Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The fact is that the Australian people trust the current government with immigration and border management. They do not trust the Australian Labor Party, and that is the fact of the matter. I think the attitudes of the Australian Labor Party have been demonstrated here tonight. They are not quite sure whether this is the right measure. They want to qualify it; they want to vary things in a way that would basically start to unpick the strong border regime that the current government has put in place.

The Australian people gladly welcome refugees and temporary residents of all types. We have a very open and welcoming community. We have generous-hearted people, and nowhere are they more generous hearted than in Tasmania, where they took stacks of refugees in, in difficult circumstances, and welcomed them. But that generosity is dependent upon being certain that it is being offered to people who are in genuine need. The goodwill of the Australian people can only be maintained, endorsed and encouraged if they are certain that those to whom they are offering support and assistance are in genuine need—that they have suffered from difficult circumstances and that they genuinely need help.

We are not talking about refugee programs or boat people tonight. What we are talking about is: how do we manage our increasing immigration and the traffic flow of travellers through Australia—basically on temporary visas? Of course, the immigration program itself has to have a high degree of integrity, and the processes undertaken to examine the background and circumstances of an intending permanent resident are very thorough. They go to police checks and Interpol checks to determine whether there are damaging factors known about a person who is applying for Australian permanent residency—whether someone has conducted themselves as a criminal or whether there are factors that would deny them permanent residency—so that those factors are known or can be ruled out.

We have to be diligent with people who are coming here temporarily. People coming to Australia on a temporary basis have to be identified. We have to keep out those who should not come, we have to keep ahead of the smugglers who would sneak people into Australia and we have to make sure that the gangs and criminal elements who want to abuse Australian hospitality do not take advantage of an open system. The period of the previous Labor government was the period during which the triads gained entry to Australia. That was because there was a slack system. It is nice to be nice to people, but you have to be sensible as well as generous. That is what this legislation, the Migration Amendment (Border Integrity) Bill 2006, is about. It is about being sensible.

Here are just a few statistics about the visitor visa applications for Australia: there were 2.7 million tourist visas with electronic travel authorities last year, there were 13,900 sponsored family visitors and there were about half a million tourists or visitors with non-electronic authority. So we are looking at well over three million people on tourist visas each year. Add to that about 180,000 business visitors and almost 200,000 business visitors with non-electronic travel authority, and you are looking at four million wanting temporary access to Australia. It is a large number of transactions to process, and it is a large number of whom we need to be certain, because at the other end of the scale we have to look at those who do not go home when they should. We do not want to run that risk with people who want to abuse Australian hospitality—who overstay for good or for bad reasons.

We need to look at the following countries. These are the countries from which overstayers are most likely to come. I am going to read these out, because the Australian people need to know. They are well known; they are published by the department of immigration. The highest proportion of those who do not return are from Samoa, followed by Poland, Tonga, Turkey, Kiribati, Romania, Cyprus, Kenya, Belgium and Cambodia. Those are people who tend not to go back when they come here as visitors. Those who are the best visitors, who are most likely to return to their country, are from these countries, and I will read the best performers first: top of the list is Kuwait, followed by Japan, Mexico, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Argentina, Thailand and South Africa. Those countries have great records of returning. The other ones, which I read previously, have not got a good record.

So we have to identify those people who are at risk. One of the best ways of identifying whether people are fair dinkum or not is the way the Customs officer or the immigration officer looks at them as they come in through the front gate. We have all been through the airport. The passport is handed over; the officer looks at the passport, looks at that photograph and asks, ‘Is this who is in front of me?’ They scrutinise you, then read what is on the passport and verify that you can gain entry. So they check the veracity of the visa you are travelling on, the quality of the passport and then the personal identification.

This front gate assessment is just part of a whole system which includes the advanced passenger processing, which is the identification of the person when they apply to come to Australia, whether it be through an electronic travel authority or not. It is a way in which the passenger is assessed by the airline as being a suitable person to travel to Australia. So there is the prior notification. Then there is the universal visa for all noncitizens entering Australia, including those transiting Australia. That is another way. The issue of that visa and the person applying for the visa saying their age and name and identifying themselves to Australian authorities is another check. We are dealing tonight with the check that happens at the border coming in, where a person is scrutinised and their travel documents assessed, and where it is decided whether or not they should gain entry to Australia. It verifies as far as possible that all noncitizens arriving have valid visas.

That is the process. What we are looking at tonight is the way that can be implemented. The Australian Labor Party is not too keen on this sort of thing, but it is going to back this legislation. I am pleased it is, because what is added to a smart passport—an e-passport—is the biometric dimension, which means that instead of having an officer scrutinising you as you enter you are going to have a camera which, with the use of biometrics, is going to be able to pretty nearly identify whether the person presenting is the person whose photograph is on the passport and whose information is contained in a microchip within the passport. That is the simple system that we are adopting tonight. It is technically sophisticated; it is supposed to be one of the best and safest systems in the world.

But then again there is discussion about whether the biometrically enabled passport, as it is called, is able to provide all the measures and protections that we would require. This process has gone through a fair bit of testing. First it was tried with Qantas crews, who were volunteers. How good was it with them? It was very good indeed. Then it was tried in Melbourne with a whole bunch—a hundred-odd thousand people who volunteered—of frequent flyers. And it worked out very well with them too. So it has been adopted universally, and that is what we are legislating tonight. It is something that has been trialled and has been effective and that enhances the current system, adds to the process and allows us to process the more than four million people coming to Australia on a temporary basis every year.

So we are legislating for the use of the SmartGate, which is dependent on having an eligible passport, an electronic travel document. It is also dependent on that document containing the appropriate information. The microchip within the e-passport, embedded in the centre page, contains the digitised facial image and personal details of the passport holder. The microchip can be read electronically and will enable the implementation of cutting-edge facial recognition technology. That is the way it is going to work. So the facial recognition factors are there together with other details about the person seeking to gain entry.

It is said that the advantages of this type of passport are very significant. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on their website say that the e-passport:

• provides greater protection against fraudulent misuse and tampering

People do fiddle with their passports and try to change the photograph, the name, the date or things like that. One only has to talk to Customs officers to realise that this sort of thing goes on all the time. Some of it is very crude but some is very sophisticated. There is no doubt about it: the more sophisticated the crime and the more money involved in a criminal activity, the more likely there is to be fraudulent abuse of and tampering with passports. So this protects against this process. As a previous speaker, my friend Gary Hardgrave, the member for Moreton, said, this is about staying one step ahead of the criminals. It is a smart thing to do to be ahead of the criminals. That is why this is called SmartGate.

Foreign Affairs and Trade also say that this reduces the risk of identity fraud, where somebody is stealing somebody else’s identity, which is currently estimated to cost the Australian economy about $1 billion a year. I know that with particular ethnic groups it has been difficult for Australia to become accustomed to facial identification. I know that they have trouble identifying the differences between people of a European background. I will not get too specific, but I have seen biometrics in use and it is possible in fact through the use of biometrics to look at people who are related and pick out similarities between related people where a normal individual would not be able to see an immediately recognisable similarity between people—for example, choosing brothers and cousins, or uncles and nephews. Under this system, age differences vanish and differences of gender vanish and it is easy to form links between family groups when they are travelling. So fraud, which currently costs us about $1 billion a year, and identify theft are reasons why we should be introducing this measure.

This measure also enhances the protection of Australia’s borders through speedy and more secure verification of incoming passport holders, particularly those passport holders who hold Australian passports—whether they are bodgie passport holders, whether they are genuine passport holders or whether there has been some abuse of a passport system to allow them to gain access to an Australian passport. All of those three measures—protection against fraudulent use, protection against identity theft, and speedier and more secure verification—are tremendous advantages for moving the huge number of people who are coming through Australia each year. Australia is one of the most desired destinations in the world, and we must not forget that it is a precious thing we have and we need to protect it. We do not need people taking advantage of our generosity and our kindness, whether they be pseudo refugees, asylum seekers or others.

The Australian e-passport has also been tested in Los Angeles at the airport there. It is compliant with the US provisions. So we have a capacity to use biometrics on people as they arrive in Australia using an e-passport, and the Australian e-passport is a useful travel document and one that is valued around the world. It has been extensively tested and fits in in a harmonious fashion with the systems being used elsewhere in the world. This legislation has an application for special purpose visas. There is a narrow application for special purpose visas and special category visas. The use of biometric technology and the new Australian e-passport and the use of SmartGate are the crux of what has been happening and what I am speaking about tonight.

When the minister was introducing this legislation, he said:

The proposal to use automated systems in immigration clearance marks an important strengthening of Australia’s border control measures.

Mr Robb went on:

At present, the immigration clearance process at the border is performed manually by the primary line officers. However, extensive trialling of the automated border processing system presently in use at Sydney and Melbourne airports, the SmartGate system, has proven the viability of using facial recognition and new passport technology at the border.

So, when we come to look at the automated processing time, it is not possible to further decrease the amount of time of the current manual system without having some sort of impact on the integrity of the border processing function. So if we were to stick with a manual system and we wanted to go faster, we would diminish the security that we require. Our border agencies, which have taken up SmartGate, are happy with it. So we can maintain that level of integrity and also make sure that we can move passengers quickly. The aim of SmartGate is to enhance border security and improve passenger flow—and it will have that effect. The role of appearance at the gate has been questioned by some in authority. There have been questions about whether the system adopted by Customs is the most appropriate system for Australia to adopt. That debate has flowed backwards and forwards. I have heard both sides of that argument, and time will tell.

I only hope that Customs is not sticking to a particular system regardless of criticism because there is so much personal capital invested in the decision that has been made. I know that the biometric system is good. I trust that we in Australia will have the best type of biometric system available in the world and that it will produce the results that we expect it to produce.

The Australian Labor Party has made mistakes over time. Mr Beazley, for instance, was absolutely opposed to some of the border protection measures that we have adopted. I am pleased that the Australian Labor Party has chosen—in a grudging sort of way—to support this legislation. It will enhance immigration management. In particular, it will assist with the management of those four million temporary visas that are issued each year to people who come and visit Australia and who should leave again. That includes working holiday makers.

I have great pleasure in supporting this legislation. I want to compliment the government for the creative way in which a problem has been handled and for the way in which we have been able to work with other related nations to establish an international system in which their passports and our passports are interchangeable—the e-passport concept. The electronic travel authority is more in use. With safer security measures, the secure movement of people in a rapid manner—which is conducive to them—is advanced by this legislation.

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