Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am more than willing to comply with that requirement. But I would point out to the Opposition Whip that I am referring to activities conducted by the previous speaker, the member for Brisbane, and referred to in his speech. Let us look closely at some of the things that the member for Brisbane also said in his presentation to the parliament. He complained that the inspector would be subject to ministerial directive. This is the Inspector of Transport Security Bill 2006. Might I say at this point that the member for Brisbane talked about the fact that the inspector might not be employed full time—in other words, five days a week—to turn up on Monday morning and say, ‘Hey, where’s the failure in the system that I’ve gotta look at this morning?’ It might not be there. Or are we to give him a big staff, with uniforms, to dredge through the various transport sectors looking for some trouble? No.

The intention is that the inspector and his advisers, with their wide-ranging experience, will look at transport security issues and advise the minister where the government is failing in its responsibility to the people. That is his job. He is not a cloak and dagger man. The legislation makes it very clear that every aspect of his inquiries must not impinge on other activities, if there is a breach of other laws—and, of course, the member for Brisbane even made passing reference to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. I am not sure that safety stops at the door of terrorism—I do not think it does—but we have to look at common-sense outcomes. We have debated that in other legislation today.

The English adviser who was brought out to advise the government and to analyse the efforts of the government made it very clear that you need to have a response to various levels of risk. One of the airports in my electorate has full surveillance. It is the airport for the tiniest town in the world but, because of a fly-in fly-out procedure for a major mining construction process, it is being serviced by jet aircraft. It is an about twice the size of a garage but it has the most sophisticated X-ray equipment et cetera. Why? Because there are jet aircraft. At two other airports with much more significant traffic movements we do not have those processes. There is not much evidence that anybody is likely to commandeer the aircraft; it would run out of fuel very promptly. When you get to Perth Airport, you go into the arrivals section and either go home or go back through security to join another flight.

That is an adequate response in those circumstances. I guess that somebody could get on one of those aircraft with the intention of destroying it, but the evidence is that that is most unlikely. Consequently, I have looked really closely at some of the other comments that have been made by the member for Brisbane. He also said that, in all these matters, the information the inspector might accumulate has to be announced in this parliament, and he went so far as to say that the Leader of the Opposition might be consulted. Were there to be a change in the representation in this House, from one side to the other, there is a fair chance that that would be managed in a proper fashion. But, as I have observed the activities of the opposition over the last 10 years, I cannot remember a time when common sense and the interests of the community have prevailed over political opportunity. So why would you tell the present Leader of the Opposition, when, day after day, he demonstrates that the only thing he wants out of this is political advantage? I have seen this in another area. When people approached him to seek his assistance for their financial future, the advice that came out of his office was: ‘If you haven’t got some dirt on the government, I can’t help you.’ What are we talking about here? We are talking about public security. We are talking about a process.

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