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

In supporting the Inspector of Transport Security Bill 2006, the opposition also supports amendments moved by our very thorough member for Brisbane, the shadow minister for homeland security. We obviously do not oppose the passage of this bill, since it is better than nothing, but we have some serious criticisms to make of this government’s handling of this matter, and we will insist that our amendments are put to the vote.

Since I last spoke in this House on the issue of transport security, we have acquired a new Minister for Transport and Regional Services. The honourable member for Wide Bay—the minister who gave us the wide-open gate at Mascot airport, the minister who gave us flights from Wagga Wagga to Sydney without baggage inspections, the minister who gave us ships sitting in Gladstone Harbour packed with enough ammonium nitrate to blow the whole place sky high—has moved on to new disasters. In his place we have the honourable member for Lyne, the Deputy Prime Minister. This is the minister—or, rather, one of several ministers—who gave us the ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal in which $300 million was paid by an Australian company run by National Party mate Trevor Flugge to a bogus Jordanian trucking company which handed it over to Saddam Hussein’s bloodstained regime. This is the minister who apparently never noticed one of the greatest scandals in Australian parliamentary history—despite all of the cables his office got, which, of course, he never read or we are led to believe he never read. I will be very interested in the report of the royal commission and Mr Cole.

I may be accused of cynicism, but I do not feel very confident that this minister will be more effective in protecting the security of Australian ships, ports and airports than his predecessor was. Despite the fact that there are many good people in the National Party, I think the National Party’s record in this portfolio, under successive ministers, has been a disgrace. The majority party in this government should have considered grabbing this portfolio in the last round of reshuffles if they take the area of transport security seriously. It really is time that the Prime Minister showed some leadership in this area. It is time he removed responsibility for the security of our ports and airports from the Department of Transport and Regional Services and its succession of less than brilliant National Party ministers.

This is not a transport issue; it is a national security issue, and it belongs with a full-time minister for national security, a minister for homeland security. All we have at present is the Office of Transport Security in the Department of Transport and Regional Services. No doubt the people in that office are capable and dedicated—no-one is critical of them as individuals. The failure here is a failure of leadership and policy from successive ministers for transport and regional services and ultimately from the government and the Prime Minister.

This bill is a belated response to the new security environment created by the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. Those attacks took place more than five years ago. It took this government until December 2003, more than two years later, to create the Office of the Inspector of Transport Security. It took two years just to make an in-principle decision—and not a very difficult one at that. By contrast, let me point out that President Bush, despite his many critics in many areas, announced the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security in the White House, directly answerable to him, on 20 September 2001, nine days after the attacks. This was followed by the creation of an independent Department of Homeland Security.

The decision to create this position of Inspector of Transport Security was taken in December 2003, nearly three years ago. Now we finally have a bill creating the position of Inspector of Transport Security and setting the terms on which the person will operate. I am very glad—and I think all Australians will be glad—that al-Qaeda has not managed to undertake a major operation within Australia. But I do not think that is due to any preparations that the government has made in this particular area; it may be due to the efficient work of the Australian Federal Police and our security agencies. Transport security is a matter we should have been sharper on and acted earlier on.

I have to ask: what is it about this bill that is so difficult, so complex, that it took two years to bring it before us? Does the government really think this is a matter which it can dawdle over for two years? This bill finally creates a statutory position of Inspector of Transport Security, more than five years after 9-11. Many people will be surprised to hear that. After all, Mick Palmer has been travelling around the country under the title of Inspector of Transport Security since November 2004. Most people assumed that we already had an Inspector of Transport Security.

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