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

It is our idea to pick up ideas from elsewhere. Arch Bevis, the member for Brisbane, has strongly pushed this case time and time again. In the Australian context, it is our idea to utilise the coastguard model that has worked so successfully in the United States. There is another model, Attorney, which you might be more inclined to look at—but the outsourcing must go. This is not popular in the Australian context, but there is a benefit in having public servants dedicated to ensuring the safety and security of their fellow citizens. This is demonstrated at every port, airport and railway in the United States. To use the Public Service in this way, I think, provides us with exactly the kind of protection we need to ensure that criminality and, in particular, terrorism do not put us in a situation where, despite the checks done through AusCheck—however deep we can go, whoever we pin on this and whatever safety we provide here—we do not reach its ongoing core. We still have not fixed that area. That is why I support this bill.

We are not at the point where I can be assured and where I can assure all of the constituents in my current electorate as well as my new electorate, the redistributed electorate—and that is the same for every member in New South Wales—that their safety while travelling is as secure as it can be. The model is for our own people to work for the federal government. They would be in charge of the security in cargo handling, in X-raying and in security checks. They would be directly responsible to their superiors in the Australian Public Service, to the secretary of the department and, ultimately, to the minister. I know it is unfashionable to have government involvement, but this is a critical area.

Attorney, you have previously given clear thought, in a whole range of areas in which you have been involved, as to what the fundamental or core areas of need are. I urge you to look at this closely. A major attack at either our ports or our airports could be prevented if we take this major step and change the way that we are organising this. England and, more particularly, the United States are our best examples. A department of homeland security to better coordinate security in Australia mirrors the smaller step in this legislation of an AusCheck. It will look at security identification in a more coordinated, centralised and smarter way so that you get all of the elements, and not much is left out.

With so many containers arriving at our major sea ports and containers going through our airports, security is vital. We have already seen—and we have been lucky to pick up—a series of different materials that could have caused great danger to our population. We need to go the whole way to ensure that there is proper screening at the major regional airports and that we have better security at places like Bankstown Airport. It is so close to KSA, and there could be an impingement. I support the bill. I urge the Attorney to give close consideration to what I have argued in relation to the bill. It has merit in its importance for securing the future for every travelling Australian.

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