David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Customs Amendment Bill 2014 is an important one. There are a number of specific provisions of this bill that I will come to shortly and commend to the House. But it is important to explain to the House the very sorry state of affairs that this government inherited in the area of customs and border protection, because we saw six years of abject failure by those opposite in this area. Of course we are all very familiar with the failings in the area of border protection and illegal boat arrivals, but it is also very important to comment on the failure to screen goods whose entry into Australia was being sought during the period of the previous government. And under the previous Minister for Home Affairs and Justice we saw an appalling degradation of the capacity of our border security at Customs.

You might recall that back in 2012 we saw an appalling instance of this with the arrival of a large gun shipment that came through Customs and actually showed up at a post office in Sydney, in Sylvania Waters, not far from my electorate of Banks. Understandably, this concerned the community immensely, because the whole point of having a customs and border protection service is to stop this sort of contraband getting into this country. We must stop the flow of illegal guns. We must stop drugs and other illegal merchandise before it gets into the country. You would think that there would be unanimity on that point of view, and you would think that even the most incompetent of governments would commit resources to addressing this fundamental issue, but the last government failed in a spectacular fashion in this space. As the New South Wales Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, said, Customs is not just a border security issue; it is a national security issue, because if you do not control the flow of goods at the borders, how do you know what is coming in? And if you do not know what is coming in, you do not know what is coming in. What that means is that there is every chance that criminals will seek to exploit that weakness—and of course that is exactly what they do.

Let us have a look at some of the failings of the previous government in this area, and I will come in a moment to how in our time in government we have addressed these incredible blunders. One of the first things that Labor did was to cut staff in Customs. There was a substantial cut in staff in Customs, from 5,700 to 5,000, and this was at a time when, because of the flow of illegal boat arrivals appearing on the horizon on an almost daily basis—and sometimes more than one a day—Customs was already under immense pressure. A sensible government would stop the flow of boat arrivals; a government that was less sensible but at least conscious of the issues would not cut the staff to address Customs problems when they were in fact increasing so dramatically. We have heard a lot about so-called budget cuts, but what about the cuts that Labor made to Customs, totalling over $700 million out to 2017-18—that is about three-quarters of a billion dollars in the area of Customs. And again, this is an area that is so fundamental to our national security, so how could a responsible government not seek to put its best foot forward in this space?

We did become aware in recent years of allegations of extensive corruption within the customs service, and these allegations were aired as early as 2007. People came forward to the previous government and said, 'There is a real concern about potential criminality at our ports and the involvement of criminal cartels and so on.' But what did the previous government do? Well, they did not do anything until late in 2012, when the Minister for Home Affairs—in his Hollywood fashion—put out a big announcement and press release and said that investigations would be conducted. But it would have been good to conduct those investigations back in 2007 when the issue was first brought to the attention of the government. Again, they did not do that.

The other extraordinary thing that occurred was the huge cut in the screening of sea cargo. Of course, sea cargo is the most common form by which illegal contraband goods get into the country. Sea cargo has a capacity for volume that is more difficult in airborne cargo. Labor's approach here was also novel. In an environment where there are allegations of corruption within Customs on their watch and an environment where we know that there is a huge increase in the demands upon Customs because of all the chaos that is going on at the borders, what Labor said was, 'You know what we should do? Let's dramatically reduce the amount of cargo that we screen.' This is really quite extraordinary. In the 2009-10 budget, back in those days of Labor, there was a cut to the Customs cargo screening program of $58 million. That was an extraordinary act by the government in a long litany of incompetencies. But they actually cut the budget for the screening of sea cargo, when as a society and a nation one of our highest priorities must be to ensure that illegal goods, guns, drugs and all the other terrible things that unfortunately criminals try to peddle in our society are kept out. You do not to that by dramatically cutting the budget.

The result of the cutting the budget to cargo screening is quite instructive. It is very instructive indeed. Under the Howard government, 60 per cent of air cargo consignments were expected. That was more than half. Under Labor, five per cent of air cargo consignments were inspected. The difference is so dramatic that it beggars belief, but it is accurate. Sixty per cent of air cargo consignments were screened under the Howard government and five per cent were screened by the end of Labor's term, which is just an extraordinary dereliction of duty on the part of those opposite.

There was a very significant drop in sea cargo inspections. The ratio of reductions is about 40 per cent, relative to what was inspected before. Less than one per cent of sea cargo under Labor was physically examined. Less than one in 100 items of sea cargo were actually examined. So if you are a criminal, you are think, 'Gee, can we get some illegal goods into this country?' They have probably got a 99 per cent chance that no-one is going to look. Physical examinations were 0.5 per cent. About 3½ per cent were inspected in some way. But physical examinations were of one in 200 items of sea cargo by the end of Labor's term in office. That is really just absolutely appalling. They were going to create a department of homeland security. It was all very grand. It did not happen. It was quietly dumped a little bit after the election. They promised a coast guard. Again, it was a nice announcement prior to the 2007 election, but it did not happen.

There is just a record of abject failure. The failures in relation to physical cargo were more than matched by the failures of the previous government in relation to border security more generally. We know the numbers. More than 50,000 illegal arrivals happened under the previous Labor party's watch. There was a cavalcade of ministers going through the revolving door there. You had the member for Watson, who had a go; the member for McMahon and the member for Gorton—various others were tried out. It was just a colossal failure. It was at a budget cost of about $11.6 billion.

The ABS says that there is about nine million households in Australia. A $11.6 billion blow-out works out at about $1,300 for every household in Australia. That was the cost of that border protection failure under Labor. The option for the previous government was, if it was to have taken a truthful approach to the 2007 campaign, it could have said, 'All right, here are your options. We will just leave things as they are—that was working very successfully under Prime Minister Howard, the member for Berowra and others—or you can adopt a radically different approach under us, which will lead to 50,000 illegal arrivals and a cost to the average household of about $1,300.'

That is important, because imagine what the average household could do with $1,300 if there were provided with tax relief. That would be if there was competence at our borders. If there was competence at our borders, there would not have been the $11 billion budget blow-out. If there was not the $11 billion budget blow-out, there would not have been an impact of about $1,300 per household. But, unfortunately, all of that did happen and the cost was $1,300 per household. We know that ,despite the extraordinarily sanctimonious arguments we hear from those opposite, the human cost of their policies on the border were appalling. I will leave that at that.

The bill that we discussed today has a number of important provisions. It is good to see the Minister for Immigration here as we discuss these matters. There are important provisions under the Customs Amendment Bill. One of the anomalies in the existing law is that domestic travellers on a domestic leg of an international flight are not subject to inspection. That is not logical. We should fix that and that is what this bill does. If you are on a domestic leg of an international flight, Customs will now have the power to inspect that cargo. That is entirely appropriate, because there is obviously an intermingling of domestic and international passengers in those situations and an intermingling of domestic and international cargo. We need to be able to put a stop to any use of domestic flights to bring illegal substances into the country.

Another important provision in the bill is this change to allow Customs to inspect goods at what are known as non-proclaimed places. Non-proclaimed places is essentially a fancy term that basically means a place that is not on the list of usual ports of embarkation. It is your airports, your major ports and so on. Sometimes, companies seek to bringing goods at other locations—sometimes cruise liners, sometimes in the resources industry and so on. Unfortunately, under the current act, Customs does not have the power to inspect goods in those non-proclaimed places. This bill will make that change and enable Customs to go to those non-proclaimed places and conduct inspections as appropriate. This is particularly important because if you were trying to get illegal goods into the country, you may well go to a non-proclaimed place. By extending the power of Customs to those non-proclaimed places we extend its reach, and that is absolutely appropriate.

We will also have simpler rules about the transferring of goods between different vessels, and so on, at the borders. Obviously, the point of transfer between different transport means is a point of vulnerability in the system, and it is important that there is a good system of permissions for those transfers, which all occur under the watchful eye of Customs, and that nothing is lost in the process. We also want to introduce some additional flexibility into the reporting of goods that are to come in to the country to give Customs greater visibility of what shipping companies and others are planning, and therefore ensuring that the right Customs resources are there when the goods arrive. These are great changes that move away from the era of appalling management of this space, which we saw under Labor. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

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