Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition will always put national security at the forefront, because keeping Australians safe is the No. 1 priority; it has to be. This bill, the Transport Security Amendment (Security of Australia's Transport Sector) Bill 2024, is important. I appreciate the shadow defence minister's sensible and practical words around what this bill entails, the coalition's position on it and what needs to be done to safeguard our future.

As the member for Canning, the shadow minister, has just quite correctly pointed out, regional airports sometimes have differing regulations as far as security measures are concerned, and there are some airports in country Australia whereby different airlines, because of the size of their planes and the number of seats on those planes, have different security measures. In some airports, you can board a plane without having to go through the necessary X-ray checks, whereas, for the next flight 10 minutes later on a different airline, you'll have to go through the full process, which requires passengers and all their carry-on luggage to be subjected to X-rays to ensure that they aren't carrying any sharp items or items that would otherwise be, and should be, prevented. We need to make sure that those towns and cities are not affected. For some of them, having different, competitive airlines with different security screenings means that they have competitive prices and that those towns and regions those airports serve can access health and business and tourism avenues that they would otherwise not be able to. This is important.

I'm very pleased that the shadow defence minister has raised that point, because it's a good one. He also talked about consultation and the necessity for stakeholders to be fully engaged in this process. Again, I commend the shadow minister for his commonsense approach, as in everything he does. He has certainly made the point that there needs to be good consultation in this process—in this case, 12 months of consultation—and then there are 24 months for transition to reform, as he quite correctly pointed out. These are important factors in this particular legislation. The coalition is supporting the bill. It is supporting the government amendments.

What the bill proposes to do is strengthen Australia's transport security framework to ensure government and industry can manage current and emerging risks in a rapidly evolving threat environment. No-one would know better how volatile our nation is than the shadow defence minister and, dare I say, those members who sit on the National Security Committee. It is a worrying situation. We do live in troubled times. These are troubled times both abroad and, certainly, in a volatile Australia—nothing our agents cannot handle. I have always been impressed by the top-level public servants, security officials and intelligence agents who serve our nation irrespective of who's in government. They do a fine job, and we should honour and recognise the role that they play to keep Australians safe. That also goes to the Australian Federal Police and our various state police forces. They are there to serve the public, and they do an outstanding job. I want to acknowledge that.

But what we saw recently on 6 March at Avalon Airport was disturbing. There is no question about that. A teenager allegedly boarded a Jetstar plane armed with a long-arm firearm and ammunition and claimed, 'I've got bombs in my bag.' That's what the court documents have revealed. This is worrying. You're always going to get people who are sad enough and mad enough and bad enough to do the wrong thing. That's the way of the world, unfortunately, and that's why legislation such as this is important. That's why, as I said in my very first sentence in this debate, national security has to be the first order of priority of government. It has to be.

This bill makes a number of amendments to the Aviation Transport Security Act of 2004 as well as the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003. I've spoken about airports. It's not just about airports. It's very much about, and should be about, shipping ports. The number of illegal cigarettes being imported into this country at the moment is out of control, and what we know about what illegal tobacco is doing to our nation and the damage and harm it is causing is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I'm told that many cigarette shops that are very much legal cannot gain insurance in Melbourne for fear of the firebombings, the molotov cocktails that are being hurled into them, and the bullying and harassment done by illegal bikie gangs. This is their new level of moneymaking means. This is what the bikie gangs are doing. They are scum. I'll look straight down the camera and say it: bikie gangs are scum.

We know that, and we need to do everything that we can to eliminate their trade, because shopkeepers and legal sellers of tobacco, who are trying to do the right thing, are having their profits undercut by these mongrels. There's probably no other word for them apart from the one I used before. They'll go on their little Christmas toymaking jaunts and pretend as though they are good for society. What they are doing is out of control, and you get honest, legal shopkeepers being bullied, harassed and threatened with baseball bats and all the rest. Having their shops and their business models ruined is just terrible.

This bill, through its regulations and legislation, amends the definition of 'unlawful interference' and, in doing so, captures a broader variety of acts, including cybersecurity incidents. It introduces mandatory cybersecurity incident reporting, and that's always important too. If people do see something that they think is odd or not quite right, there are hotlines to ring anonymously. Do it for the sake of your nation. Do it for the sake of other people. It introduces an all-hazards security framework which will require entities to proactively identify and mitigate risks to physical security, personnel security, cybersecurity, supply chain resilience and natural hazards; enhances testing and compliance measures; and bolsters enforcement tools, including by enlarging the secretary's power to issue security directions and extending the demerit point system to the air cargo sector. The secretary does need to have his or her powers extended in this regard, which is so important. It clarifies port security definitions to ensure relevant infrastructure and operations are covered under regulations.

Of course, we know how important biosecurity is at ports, and making sure that we have the right security in the right places as the shipping containers come in and as the ships come in is of critical importance. We can't go through and test, examine and put sniffer dogs in every single shipping container, but what we can certainly do is make sure that we have the right number of people in place with the right training and the right framework to ensure that we can do the right thing by Australia's security. It simplifies regulations for vessels, allowing exemptions for vessels that infrequently travel overseas. That's also so important because we need to have compliance in this nation that makes Australia easier to do business with and that makes Australian businesses which are doing the right thing always able to continue to do that without having to fill out paperwork after paperwork simply to keep a bureaucrat in a job.

As the shadow minister indicated earlier, in September 2021 the former coalition government commissioned an independent review into Australia's aviation and maritime transport security settings, and it was a good move by a good government. It was led by Ms Kerri Hartland. This review looked at, as a whole, Australia's aviation and maritime security settings and made certain recommendations which sought to ensure that Australia's security settings continued to be fit for purpose and supported Australia's economic recovery from the COVID-19 global pandemic.

We've heard ad nauseam in this place, 'What did we get from all the spending that we did during the COVID-19 pandemic?' We saved lives and kept the doors of business open. With the spending, we kept people in jobs and safe from harm. As Deputy Prime Minister at the time, I was very proud of what former prime minister Scott Morrison did while leading this nation. The Johns Hopkins institute—the American centre—recognised and acknowledged Australia's pandemic response as second best in the world, and we should be very proud of that, instead of knocking and mocking our response by way of the money that we spent to keep people alive, to keep people safe and to keep them in work. What we should be doing is applauding that effort and those decisions taken because, at the time, there was no manual you could have pulled off the shelf and said, 'This is how you react when you have a worldwide global pandemic.' According to the Johns Hopkins centre, our response was the second best in the world.

This bill comes after the former coalition government introduced the Transport Security Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2022. That bill sought to address some of the elements canvassed in the current bill; however, the 2022 bill lapsed when parliament was dissolved. This parliament is also about to be dissolved, and many people are thankful for that because they can't wait to get into the ballot box and cast their vote and hopefully get Australia back on track by voting for the coalition. It is the only way to do that. If you vote for a teal, you vote for more of the same. If you vote for an Independent, you vote for more of the same. If you vote for a Green, you vote for more of the same, for what you have copped in the past three years, and Australians have had enough.

Industry stakeholders raised a number of concerns through the PJCIS inquiry into the bill, particularly regarding the regulatory burden and the disproportionate impost on regional airports. I mentioned this before, as did the shadow minister for defence. We do not need a disproportionate impost on regional airports. This absolutely needs to be considered and taken into every account when the government of the day, in the next term, is looking at this, whether that is a Labor government or whether that is a coalition government. I won't even frighten people with the prospect of what else we could have for the 48th Parliament, but, I say again, regional aviation at the moment is on its knees, is being crippled with the situation around Rex. I am pleased about and I've acknowledged what the government has done to keep Rex in the air—it is too vital not to—but we are going to need a long-term solution for that very serious situation. We are going to need to ensure that those towns and cities which have only Rex flying into them—Parkes, Narrandera and Ceduna, for example—continue to have aviation support for those towns. My own home town, Wagga Wagga, has QantasLink and Rex. We need competition, so we need to keep Rex in the air because Rex in the air means jobs on the ground. For Wagga Wagga, that is $12 million of wages and 180 people at the maintenance hangar at Forest Hill airport. It is too vital to lose. We cannot afford to do that, and I would like to see the government of the future do whatever it can to keep Rex flying.

The coalition supports this bill, which recognises the importance in the framework of national security, and the amendments as well.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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