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

It is a pleasure to follow the member for Batman in this debate on the Migration Amendment (Maritime Crew) Bill 2007. I think the shadow minister for transport has in the last 20 minutes set out a very clear case for a change of government and a comprehensive plan for dealing with the transport industry, particularly maritime transport, which is sadly lacking from the current government. The bill before us is a small—indeed, far too small—step in dealing with the issue of foreign crews coming to Australian ports on maritime vessels. It establishes a new visa for the purpose of maritime transit only. The measures in the bill are unexceptional and supported, but it is a small step that goes only a tiny way towards dealing with the really important issue associated with this.

We do not need another piece of administration, another piece of red tape or another piece of paper for the bureaucrats at the immigration department to deal with. That is not why the government should be doing this—although I have to say that it will accomplish little else. We need a special visa for people who are on foreign ships coming to our shores and ports because there is a problem of border protection. For years Labor has been arguing that the current system is flawed and that we need to do something about it. This bill, I am sorry to say, makes barely a dent in that cause.

This is in fact the fifth bill that the parliament has dealt with today. Where are the government speakers? Where are the members of the Liberal and National parties? This is the fifth bill today we have dealt with in this parliament, and the total number of Liberal and National Party members who have spoken today is five. They can muster barely one person per bill. The level of arrogance and disdain this government now shows, not just to the people of Australia but also to the parliament, is palpable.

It is not just today. I invite people to go through the Hansard record of recent weeks and have a look at the arrogance of the Howard government. They no longer think that this parliament should even be a chamber for debate. They no longer feel the need to have members of the Liberal and National parties bother to come into this chamber and explain why the bills they are voting for are good and adequate bills. They do not even deign to grace the parliament with their presence during debates of this kind. This is in fact an important issue. I note that the member for Mallee, John Forrest, is in the gallery. He is at least observing if not participating in this debate. But it is a crying shame that members of the government do not even think it is worth participating in debates of this kind.

As I was about to say, this is an important matter. We are talking about border security at a time when that security is as much a part of our national wellbeing as national security has traditionally been regarded. In a world in which non-state terrorism presents a threat globally, ensuring that our borders are not porous is important to all of us. That is what this bill should be doing, but it does not. What this bill does is to create a bit more red tape. It is a good thing to have a special visa for people who come to Australia as seafarers, but let us just have a look at how this operates. There is no security vetting of the people involved here. These visas are going to be provided to people not because we know they are who they claim to be, not because there has been a police or ASIO check of their background, not because we know they are not part of a terrorist network, but simply because we know they are on the crew of a vessel coming here for work purposes. This in no way will assist in making Australia’s maritime borders more secure.

I wholeheartedly support the second reading amendment that has been moved by my colleague the shadow minister for immigration, because it sets out the folly of this government’s approach to these matters. This government has paid little regard to the economic welfare of the Australian maritime industry. It has paid little regard to the security of Australia through our maritime borders. It has been far more interested in an ideological campaign to attack the Maritime Union and the seafarers of Australia. I think that is one of the reasons why this government, like no other before it, has handed out permits for foreign crewed vessels not just to come to Australian ports but to carry the coastal trade. This has been a major problem for the industry. But leave that aside in the context of this debate—this is a major issue of national security.

We have a situation in which Australian seafarers are required to undergo rigorous and invasive security checks. They have to do that in order to get a maritime security identity card, an MSIC, and that is totally appropriate. On this side of the House, Labor members support the need to have security checks done on those who work in these important, sensitive areas, and clearly those involved in our ports, borders, airports and the like are in sensitive areas. Australian workers who want to become seafarers are obliged to undergo very thoroughgoing invasive checks. To put this into some perspective, these are checks that typically would involve not just the normal cursory police overview; the Federal Police do a thorough check of individuals and their backgrounds, and ASIO would also be involved in ensuring that the people to whom these security passes are given are fit and proper people with whom there are no concerns. That is the standard we apply to our own citizens. But, if you happen to be a foreign citizen, no such investigation is undertaken. If you happen to be a foreign citizen, this bill will allow you to get a visa, come to Australia and enter Australian ports without ever undertaking any security check remotely like the security check that Australian seafarers are required to undergo. That seems, I am sure, to all fair-minded Australians to be an unfair, unbalanced process, and yet that is exactly what the Howard government has done.

But it is worse, because we do not just allow those foreign workers on foreign vessels to come here without undergoing the same security checks we demand of Australians; we then let them undertake coastal freight trade around the Australian coastline—and not just any freight. We allow them to take explosives, and we allow them to take dangerous chemicals. I have lost count of the number of occasions on which I have raised in this parliament my concerns about that very matter, including the case, about 18 months ago, of a foreign flagged vessel coming to Gladstone when the then Leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley and I stood at the port conducting a press conference. On board that vessel, which was foreign flagged, foreign crewed, was a very large quantity of ammonium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate is a very dangerous, potentially explosive substance. It has been the chemical of choice for terrorist bombers for many years in many parts of the world. The Australian government have happily allowed foreign crews that they know nothing about to carry explosives of that kind around our coastline. They think that is an acceptable procedure when, at the same time, an Australian wanting to do that would have to undergo those rigorous security checks to which I have referred, and they would have to hold a maritime security identity card. But no such card, no such check, is demanded of those foreign crews.

The situation we have seen with this government is not just its failing to legislate—or its failing to fully legislate, as this bill fails to fully legislate to deal with the concerns that we on this side of the parliament have raised—it is its failing, even when it legislates, to implement matters. There is a requirement for ships coming to Australia to provide details of cargo and crew 48 hours before they arrive in Australia. In fact, they do not. Indeed, the most recent figures show that the situation has got worse, not better. My memory is that it has grown now to about 15 per cent of ships that do not provide details of their crew or cargo as required two days before arriving in Australian ports. What does the Australian government do about that? It does absolutely nothing. So we have a law that is a good law, but the government just fails to enforce it.

This matter was raised a couple of years ago by many members in the Labor Party, including me but others as well, and in the 12 months that followed government inaction has seen this problem get worse, not better. It is hard to believe that any government could do that. But to have a government like this one that likes to talk about security as often as it does, a government that never knocks back a photo opportunity if there are military personnel to be seen, a government that puts the best political spin it can on all security debates but in the process ignores the real security interests of Australia, is the height of hypocrisy. It is hard for those involved in the industry to understand why a government that talks so much about security in fact does so little.

We have ships that come to Australia that do not even tell us what their cargo or crew is until after they have got here. You do not need to have a keen imagination to understand the threat that presents. By the time the ship has come to port, if there are people on board with ill intent, if there are explosives or other chemicals on board that are dangerous, they do not actually need to wait until they get to the harbour to cause a problem. But of course they do get to the harbour. They get to Botany Bay. They pull up in our largest city without ever disclosing who their crew is or what their cargo is. That is an appalling situation. It is not a lot better when they do tell the government—when they do tell Customs—because what happens is that the master of the vessel provides details of who is in the crew. Frankly, Customs would not have a clue whether they were who they claimed to be or not. They may be those individuals or they may be completely different people.

All of this is a worry. It is a bigger worry, I have to say, when you contemplate that in our corner of the world we have the worst incidents of piracy on the planet. Just to our north-north-west, in the last year for which statistics are available, there were two acts of piracy every week on average. It is thought that most of those acts of piracy were conducted by criminals for profit. But we should not be so lax or comfortable as to think that terrorists do not also understand the potential that that provides. The islands from which those pirates operate also happen to be the same areas in which Jemaah Islamiah and Abu Sayyaf are known to have operatives and people who are sympathetic to them. It is not beyond the realms of possibility—although I hope it is not probable—that those pirates, acting on behalf of terrorists, could seize a vessel and then use it for their own purposes. Indeed, I know countries in the region are deeply concerned about that possibility and are looking to take steps about that possible threat.

Are we doing that in Australia? No, we are not. We are passing laws that we do not implement, such as the requirement to provide details of crew and cargo 48 hours before arriving, or we are passing half-baked laws that do not actually fix the security problem, such as the bill before us at the moment. This government has handed out permits for those foreign crewed, foreign flagged vessels with gay abandon. I have described it in the past as the government handing them out like tickets in a Friday night pub chook raffle, and that is pretty much what it is. Just look at the statistics. They have skyrocketed under this government. It does not need any probable reason to do it. You ask for a permit and this government will give you one. Will it check that the foreign crew and the foreign flagged vessel are up to standard, that the people are who they claim they are and that they are not security risks? No, it will not. It is an appalling state of affairs, and the creation of this particular visa will not solve that problem.

The Howard government’s performance in this area of maritime security has been one of indifference and arrogance. That indifference and arrogance is replicated in this chamber by the absence of members of the government who do not even think that it is worth turning up to debate these matters. As I commented earlier, we have dealt with five bills today in this parliament. For every one of the bills, the government could find one person and one person only. That is a disgrace. The Australian people should be told about that. It really is an affront to the people of Australia and to this parliament. But it is typical of an arrogant government that has simply been around for too long. I could not have agreed more with the member for Batman when he concluded that this government has been here too long and is too arrogant and that it is time it went. Later this year, that is exactly the verdict that I think the people of Australia will reach.

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