Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

We are working through this, and I thank the government member for that contribution. We are conducting this debate on the Migration Amendment (Maritime Crew) Bill 2007 and the measures that have been put forward by the government—which are supported with an amendment moved by the opposition—under the framework of September 11, Bali and the changed security environment. It is clear that the changed security environment poses significant risks for Australia.

As I understand it, the bill effectively indicates that, currently, non-military maritime crew and their families are not required to make a formal application for a visa before coming to Australia and that special purpose visas are currently granted by operation of law. This process does not permit security checks to be conducted before the crews of these ships are allowed to enter Australia. This is an issue that federal Labor has been prosecuting, as I understand it, for some period of time.

The bill that we are debating before the House creates a new class of temporary visa—the maritime crew visa. The application process for the new visa will enable crews to be appropriately security cleared before they enter Australia. Whilst we support the bill, federal Labor believes that, in the interests of improving it, some issues need to be addressed. These issues include permitting foreign flag of convenience ships to carry dangerous goods on coastal shipping routes and the failure to ensure that ships provide details of crew and cargo 48 hours before their arrival. The last issue is quite important.

Why is it quite important? I will tell you why. The November 2001 paper released by the government on maritime security says:

The Australian government began working closely with the international community and the International Maritime Organisation to contribute to the development and implementation of the International Ship and Port Facilities Security Code, which came into effect globally on 1 July 2004.

Here is the interesting bit:

As Australia has just over 12 per cent of the world shipping task and with the value of Australia’s seaborne trade being about $188 billion per annum, any disruption and destabilisation of seaborne trade would have serious economic consequences.

In the government’s own words, that provides a very interesting framework and indicates that the government would be working very rapidly to address the concerns that have been raised in a spirit of cooperation by the federal Labor Party. However, these concerns have not been dealt with. We have detailed some of the effects of this legislation, but there are still a number of concerns relevant to our national security which have not been addressed. For example, Labor have warned of the massive security danger posed by explosives like ammonium nitrate being carried by foreign crewed, foreign flagged vessels around our coastline. We cannot have a debate of this nature without looking at these issues; they are an essential part of the debate.

In evidence given to a 2005 Senate committee that was looking into this issue, some startling admissions were made by the government’s own representatives. In answer, for example, to questions about the issuing of permits to flag of convenience vessels to ply their trade around the Australian coast, DOTARS—the Department of Transport and Regional Services—advised the Senate that, when a ship indicates its intention to come to an Australian port, there is not an additional check looking at particular seafarers when they consider the approval of a single voyage permit or a coastal permit because, in effect, that has already been done when the ship came to Australia. Let me restate an important part of the evidence DOTARS gave. They said that there was not an additional check looking at particular seafarers when they consider the approval of a single voyage permit—that is, the department does not care about the security background of the crews of foreign ships. Most of them come from flag of convenience nations where there is little or no regulation governing either the quality of the ship or the seafarers—no check is done.

Let us look at what al-Qaeda is attempting to do in terms of creating massive disruption to nations, to the economic infrastructure of nations and to the psyche of nations. It is believed that al-Qaeda controls nearly 80 front companies in 50 countries and a large number of ships which can be used to conduct attacks. Al-Qaeda has a proven track record on this. A report on one of the more famous maritime incidents, which occurred on 12 October 2000, describes how a small boat rammed the port side of the USS Cole in Aden and how the target was a symbol of US power and influence. The USS Cole was easily attacked by unsophisticated means. The method of delivery was crude and had devastating consequences. Al-Qaeda is looking at this method of attack to cause damage to our national security. When we look at the methods of attack being used by al-Qaeda and associated organisations, what concerns us on this side of the House is that the suggestions that we have put forward in the national interest are not being taken into account.

Coming back to DOTARS and the issuing of permits, the department said that they did not think it was part of their job to check the crews of foreign vessels before handing out a permit. As the member for Brisbane has pointed out previously in the House, the government’s approach to handing out permits to foreign flagged ships, particularly flag of convenience vessels, is like handing out tickets for a Friday night chook raffle—and there is evidence to prove it. The department told the Senate that they did not think checking the background of foreign seafarers was something they needed to bother about.

Most countries of the world think it is something that they should bother about. Most countries in the world understand that there is a real and growing threat from ships being used for terrorist and illegal activities. We can see this when we look at what happened to the USS Cole. One of the defence and international security magazines describes an event at a southern Italian port that shook the very foundation for the rapid growth of world trade over the past 50 years. It said:

An Al-Qaeda terrorist was found inside a comfortably equipped freight container, carrying plans of airports and an aviation mechanic’s identity and security passes. Container technology that has transformed … trade in legitimate goods can easily be used for the illicit transport of people and material.

This mechanism, albeit a crude one, is being contemplated and used to affect our national security.

For the benefit of the House, I want to recap some of the points that have been made about dealing with the threat that this form of terrorism presents. At the moment, as I said, the government happily allows foreign crewed vessels to carry thousands of tonnes of ammonium nitrate around our shores and does not know whether members of these crews are criminals or terrorists because of a lack of proper security checks being done on them.

I find that inconceivable. I am Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which examines the security threat to Australia. Looking at it from that perspective and given that this is such an obvious issue that should be addressed and has not been, you question the integrity of the government on national security. They talk the talk—the second reading speech was a very interesting discussion about what they are doing to improve maritime security. But we point out to this House and to the Australian people that there are significant gaps in Australian security as a consequence of these measures not being adopted. You cannot allow a very large vessel filled with ammonium nitrate with an indeterminate crew to enter a port and have nothing done about it.

We know that the rules are not the same for Australian ships and crews. As members of this House will know, Australian seafarers are obliged to undergo quite intrusive security checks. Federal Police and ASIO checks are done on all Australian seafarers. The members of the MUA, the people who work on our waterfronts and our ships, undergo security checks that we in this parliament do not even put ourselves through and that most of our staff do not have to go through—although some ministerial staff might have to. The simple fact is that Australian seafarers must have a maritime security identity card, which they get only after the Federal Police and ASIO have vetted them and found them suitable. But this is not the case for foreign crews. I cannot accept an argument that we should not be undertaking measures to improve our security such as scrutinising the people who come onto our shores. Foreign crews can turn up on ships that we know very little about because they are flag of convenience vessels. The government takes little interest in their background—not so in the United States, I can tell you—and allows them to carry dangerous and explosive chemicals into our major cities and ports.

People think that it may not happen. But the fact is, as I said earlier in my speech, that it is being actively contemplated by terrorist organisations. They want to take the soft route, the soft option, the option that has not been thought of, the option that causes maximum disruption with crude weaponry. Ammonium nitrate is a classic weapon of choice for terrorists. We have seen the carnage that it can cause. There are a number of examples of where the threat of ammonium nitrate has been real. In 2005, the Pancaldo carried 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate around the Australian coastline. Something like that could cause a disaster. Imagine that pulling into Melbourne port, for example, and exploding. It would be a disaster, a catastrophe for Melbourne—or for Sydney if it pulled into Circular Quay.

To put that into some sort of perspective, I will describe a case where a large quantity of ammonium nitrate exploded. I use the term ‘large quantity’ because ammonium nitrate is the chemical of choice for terrorists and a very small amount of ammonium nitrate was used to blow up the building in Oklahoma City. The example that I will use is one that the member for Brisbane has used in the past, but we need to graphically illustrate the nature of the threat that we face from these unscrutinised and unsupervised ships by showing what one ship can do.

Just after World War II, a French vessel called the SS Grandcamp was carrying about 2,300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. In 1947, it exploded in Texas City harbour. The ammonium nitrate had ignited. The explosion from those 2,300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was heard 150 miles away. Just imagine a ship carrying something equivalent to 2,300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate pulling into Melbourne or Sydney and igniting. It produced a mushroom cloud that rose to the height of 2,000 feet over Texas City. Think about Sydney; think about Melbourne; think about Adelaide. The locals thought that a nuclear war has started and that a nuclear holocaust was about to occur in Texas. So great was the devastation that the anchor of this particular ship, which weighed 1½ tons, was flung two miles from the site. It was found embedded 10 feet in the ground. That is the only known example of a large quantity of ammonium nitrate exploding on a ship.

But we know that it can happen. We can connect the dots. Ammonium nitrate is the weapon of choice for terrorists. We know that they will use devices like a ship floating in a harbour to create the maximum devastation to our country. So we have a problem. Ships carrying more than that amount of ammonium nitrate operate around the Australian coastline on a regular basis. They are not Australian vessels and they are not crewed by Australians—and I would love to know what the Americans think about this. We know little or nothing about the people who crew these vessels. These vessels are from flag of convenience countries, which make an industry out of not asking questions of merchant carriers. This should be worrying because, as the member for Brisbane has stated, it is a widely accepted fact that al-Qaeda either own or have long-term leases on between 15 and 18 vessels. It does not take a lot of imagination to see a circumstance in which one of those vessels might be used as a floating bomb. I and the member for Brisbane have made a number of comments warning of that particular threat.

To sum up, this bill has the government spending an amount of money. Around 650,000 people travel to and from Australia each year, with 90 per cent of them being from crews of visiting commercial ships. This is a small step in the right direction. What we do not have is a comprehensive plan—or the comprehensive series of security measures that Labor has been calling for for some period of time—to deal with an event that would cause immense devastation to this country. While we support this bill, we ask the government to start taking seriously our concerns. If they do, we may see this country’s national security—which the government prides itself on—being improved.

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