Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The Transport Security Amendment (Serious or Organised Crime) Bill 2016 amends two acts that cover aviation security and maritime security respectively to add an additional purpose to these acts to prevent the use of aviation and maritime transport in connection with serious and organised crime.

Organised crime is a blight on our nation. The Australian Crime Commission conservatively estimates that serious and organised crime costs the Australian economy $15 billion each year.

Unsurprisingly, considering the huge sums of money involved, those who perpetrate this type of crime are becoming more sophisticated, more devious and more determined. Their aim is to always keep one step ahead of the law, and we are seeing quite a bit in modern times just how sophisticated some of the crime networks are, particularly those associated with money laundering and drug crime. Organised criminal groups involved in international drug trafficking are diversifying. They are no longer trading in one drug or commodity; some groups have begun trafficking in a number of commodities, including multiple drug types in the same shipment. Cooperation between organised crime groups is becoming more apparent, as is the intertwining of different types of criminal activities being undertaken by some organised crime groups.

As the member for Kingsford Smith, my community—our community—is home to the largest airport and the second-largest container port in the country. So our area is the gateway through which many organised criminal gangs seek to traffic their drugs and illegal goods and substances, to gain access to the Australian market, and over the course of the last decade in particular we have seen the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission foil a number of very big and very sophisticated attempts at the airport and the port—in particular, to smuggle drugs into the country.

Those busts led to a review of the operations of our security and the border force laws. The review was undertaken when the member for Blaxland, Jason Clare, was the minister, and it led to a number of reforms in the latter years of the previous Labor government. Those reforms, it is pleasing to see, have been taken up on a bipartisan basis by the current government. The reforms relate to changes to accreditation around ports and airports for people who are employed by organisations to work in these areas, to cracking down and strengthening the criteria and the testing of people's criminal records before they are given employment in these areas, and, of course, to extra law enforcement powers that have been quite effective.

Marine ports such as Port Botany are large, with significant workforces, and this creates certain difficulties for effective regulation and security, which can leave open loopholes for criminals and criminal gangs to exploit. Airports too can be subject to criminal infiltration, making levels of security, screening and vetting vital to preventing the proliferation of criminal behaviour. It is of course vital that we maintain strong processes to ensure that our borders and the staff that patrol them are resourced sufficiently to do this important job in the most effective manner possible.

Labor supports well-targeted measures that address serious and organised crime. Those who use our aviation and maritime transport systems as the means to distribute drugs and other contraband into and out of Australia commit crimes. We know it happens, and unfortunately it happens quite regularly. A recent example I can point to was the seizure of 22 kilograms or $23 million worth of methamphetamine, or ice, and one kilogram of cocaine from a cargo ship at Port Botany. This seizure took place only a couple of months ago, in January. Also in January there was another seizure at Port Botany of almost 500 kilograms of illegal drugs, including 159 kilograms of ice and 340 kilograms of ephedrine, a precursor to methamphetamine. Concealed in three shipping containers that arrived in Sydney on 1 January—on New Year's Day—was this contraband. This haul had a street value of more than $105 million.

So we know that the syndicates are becoming more sophisticated and that we need to ensure that our law enforcement agencies are equipped with the necessary backup and laws to ensure that they can enforce and uncover these crimes whilst they are taking place, and Labor of course supports sensible and effective measures to minimise this trade, detect the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

The National Ice Taskforce reported in December last year. It was chaired by former police Commissioner Mr Ken Lay. The report was welcomed by Labor. We supported measures to align and refine the Aviation Security Identification Cards or ASICs, as they are known, and the Maritime Security Identification Cards, or MSICs, to ensure that persons accessing secure areas around airports, ports, aircraft and ships are subject to proper background checks. Labor also welcomed the release of the report and noted that:

Despite the best efforts of officers on the ground, law enforcement efforts have actually failed to halt the supply of ice even though there have been increased seizure and arrests rates.

To divert for a moment, one of the important recommendations and realisations that was made by Ken Lay and the Ice Taskforce was that, unfortunately, with respect to this issue, we cannot arrest our way out of it—that simply pumping more money into law enforcement when it comes to ice is not the answer and that we do need to look at rehabilitation and harm minimisation programs.

There has been a stark contrast between the approach of this government and the approach of the New Zealand government when it comes to tackling ice. In New Zealand, as a result of an inquiry similar to that of the Ice Taskforce, they devoted almost all of their additional funding to rehabilitation and harm minimisation programs. The evidence is that they are getting better results in New Zealand than we are in Australia because in Australia we spend a very low proportion on those programs. I think it is close to 70 per cent of the funds that are expended in tackling ice and other drug problems in our community go to law enforcement and only about 11 per cent of the funding goes to harm minimisation. We do really need to look at the mix of that funding and whether or not we are being effective. Reports from the Ice Taskforce and evidence that the problem is growing, that more and more people are being arrested for this, going to jail, coming out worse and getting back on the ice—the problem proliferating in our community—are something we need to seriously consider.

The current purpose of the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003 is to establish regulatory frameworks to safeguard against 'unlawful interference' in aviation and maritime operations. These acts were created in a post-September 11 risk environment. 'Unlawful interference' is currently defined, in both acts, as being acts that impede the operation of airports, aircraft, ports, offshore facilities or ships, or which place the safety of ships or aircraft at risk—with exceptions for mere advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action. The focus is, accordingly, on targeting behaviour that may cause death or other harm to passengers, workers or the general public, including damage to property.

The changes proposed for these acts will add a new, secondary purpose to both acts, as per above, and administer this through changes to eligibility criteria for existing aviation security identification cards and maritime security identification cards. There are approximately 130,000 ASIC and MSIC on issue. In respect of what is proposed, Labor has identified that there is a potential risk, that widening the purpose of transport security legislation will confuse the two missions of transport security and targeting serious or organised crime in the transport system. Both these tasks are important. The question is whether achievement of both is best done via the mechanism here, and it is still in doubt.

For this reason, Labor has indicated it will refer this bill and these important reforms to a Senate inquiry, for the Senate to have a look at those issues of the purpose of transport security legislation and whether or not we are confusing the two missions of that particular legislation. Otherwise, I am happy to add my voice to the importance of ensuring that our aviation and maritime security legislation is first class and ensures we are doing all we can to keep pace with the sophistication of crime syndicates and networks that are posing a big risk to the productivity of our nation and, ultimately—unfortunately—doing a lot of harm to our community through the drug trade.

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