Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the government I thank the member for Wide Bay, because, reading between the lines, I think he was trying to actually say that this government is maintaining a vigilance on these issues. I think he was complimentary of the fact that we do not take our eye off the ball when it comes to issues such as aviation security, particularly in respect to passenger and cargo movements. With the growing change that is occurring in that space I think the coalition is trying to say in a veiled way that not only do they support the carriage of this particular piece of legislation but also they are indebted to this government for being ever so vigilant on these issues. We are not simply putting them away and then having a big piece of legislation introduced every now and then. Instead we are doing things when it is required. This is an issue that is required.

I too support the Aviation Transport Security Amendment (Air Cargo) Bill 2011. Aviation security is a concern to all Australians, regardless of whether you are going to be a passenger or whether you are running a small business, as the member for Wide Bay referred to. People are using air cargo more and more these days. It is increasingly becoming more efficient as a way of doing business. Australian consumers want their product quickly, and one of the issues associated with that is the speed of delivery; therefore, airfreight forwarding is one of the fast-growing sectors in the Australian marketplace.

I know a bit about that, because I have worked very closely with the aviation sector in my past—particularly the Sydney Airports Corporation. I know the amount of space that is required, not only for airfreight but for any additional berths for air cargo transporters now, which are rapidly becoming very common in our aviation space. That being the case, we must stay very much in tune with the fact that there are growing security issues associated with it.

As someone said a little facetiously about the member for Wide Bay, this is not a matter of sitting on your hands until you have enough to justify running a substantial document and saying that that is now the new documentation for this industry. We must be prepared to make amendments to finetune and to ensure that we stay ahead of the game when it comes to issues of transport security. Don't forget, it was only in late October that terrorists operating out of Yemen concealed improvised explosive devices inside a set of printers in an air cargo consignment that was destined for the United States. What occurred there was that people went onto an alert footing. The Australian government responded very quickly and took immediate action to protect the travelling public and the Australian aviation sector, strengthening measures against inbound cargo—in this case originating from Yemen and Somalia. That occurred through special security directions, as they are called, issued to the regulated air cargo agents, the RACAs. That worked very well. The product coming in required inbound screening—not only inbound screening but screening prior to being loaded.

This is where one of the problems exists. We are also talking in this space of air cargo groups referred to as accredited air cargo agents, AACAs. They are not the same as regulated air cargo agents. They are smaller, maybe irregular. So under current legislation these special directions were able to be issued, for instance as a result of the Yemeni incidents, to RACAs. The same directives were not able to be sent to accredited air cargo agents. That is obviously something that must be corrected. That is why this piece of legislation is going through now. Unlike the member for Wide Bay, who might want to feel comfortable and be able to sit back and wait until we accumulate a certain amount of issues before we do something, we know this is something that was very real in October 2010. It was very real, a determined and concerted attack using air cargo as the delivery device. As a consequence our agencies responded well, but they identified that there was an issue that needed to be tightened up, to put it beyond doubt—that all those receiving air cargo into this country should be subject to the same specifications. That has now occurred. The amendment is an important one. It fundamentally does four things: it improves Australia's capacity to respond to heightened security threats such as what occurred last October; it provides transitional arrangements to ease the regulatory burden on air cargo industry members while the new initiatives announced by the government in 2010 are enacted; it includes training requirements for the air cargo industry and improves the transparency and consistency of training amongst its members; and it also—almost as an efficiency measure—simplifies the air cargo clearance processes in this country.

This amendment is important as we as a government must do all that we can to deter and prevent unlawful interference with our aviation industry. The very nature of what we are dealing with means that amendments such as these are essential for us to stay on top of our game in the security environment. This is something the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement is currently looking at again in terms of air transport safety and, in their case, maritime transport safety. Arrangements are such that we are capable of preventing and disrupting not only terrorist acts but also vehicles for organised criminals. The Australian government, as I said, in the Yemeni incident did not waste any time. It responded very quickly and it did so to protect the Australian public and the aviation industry that accesses Australian airspace. Nobody would expect anything less in that regard.

This amendment also streamlines the importance of the systems that are in place by improving their transparency. It ensures that all players in the aviation cargo industry have the same training provisions and are subject to the same regulatory regime. Additionally, it provides for special security directions to be applied at times with consistency in times of heightened security.

Another important aspect is that this amendment aligns Australia's air cargo practice with best practice in the world. To align ourselves with best practice is to ensure that both the travelling public and those who rely on cargo for commercial purposes are protected, as is our country, as a consequence of ensuring that not only Australia but all countries work to achieve the best outcomes in this particular space. That has occurred.

This amendment was given rise to by an incident, a planned terrorist attack, in October 2010. That we reacted as best we could and discovered there were deficiencies within the regulations and have moved promptly to do something about that to protect the Australian travelling public as well as those involved in the aviation cargo sector should be something that is applauded, not something that the Opposition should waffle on about: apples coming from New Zealand or how you should hold a group of these together until you have got a big wad of documents to make a substantial change to legislation. We need to act and to act promptly in order to achieve proper outcomes for not only the travelling public but the Australian community at large. In closing, this piece of legislation will fundamentally increase flexibility in responding to heightened security threats to this country, it will reduce the regulatory burden and cost to industry members during their transition to the new air cargo security framework, it will allow for greater scrutiny, consistency and transparency in the training requirements of the air cargo industry sector and it will simplify technology for the industry and reduce confusion. It will ensure that we as a country are best positioned, according to the information that we have available to us at this stage, to protect Australia and the travelling public. It will also ensure that those who rely on the importation of air cargo are protected and are not affected by the vile efforts of those who use air cargo as another means of delivering terrorist threats throughout the world. I commend this piece of legislation. I think the amendment bill should be supported by all. It should be supported for the right reasons—that is, that this is an instance where the government has acted promptly to ensure that we have a suite of regulatory provisions in the security environment that is world's best practice. I commend the amendment bill to the House.

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