Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Customs Amendment (Export Controls and other Measures) Bill 2011. The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service are responsible for managing the security and integrity of Australia's borders. Customs officers work hard day and night to detect and deter unlawful movements of goods and people across the border. Customs have responsibility for protecting Australians through the interception of illicit drugs, weapons, unauthorised arrivals, and postal items, and they also target high-risk travellers. Australian Customs officers do a great job under tough circumstances, day in and day out. Unfortunately they are being stretched due to the government's mismanagement of our borders, which was particularly evident in the Labor's latest budget handed down last night.

I would like to note at the outset that the coalition supports the purpose of this bill which is to amend the Customs Act 1901 and the Customs Depot Licensing Charges Act 1997 to strengthen the extent of Customs controls over export cargo and ensure consistent depot and warehouse licence conditions.

As noted in the bill's explanatory memorandum, the bill will:

(a) allow Customs to give directions relating to goods in the export environment;

(b) allow Customs to seek additional information in relation to goods being exported;

(c) ensure continued Customs control of goods at a prescribed place for export;

(d) ensure depot operators do not breach licence conditions when complying with a direction of the Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure and Transport;

(e) allow Customs to impose new conditions on depot and warehouse licences at any time;

(f) address breaches of the conditions of a depot or warehouse licence;

(g) strengthen the powers of officers to give directions to depot licence holders;

(h) allow the Chief Executive Officer of Customs (the CEO) to suspend or cancel depot licences;

(i) set out the timeframes within which the CEO must decide whether or not to grant a warehouse licence;

(j) allow the CEO to vary the place covered by a warehouse licence;

(k) refund the warehouse licence fee on cancellation of a warehouse licence;

(l) remove references to redundant provisions, and

(m) remove the requirement to make a report of cargo in certain circumstances concerning lost or wrecked ships or aircraft.

While this bill makes some technical amendments which the coalition supports, the government has significantly fallen behind in the crucial area of national security, which was demonstrated in yesterday's budget which leaves Australia less secure than Labor has already made it. Among the vast array of cuts to Australia's national security agencies, it included a $9.3 million cut to the budget of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. Labor have also axed a further 90 staff from Customs, on top of the 250 cut in the 2010-11 budget. In an extraordinary move, the Labor Party have cut $6.9 million in funds to ASIO for their security checks of unauthorised arrivals at a time when they are being pressured to get through vast numbers of arrivals in an increasingly short space of time. To improve the budget's bottom line, the government have slashed $34 million from Customs in their passenger facilitation function at Australia's eight international airports. Clearly, that is going to make those airports less safe.

These funding cuts will put immense pressure on our front-line border protection agencies that are already struggling to do more with fewer resources under this incompetent Labor government, who do not view Australia's national security as an important priority. This bill is being debated the day after it was revealed in the portfolio budget statements that the government is deceiving the Australian public on security at our ports and airports. It was revealed that the numbers of reported consignments of air and sea cargo have gone up significantly and are forecast to go up over the next four years. However, Labor has not increased the amount of air and sea cargo that is inspected or examined, which means that even less cargo will be properly checked under the new pared down regime.

In the 2009-10 budget Labor cut the budget for Customs for cargo screening by a staggering $58.1 million. This cut to screening by the Rudd-Gillard government reduced the number of potential sea cargo inspections by 25 per cent. Labor's cuts also resulted in a staggering 75 per cent reduction of air cargo inspections. In the recent Customs annual report it was revealed that only 4.3 per cent of sea cargo is X-rayed and only 0.6 per cent of sea cargo is physically examined. It was also concerning to find that 95.7 per cent of all sea cargo consignments are not being X-rayed. With the latest budget predictions, these figures will be even worse, with higher volumes of sea and air cargo consignments expected to come into Australia through our ports and airports in the coming years.

Customs officers have suffered at the hands of this government as they redirect scarce resources to pay for the government's border protection failures. We witnessed yesterday a staggering $1.7 billion blow-out in Labor's asylum seeker budget, which has exceeded even our worst expectations. I make the point that, very importantly, this is not money that enhances our border protection; this is money that is only being used to maintain the failure that has already occurred. It is just money to manage the people within our detention network.

In just four years Labor's border protection failures have taken the costs of managing asylum seekers from less than $100 million per year under the coalition to more than $1 billion per year under Labor. That is a staggering 1,000 per cent increase. Coming into this budget, asylum seeker costs have already risen by more than $1 billion since Labor abolished the strong border protection regime they inherited from the coalition when they came into office.

As we have seen, this year's budget takes these cost blow-outs to a whole new level of failure. The budget blow-out on asylum seeker costs has meant that other agencies—and, most importantly, our front-line national security agencies—have been forced to suffer. The cuts, coupled with the increased workload due to the flood of unauthorised arrivals, put extra strain on Customs officers working under border protection command. With myriad cuts to Australia's front-line border protection agencies, including Customs, it has become very clear that the Gillard Labor government are happy to let Australia's border security slip even further into the abyss of chaos that they have created, and they are not giving our front-line agencies a helping hand when they need it most.

Border protection and national security remain at the forefront of the coalition's priorities. We support the progressive enhancements to security being made at Australia's ports and airports every day. As I said, the measures in this legislation are relatively technical and the coalition supports them. Quite frankly, what is happening on our borders and the cuts that the national security agencies have had to endure under this budget are nothing short of a national disgrace. The coalition will be saying substantially more about these cuts in the days ahead.

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

Like the member for Stirling I also take the opportunity to support the Customs Amendment (Export Controls and Other Measures) Bill 2011 because, despite the rhetoric, he knows this is something that is properly balanced and duly targeted to strengthen Customs and border security of this country. I suppose that is one of the challenges in this place: to cut through some of the rhetoric occasionally. At least the coalition will vote the right way on this particular measure, but they will not waste an opportunity to try and target the budget or anything else. But it is important that they are all going to come in here, line up and support it. The reason they are going to do that is that this is the right thing to do.

This bill will bolster our ability to monitor and respond to specific security concerns with high-risk cargo by strengthening our control over international export cargo. The bill forms part of this government's commitment to a strong and efficient Customs and Border Protection Service and seeks to streamline and strengthen the export and import processes. Smooth and safe international export processes are vital to Australia's trading and business environment. In my electorate of Fowler I am staggered by the amount of import-export businesses that act out of the south-west of Sydney. This clearly envisages that. I will go to some of the processes that will make their job easier by giving a greater degree of clarity in the way they go about their business.

It is crucial that the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service is able to respond quickly and effectively to any security concerns. Unmanaged risks in exports threatens Australia's trade and business. It is essential that our Customs and border protection authorities are able to manage high-risk cargo effectively and efficiently. This bill supports the other security improvement initiatives relating to export cargo and enables the chief executive officer of Customs to ensure compliance with the laws of Commonwealth, state and territory jurisdictions. It will also address breaches of licence conditions by introducing strict liability offences. These measures will increase accountability and compliance with the law. They will also make doing the right thing—and, let's face it, most of our businesspeople in our areas are in business to do the right thing—easier in terms of compliance and will make the path a lot easier for them by introducing a greater degree of clarity into the process. So clearer procedures and terminology is one aspect that will provide greater clarity to these licence holders.

As I said—and I think this would probably go for most members in this place—import and export businesses do have a fundamental role in our modern economy, and this will give them greater clarity. It will streamline their activities and will give greater certainty. But in doing so it will assist Customs and Border Protection Service authorities to be able to manage areas which are potentially high risk in terms of our export trade.

The bill aligns legislation more closely with the existing export business processes. Clearly these measures will streamline export processes and will not compromise legitimate export cargo. The changes it makes to existing legislation are proportionate and balanced. They are based on the findings of the joint Customs and Border Protection Service and Department of Infrastructure and Transport review. Many of the changes in the bill are made in response to industry stakeholders who have suggested many of the changes, particularly with respect to the reporting of cargo on board ships and vessels which has been lost and reports already made. But that is just an example of the issue of streamlining. Border security is an issue that is important for all of us. We are an island, albeit a very big island. But to ensure that we have proper competitiveness for our industries we need to be able to encourage proper and appropriate export practices and ensure security within this country. This bill is significantly part of that general regime and forms part of the government's commitment in this area. And, as I say, I certainly—together with members of the opposition—am only too happy to be supporting these measures.

Whilst these are the matters before us, as I said, in terms of this particular space, ever since 9-11—now 10 years ago—our vigilance in these areas is not only ongoing; security in these areas changes and changes rapidly. I did hear, in the debate before last, concerning the Aviation Transport Security Amendment (Air Cargo) Bill, the leader of the Nationals criticising the government for having the audacity to bring forward amendments. That particular amendment arose as a result of a terrorist event that occurred in October of last year. We as a government are not going to wait until we have a suite of possible amendments forming a nice round body of legislation to put through. As a government we are going to act appropriately. Where changes are required we will make those changes and make no apology for doing it amendment by amendment if necessary if that is what it takes to strengthen our industries and protect our industries, our people and our communities. I commend this piece of legislation to the House.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Customs Amendment (Export Controls and Other Measures) Bill 2011. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Customs Act and the Customs Depot Licensing Charges Act to strengthen the extent of control that Customs has over our export cargo and to ensure consistent depot and warehouse licence conditions.

The coalition is prepared to support this bill. However, we do note that the nature of this bill is contradictory to the government's general approach in many other measures. While this bill increases controls on our exports, at the very same time we have this government weakening controls on our imports, as we have seen with the soft approach on biosecurity where we have seen New Zealand apples being allowed into the country with the potential risk of fire blight. We have also seen the results of the government's soft approach to border protection and border security, with the financial and human disasters that this soft approach has caused and a blowout in costs of $1.7 billion—that is, $1,700 million—that could have been spent in other vitally needed sectors of the economy if it had not been spent on border security because of this government's failed policies.

Therefore you would think that the government would err on the side of caution when it came to fiddling with our long-standing and successful biosecurity arrangements. However, the government are prepared to roll the dice, cross their fingers and hope for the best on biosecurity. But God help them if, by weakening our controls on our borders, we see fire blight take hold in this country. They will be held responsible for decades to come.

So, while the coalition does support this bill, we say that its effects must be very carefully monitored to ensure that it does not tie down our exporters in red tape. For it is our exporters who underwrite our economic prosperity. We should be pinning medals on our exporters' chests, but instead this government's plans are to burden them with a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, placing them at a competitive disadvantage. Therefore, although the coalition supports this bill, we say its effects must be monitored very carefully, especially its effects on small business. Exporting is hard enough. It is a time-critical business. And we cannot have the government burdening exporters with unnecessary red tape, which this bill has the potential to do. In conclusion, the coalition supports this bill. However, we will be monitoring its effects very closely.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to also support the passage of the Customs Amendment (Export Control and Other Measures) Bill 2011. The bill's purpose is to amend the Customs Act 1901 and the Customs Depot Licensing Charges Act 1997 to strengthen the extent of Customs controls over export cargo and ensure consistent depot and warehouse licence conditions. As noted in the bill's explanatory memorandum, this will allow Customs to give directions relating to goods in the export environment; allow Customs to seek additional information in relation to goods being exported; ensure continued Customs control of goods at a prescribed place for export; ensure depot operators do not breach licence conditions when complying with a direction of the Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure and Transport; allow Customs to impose new conditions on depot and warehouse licences at any time; address breaches of the conditions of a depot or warehouse licence; strengthen the powers of officers to give directions to depot licence holders; allow the chief executive officer of Customs—the CEO—to suspend or cancel depot licences; set out the time frames within which the CEO must decide whether or not to grant a warehouse licence; allow the CEO to vary the place covered by a warehouse licence; refund the warehouse licence fee on cancellation of a warehouse licence; remove references to redundant provisions; and, finally, remove the requirement to make a report of cargo. This bill makes some very sensible recommendations which the coalition support. They are obviously technical in nature and fairly straightforward and, as the two previous speakers on this side have quite clearly articulated, they will be supported on this side.

While we are dealing with this bill, I think it is timely to remind the House that, although there has on the whole been support for the great role that our Customs officials undertake, it is a real shame that the government mismanagement and ability to spend on things which are not in the national interest have meant that in yesterday's federal budget we have seen a $9.3 million cut to the budget of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Command. Given the increased demand on our Customs officers and officials, we do not need at this time to see the government taking an axe to people who are on the front line and doing important work for Australia as a whole. It is sad that such mismanagement has led to this, because in many ways it would be fantastic if we had a Treasurer who had managed the budget in a much better fashion that meant that those out there on the front line did not have to suffer the consequences. It is potentially front-line officers who are doing very good work to make sure that all our goods are transported in a timely and safe manner and that our borders are protected safely. I will conclude my remarks there by saying that these non-controversial amendments are supported by the coalition. However, I also highlight that, due to the mismanagement of the Gillard-Swan government, we have seen $9.3 million cut out of the Customs and Border Protection budget, which means that on the front line Australia will suffer.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Customs Amendment (Export Controls and Other Measures) Bill 2011 is an important bill. As just a bit of background, section 30 of the Customs Act sets up the circumstances in which goods are subject to customs control. If goods are subject to customs control, officers can exercise various powers in respect of such goods—for example, the power to examine goods. Having good border control of what comes in and out of the country is very important.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know nothing about it.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is just not true. The member for Moncrieff, I can see, is going to be talking about gambling reform and, quite frankly, some of the positions he has put on gambling are disgusting. He has no concern for the people who—

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will stay on the topic of the bill.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I look forward to his contribution—

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kingston will hold for a moment. I was seeking to indicate to the member for Moncrieff that yelling across the chamber is not the intervention allowed for. Is the member seeking to ask the question?

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I have a point of order. I found those comments offensive suggesting that I would enjoy anyone's misery. I ask her to withdraw them.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was speaking at the time, I did not hear them, but I will ask for them to be withdrawn.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. It would meet the procedures of the chamber if members were to seek interventions in the appropriate manner. The member for Kingston has the call.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What comes in and out of the country is important. I see the Minister for Justice is here. This non-controversial piece of legislation will be very important to ensure the control of what comes in and out of our country in a responsible manner. I commend the bill to the House.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to sign off on this very important bill, the Customs Amendment (Export Controls and Other Measures) Bill 2011, and I thank the opposition for its support, notwithstanding some of the ludicrous comments made by the member for Stirling. It is all very well to speak against something and vote for it, but it does underline somewhat the concerns that have allegedly been raised within the opposition. If, indeed, members have a problem, then clearly they have the capacity to move an amendment or vote against the bill that is before the House. The bill amends the Customs Act 1901 and the Customs Depot Licensing Charges Act 1997 to enhance the ability of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service to respond to security concerns in the export cargo environment to provide greater consistency between the licensed depot and warehouse schemes. These amendments strengthen the extent of Customs and Border Protection's control over international export cargo. They will enable Customs and Border Protection to give directions relating to goods in the export environment and to seek additional information in relation to goods intended for export. This bill will improve Customs and Border Protection's ability to deal with goods in licensed depots and warehouses as well as align the procedures and terminology that apply to the two schemes. This includes new provisions for the suspension and cancellation of depot licences. The amendments will also enable the chief executive officer of Customs to apply conditions to depot and warehouse licences to ensure compliance with other Commonwealth laws such as the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 and associated regulations.

The bill will ensure that a depot licence holder who is also a regulated air cargo agent will not be in breach of their depot licence conditions where the operator is required to comply with a direction from the secretary of Infrastructure and Transport. The bill also responds to recommendations made in the Australian National Audit Office report entitled Customs' cargo management re-engineering project by aligning the legislation more closely with the operations of the integrated cargo system for clearance of export goods. Finally, the bill removes the requirement for reporting cargo onboard lost or wrecked ships or aircraft, where a report has already been made, and it will remove some redundant provisions.

This bill responds to some of the problems that have beset Customs over a long period of time. This is an improvement to the way in which we store goods, and indeed it provides better oversight by Customs of such goods—which is important at any time and which I believe is increasingly important, given the potential for threats to this nation at our ports. So it is a good bill, and that is why I said at the outset that the opposition support the bill, notwithstanding some of the comments that have been made. I understand they are comments on the budget. People want to make comments that are extraneous to the bill. They want to talk about matters that do not go to the matter before them.

The reality is that the Customs and Border Protection Service do a remarkable job. As an agency they did a remarkable job under the Howard government and they are doing a remarkable job under this government, working with us in very difficult circumstances. We have an exponential growth in freight and passenger movements in our seaports and airports. We have a series of challenges that Customs have to deal with each and every day, and they do a great job. The fact that we have moved to much better risk-based assessments to examine cargo freight is a good thing, and we should deploy our resources where they are most needed, where potential challenges will arise. That has been happening over the last few years, under this government, with the full cooperation of the agency, and I appreciate the efforts of Customs and, in particular, its chief executive officer, Michael Carmody, for his leadership in this regard.

I commend this bill to the House. It is an important change to the regulation of depot licensing conditions. Again, notwithstanding some of the rhetorical flourishes from the member for Stirling, in the end the opposition know it is a good bill and that is why they support it.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.