Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Migration Amendment (Border Integrity) Bill 2006, which will amend the Migration Act 1958. The purpose of the bill is to strengthen Australia’s border integrity. The importance of ensuring that our borders are secure, and also the safety of Australians and visitors to this country, is on the minds of all of us. The bill does two things: firstly, it enables the introduction of automated border processing by using a system referred to as SmartGate; secondly, it amends the Migration Act to allow a declaration which ceases a special purpose visa to take effect at a time specified in the declaration.

I will first cover the introduction of SmartGate and e-passports. This will make clearance through immigration much more streamlined—currently around 5. 5 million visitors arrive each year through our borders—and will aid combating identity fraud. In this day and age, what is important to every person who is travelling is that their own identity is protected. By 2009, it is anticipated international arrivals and departures will increase by up to 23 per cent—that is, almost 6.8 million people who will enter and depart our borders. That amounts to a daily average of around 18,500 people who will require immigration processing. Of course, 18,500 people on a daily basis amounts to many queues and the need for many Immigration officers. Each of those people need to be correctly identified and obviously, legally, require authorisation to enter Australia.

The aim of the SmartGate system is to enable holders of prescribed e-passsports to have their identity verified by an automated system without the need for a clearance officer to be present. Prescribed e-passports will be available not only to Australian citizens but also to citizens from countries which also have the e-passport system in place, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States as well as to selected New Zealand citizens, who will be able to have their special category visa granted automatically. Such eligible passports will contain embedded information stored on a microchip, which can then be accessed by the SmartGate system. I emphasise that this data is temporarily stored in the SmartGate system to process the relevant passenger information—such as the passenger’s name, their country of origin, their arrival or departure details—and then the information is destroyed. SmartGate does not store any personal information collected from the passport. This will certainly assure people that their privacy is protected.

This amending legislation will give eligible e-passport holders the opportunity to be cleared by an automated system, which will speed up the clearance time, rather than having to be cleared by an appointed officer. This automated system will of course reduce queues for not only international tourists but also tourists returning home to Australia and will make their return trip to Australia, or first experience of Australia, a lot more pleasant. And, from a security point of view, it will reduce the number of potentially fraudulent passports. So it will make it a lot easier for people who are re-entering or entering Australia whilst, at the same time, protect people’s identity and reduce the potential for fraud.

The microchip which forms part of the e-passport will contain information that is currently found on our passports such as a photograph, name, gender, date of birth, nationality, passport number and the expiry date. Anyone who holds an e-passport will be able to approach SmartGate, where their face will be checked using biometric technology, which will perform a face-to-passport check which will verify their identity. Once verified, the passenger will then move on to the next stage of immigration processing. The passport details scanned through the SmartGate system will have been forwarded to Customs, as well as to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship border systems, which verify the passport and visa details, and the person can continue with the process such as clearing Customs.

If for any reason a person cannot be immigration cleared or their special category visa cannot be granted, SmartGate will refer the person to a clearance officer for manual processing. This will be particularly critical in the early stages. I remind those opposite that this will be a voluntary alternative. If a person wishes, they can choose to go through the immigration process manually and have an immigration clearance officer process them as required.

The Howard government here offers choice whilst not jeopardising our border security, unlike the opposition which between 1990 and 1991, and 1994 and 1995, actually cut the number of staff employed by Customs by over a thousand and which undermined the vital work preformed by Customs to protect our borders. This decision and action by the opposition, the then Labor government, jeopardised our border security. By contrast, the Howard government is absolutely committed to prioritising the protection of our borders and the people of Australia.

The second part of the bill, which I support, amends those provisions relating to the special purpose visa and is provided for in section 33 of the Migration Act. This will allow for specified persons, or members of specified classes, to be taken to hold a temporary visa. The special purpose visa applies to people such as airline crew, the crew of non-military ships, guests of government and participants of events such as the Commonwealth Games. If it is believed a person should not travel to or remain in Australia and they are holding a special purpose visa, a declaration under section 33(9) of the Migration Act can be made and the visa can cease. This is often the case when a crew member from a foreign ship may be considered at risk of deserting a vessel in Australia or may have a character, national security or health concern.

Currently, provisions of the Migration Act mean that the special purpose visa remains in place until the end of the day when the declaration is made. This in effect means, for example, that if a person is classified as a desertion risk at 9 am, the special purpose visa will not necessarily cease and the person cannot be detained until after midnight. It is self-evident that this person may then be free to desert, and then it becomes extremely challenging to find and identify them. This is certainly unacceptable and undesirable. We want border integrity that will protect the people of Australia from people who wish to desert for whatever reason, where they may be a threat to our security and where people may be engaged in criminal activity or have the potential to traffic in drugs.

How can we prevent this from happening when, legally, we cannot detain the person until the next day? That is why this bill is important and I support it. The amendments will mean that the special purpose visa will cease at the time specified in the declaration and officials will be able to detain the person immediately. The Howard government, like all Australians, wants our borders protected. It is because of strong economic management that the Howard government is able to protect our borders and invest in this state-of-the-art technology. I commend the amendments put forward to the House in this legislation. I fully support these amendments, as they are in the best interests our national security, our border protection and everyone who lives here and who travels to Australia. Again, it is important to note that the Howard government’s priority is to protect our borders.

See this speech in context