa and attacks elsewhere. There were the sea based attacks on a US warship and the attendant loss of life. There was the 1994 attack—this goes back a very long way—on the World Trade Centre, when people attempted to bomb the basement. We can trace the very long period that has been tagged as the war on terror. It came into focus in 2001 but the antecedents occurred over more than a decade and in fact go back to our intervention in the Middle East in the first Gulf War and Osama bin Laden’s ideological response to that, his attack on the Saudi Arabian government.

Our war on terror ends up in bills like the one we are debating today. We have maritime security guards. The focus of that is not drawn from other loci or other foci. Fundamentally, it is a question of the larger picture of the war on terror.

It is also interestingly indicative of the different approaches that have been taken. You can secure an airport; how well or how poorly has been indicated by the arguments of the opposition about regional airports in Australia, where scanning capacity is either nonexistent or not good enough. The opposition has argued that consistently; there have been some government attempts to redress it. I still think that more than $64,000 to put a ring road around the airport in my electorate, Bankstown Airport, which is virtually co-located with Kingsford Smith airport, is not enough to secure it and its potential use. If you look at what has been done generally to secure Sydney and the other major airports and at the powers given to air marshals both in Australia and elsewhere, and then if you look at the powers given to maritime security guards, you see a big differential. Part of the differential is that the powers given to air security guards are not as great as those expressed in this bill. Air security guards can do so much and no more. The fundamental power still rests with the police forces.

However, what is highly unusual in this bill and what has been brought into focus is probably an effect that is expressed as a result of the complexity of trying to deal with ports. You often know where the major centres in our major airports are; even though they are small, they are not such loci of attention. But our ports are spread continent wide, and the activities associated with them are much greater in frequency and more difficult to control. There is a broader area to cover because you are not just dealing with landing and then turning up to where people are going to offload in absolute centre points. You are dealing with a number of different axes of access to those ports that have to be protected. So this bill is almost unprecedented, in that the powers given to the security guards cover such a great layer of responsibilities and actually take up normal state police powers. I expect the reasons for that are that there is such a broad area that they have to cover and that unaided assistance is generally not directly available to them. It would take time for those forces to go and help them.

But that also underpins other fundamental questions about the extent of the powers given to the security guards. Those questions are how well trained they are and who will take responsibility not just for the training but for the operation of these security guards. In a theoretical context you would think that you would not have worries about this; security guards are security guards whether they are at airports or whether they are operating as air marshals. You would expect them to be well trained and to do the job; you would expect that there would be someone fronting up to take responsibility for it. But I do not think the case is as simple as that. The member for Lowe—absent from the chamber now, but who will be sitting next to me at question time—has undertaken over a period of time a fundamental investigation of the security operation of Sydney airport and has pointed out that there are significant flaws there, with security cameras being turned against the wall and the fact that what should happen is not happening. Likewise, I have pointed out a number of times in this parliament that the actual operation of security at Sydney airport is not what it should be because of the contractual arrangements that operate at the airport.

This is the great failing of Australia; this is the one thing in which we are not American enough. The Americans actually believe in public responsibility. They believe that state and federal governments not only audit and benchmark but they also actually have to do things and take responsibility for things. So you will not find, either at the maritime level or at the air security level, the United States government passing its responsibilities over to private contractors. But that is exactly what you will find at state airports in Sydney and elsewhere, and that is exactly what you will find in the securing of maritime ports and of offshore facilities. This bill gives extraordinarily broad powers to those people—powers of arrest, of detainment and to lock up or stop vehicles. If it was a government entity—whatever its faults—I would have greater faith in the operation of those powers, the way they are used and the constraints on them than I have. This is because of what has happened, in particular in my state of New South Wales at Sydney airport. Time after time we have had, and—let me tell this House—we will have further examples in the future, not just of baggage handlers who turn out to be terrorists but also of the operation of an airport where a number of those operations are corrupt or are run by people who are not interested in anything much but criminal activity. There is an enormous incentive because of the amount of contraband—and, in particular, drugs—that run through those airports. The member for Lowe and others have highlighted the fact that those enticements can lead to all sorts of contrary effects.

But I think the key to it is simply this: instead of having a government entity in charge and therefore ultimately responsible to a government department, there are a chain of private companies involved. When Qantas had their own security guards in 1996, those security guards were summarily disbanded and sacked when this government came to power. The person who is still running security at Kingsford Smith airport told those security guards they would be sacked if there was a change of government. The contract went to Wackenhut, a United States operation that has also operated our detention centres. It is a private company that has licensed other people further down the track. People in my electorate and in other electorates in Sydney have got security companies who have then employed people. They have said, ‘Oh yes, these people have got security clearances.’

But the critical question of how successful our security apparatus can be in the end rests on the cascade of the delegation of responsibility down to people who are relatively untrained and whose fundamental position is not secured. That is why there has been an attack over the past couple of years by the opposition on the question of security behind what are supposed to be secure gates at Sydney airport and others. The fundamental problem is that the Australian government will not take responsibility for the securing of our assets, either on the air side or, in the case of this bill, in our maritime area.

No more fundamental attack could be made on Australia’s future prosperity than an attack on our onshore and offshore facilities in Western Australia. The greatest attack that could be made in terms of the psychological impact on Australia would be running a ship into the middle of Sydney Harbour full of ammonium nitrate, blowing it up and demolishing not just the whole of Sydney’s CBD but a good proportion of Sydney itself. Maritime guards will not prevent that situation. You need a panoply of government resources and an anti-terror approach directed towards it.

As I said on the past bill, I have enormous faith in the defence forces of this country. I do not have as much faith in the directions they are given and in the fact that a conditioning process is operative here. That conditioning process is very simple. People extrapolate from whatever their experience in the past has been into the future. It means that the mistakes of the past are fixed, but they do not identify the mistakes they will make in the future.

Where are we wide open to terrorist attack? In our massive infrastructure off the North West Shelf in Western Australia. Where have we done least to protect it? There, and also down through Kwinana and other areas in Western Australia that are open to attack. I am happy to know, because I have spoken to the people involved in securing this and have pushed for it, that that is being actively monitored, but I want a great deal more done. If the trains of LNG on the North West Shelf were destroyed, it would devastate Australia’s economy, not only now but for decades to come.

We need to think about the operation of this act and the powers we give to maritime security guards. I hope they use them well. I hope that the controls that we have in relation to the companies who take out the contracts in every port in Australia are secure enough to ensure that we do not have the least capable person utilising what are effectively police powers and that they will not use them in bullying ways but will be sensibly trained. I hope that they will know what their constraints are and that, if they identify people who end up being terrorist suspects, they will follow the specifics of this bill, which demand that they identify themselves, state what their powers are and ask those people to leave those areas.

If you look at the specifics either in the explanatory memorandum or in the bill itself you will find that there are three particular areas. Security guards can:

... request that a person found within a maritime security zone provide identification and reason for being in the zone;

There is a let-out clause in regard to this that ensures that you are not going to end up in the slammer just because you have not popped up with your identification; they expect some reasonableness to operate. The second thing is that they may:

... request a person found in a maritime security zone without authorisation to move out of the zone, and if that request is not complied with, remove the person from the zone;

That of course brings into train the issue of appropriate force. Throughout all these regulations there are the normal provisions in relation to appropriate force being used. The third and final provision in schedule 1 is:

• a maritime security guard may remove, or have removed, vehicles and vessels found in maritime security zones without authorisation.

Here they are not in the same position, as indicated by the shadow minister for defence, as in the US. The powers open to maritime security guards within the US Coast Guard system are much greater than what we have here. They are actually on the vessels and in the wheelhouse, meaning they are in a position to stop a ship full of ammonium nitrate steaming into Sydney Harbour and blowing the whole joint up. That position is not available to us here in any measure. These are the fundamentals.

Some people might be fundamentally concerned that powers as extensive as police powers extended to these security guards are as great as they are. That is not my fundamental concern. My fundamental concern is that we have a coalition government that, since 1996, with the first yellow-covered booklet on the National Commission of Audit, has refused to take any responsibility whatsoever except to audit and benchmark activities of the Australian government.

They did not want to run any programs at all. That is why you will not find in Australia, as you will in the United States, government employees being maritime security guards. You will not find Australian government employees, except for people in the Navy, directly responsible for securing our borders. You will not find this government taking direct responsibility for securing us against terrorist attacks, and that is our point of greatest weakness and greatest danger. The United States government, for all its faults, whether Republican or Democrat, believes in public service and in the federal government’s responsibility to control its borders and secure the American public using its own employees. I wish the Australian government could follow them in that. (Time expired)

See this speech in context