Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Hansard source

To test them, as I am reminded by my friend and colleague. Unfortunately, the police failed to monitor the bag on the conveyor belt and throughout the airport. It ended up rolling out into one of the 90 planes with an international destination and was lost in the luggage of an innocent passenger. It still remains missing. This was a gross mistake on the part of the French police but that error does serve to demonstrate the dangers that have to be fixed and addressed. Hopefully, this bill will go some way towards ensuring that, whether it is an exercise or the real thing, such an event could not occur again.

X-ray machines detect metal but they are not good at detecting plastic explosives. New technologies have emerged since 1991 so that many explosives, even those without the odorants added, can be detected. Such equipment must be properly installed, carefully maintained and expertly operated to successfully interdict plastic explosives.

Australia’s accession to this convention is desirable. It sets a good example for others to follow. Much of the world could not easily purchase and seamlessly implement the new technologies that are now available to detect plastic explosives. In any event, the sorts of examples I have just given indicate that further procedures are required. If this convention and this bill encourage countries to add odorants to their explosives and to train sniffer dogs to detect such odorants then the travelling public and the world at large will be a safer place.

We have seen too many security blunders at Australia’s airports under the current government. The September 11 2001 terrorist attacks put the Howard government on notice to fix aviation security dangers. The airport security review conducted by Sir John Wheeler again put the government on notice to fix these errors, although you would have to ask yourself why it was that, four years after September 11, we needed to have a British expert come here and write 150 pages about what we should have been doing in the four years in between.

In the last year or so we have seen baggage handlers going through passengers’ luggage and stealing a camel outfit and wearing it around at Australia’s largest airport. We have seen unauthorised public vehicles driving around in security areas at Sydney airport in a road rage incident. Labor has raised concerns on many occasions about the security at regional airports and most recently, this year, about security on flights from regional airports, in particular Dubbo, Ballina, Devonport and Burnie, to major cities. It was not that long ago that grenades were found on a flight that landed at Darwin airport. The government recently tried denying the famous ‘plank of wood’—the door-chock security located on the public side of a doorway at Sydney airport. All a terrorist needed to do was pick up the loose-fitting piece of timber on the public side of the sliding door and they would have been given immediate access to the runway. The government denied that for days until photo evidence was provided to prove the point. That is not good enough. The Howard government’s incompetence and arrogance in these matters has put lives at greater risk than should be the case.

This bill is a useful bill. It will assist law enforcement agencies to ensure that those who would use plastic explosives to disrupt the normal run of life and the freedom of citizens will find that much more difficult. I commend the bill to the House. What we now look forward to is a competent government enthusiastically, vigorously and effectively implementing it. I hope that we will have such a government after the next election.

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