Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Maritime Crew) Bill 2007. The bill creates a new class of temporary visa to be known as a maritime crew visa. The application process for the new visa will enable crew to be appropriately security cleared before they enter Australia.

In 2005, approximately 585,000 maritime crew travelled to Australia. The maritime crew visa will enable crew to be appropriately security cleared before they enter Australia. The new requirement under this bill will become mandatory as of 1 January 2008. Those requirements must include a valid passport, a maritime crew visa and documents establishing the crew member’s employment on the vessel. This measure, which Labor has been demanding for some time, will ensure that this area does have something in place. Our national security is far too important to have a regular point of border entry through which people who have not been subjected to appropriate security checks can enter. Labor welcomes the fact that the maritime crew visa sets in place a reporting regime for foreign maritime workers coming to Australia, but the fact that shipping agents will be able to apply on behalf of members of crew indicates that ASIO and Australian Federal Police assessments that will occur may not be as comprehensive as required.

Currently, foreign non-military maritime crew and their families are not required to make a formal application for a visa before coming to Australia. Special purpose visas are currently granted by operation of law. At present, maritime crew are granted special purpose visas on arrival in Australia, following checks against the Department of Immigration and Citizenship movement alert list. This process does not permit security checks to be conducted before the crew of these ships are allowed to enter Australia—an issue that Labor has been saying for some time now does need to be addressed.

The delay by the government in introducing a security checked visa for maritime crew is hard to understand. It has taken almost 6½ years since 11 September 2001 for this government to act in this regard. The government has only now adopted what has been a longstanding Labor Party policy to vet foreign maritime workers. Labor has consistently raised concerns about foreign vessels whose crews have not been security vetted and which potentially carry—and do carry—thousands of tonnes of explosives around coastal Australia. In 2005, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute published a damning report on the state of Australia’s security arrangements called Future unknown: the terrorist threat to Australian maritime security. That report identified the dangers of foreign flagged vessels carrying dangerous goods around the Australian coastline. This is a warning Labor has repeatedly made to this government. We have specifically warned about the dangers of foreign crewed, foreign flagged vessels, for which there has been no security check, carrying ammonium nitrate around the Australian coastline. We have also pointed out that Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiah have acquired the skills and opportunities to launch a maritime terrorist attack. These groups operate in South-East Asian waters near to our borders—waters in which the incidence of piracy is the highest in the world. On the last available figures, there are two acts of piracy per week in the waters just to our north-north-west, exactly in the area in which those terrorist organisations operate.

Labor’s spokesperson on homeland security has reported that United States intelligence sources observed that the al-Qaeda group is suspected of owning or having a long-term charter fleet of between 15 and 18 bulk general cargo vessels. Whilst it is believed that they are used to generate revenue to support the group or to provide logistics for the terrorist network, it is not far fetched to imagine that one of these vessels could be used as a floating bomb on a suicide mission, making use of explosives like ammonium nitrate.

Against that background, there is the failure of the Howard government to ensure that these dangerous chemicals are handled by crews who have been properly checked and cleared. At the moment, that applies only to Australian crews. It is something that needs to be addressed. It is a disgrace that it has been allowed to go on for so long. We know that al-Qaeda has access to maritime vessels, expertise in maritime terrorism, expertise in explosives and access to those explosives, and yet we find that the Howard government has dragged its feet in upgrading maritime security.

Australian maritime workers, in contrast, must apply for an Australian Federal Police and ASIO background check to acquire their maritime security identification card, commonly known as an MSIC. Under the Howard government, though, foreign maritime workers do not undergo similar checks when they carry thousands of tonnes of explosives into and around Australia. It is dangerous and irresponsible that that has gone on. It has been a disturbing national security failure of the Howard government not to have this concern addressed. While the government has improved security among Australian flagged ships, it is still of great concern that invasive security and criminal background checks are not conducted on foreign crews.

Furthermore, this government has misused the process of giving permits to foreign crewed ships to travel around Australian ports. There has been a system in place for many years to enable foreign crewed ships to operate the Australian coastal route by special permit. While that appears to be nothing short of a sensible process, this government has actually used it as a tool to attack the Australian crewed ships and their economic viability around Australian ports. As the shadow minister for homeland security and territories has repeatedly said, this government has seemingly handed out these permits like confetti. The government has not done the security checks on the foreign crews that are done for Australian crews, and that is, to this point, unacceptable.

While the government needs to provide more support to the Australian shipping industry, this bill at least goes some way in addressing the issue of security checks on foreign maritime crews. While the bill will enable crews to be appropriately security cleared before entering Australia, it also contains some sensible measures to allow the visa to be ceased by declaration where it is considered undesirable for a person or class of persons to travel to, enter or remain in Australia. The bill also includes an express power to revoke such a declaration to allow for situations where additional information may come to light about a person’s suitability to travel to or remain in Australia.

Labor understands that the detail governing the new maritime crew visa will be set out in the migration regulations. We will have a look at those when they become available—the earlier the better. The government, though, has allocated $100 million over five years for the introduction of the visa. In a media release dated 22 December 2005, the government announced the $100 million maritime crew visa system for all international seafarers visiting Australian ports after July 2007. The breakdown of that was announced as:

... $55.3 million for IT systems associated with the new visa and to record sea crew movement records; employ 19 additional Regional Seaports Officers to assist industry with the new visa, conduct vessel boardings and manage compliance and employ additional staff in DIMIA’s Entry Operations Centre to support the shipping industry.

The media release also detailed:

The Australian Customs Service will receive $39.5m for 66 new Customs Officers to enforce the new provisions as part of Customs’ vessel clearance process and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation will receive $5.5m under the package.

The cost of the proposed visa, in particular $30 million for an additional 66 Customs officers, was of course queried by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and it was explained this way by the Australian Customs Service:

[Currently] seventy-five per cent of all first-port arriving vessels will be boarded by Customs on a risk assess basis. That is the minimum. However, there is no time restriction. Under these new arrangements ... there is a requirement to undertake the physical checking within one hour of the vessel actually arriving. In order for us to meet that requirement in some of these ports we need to increase our staffing accordingly. Around Australia we have quite small ports where we need to increase our staffing to achieve that aim.

It is imperative that this money is being spent to improve Australia’s national security at our ports along our coastline. It is overdue and much needed.

Despite the fact that this government regularly claims to be tough on border security, we not only have the long delay that the government has had in introducing this bill; we have a situation where Indonesian fishermen are regularly illegally entering Australian waters. There was a period of increased sightings of illegal fishing operations in the Australian exclusive economic zone by Coastwatch and the Australian Defence Force assets. More recently it has been reported that there has been a fall in the number of sightings, but we will be able to have another look at that at estimates. However, there has been a reported shortfall in aerial surveillance by Coastwatch over our northern waters. This has combined with the unavailability of the Navy’s Armidale class naval vessel patrol boats, which have been struck with problems and are apparently in repair dock.

The Armidale class naval vessel patrol boats are used by the Navy to intercept illegal fishers. They work in conjunction with Customs. In September 2006, problems were detected with the fuel system and the Armidale fleet was sidelined. In February 2007, it was confirmed that the problems were still occurring and were proving difficult to fix. According to the Navy’s website, the Armidale class was supposed to improve Navy’s capability to intercept and apprehend vessels in a greater range of sea conditions, increasing surveillance, which will better protect Australia’s coastline. It is disturbing news to find that the ships are having problems. It represents some five months that we have been relying on stopgap measures. We have had to use the Fremantle class patrol boats to assist in patrolling our northern waters.

It is clear this government is simply not on top of its responsibilities with regard to border security in our northern waters. More needs to be done. After examining the bill, the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee recommended that the Senate support the bill. The committee report noted that all submissions to the committee expressed in principle support for strengthening Australia’s border security arrangements. However, concerns were still raised. The Maritime Union of Australia queried the effectiveness of the maritime crew visa in closing a gap in maritime security.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the Australian Customs Service advised that the proposed maritime crew visa had a number of features that would improve security over existing arrangements. These features would include: the visa application would require more comprehensive information against which security organisations could make checks; and the applications would be an ongoing source of information on individuals seeking to travel to Australia as crew on non-military ships, thus allowing more cross-checking with other information sources. There would be an ability to infringe the masters, owners, charterers and operators of ships for carrying improperly documented passengers and crew to Australia and there would be an increase in the number of Customs officers assigned to ports to enable all ships to be physically checked within one hour of the vessel arriving.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship responded to some of the concerns of the MUA but also stated that for the first six months following the implementation of the proposed maritime crew visa the department would be encouraging people to use the visa but not penalising those who did not. So it seems that any unexpected problems could be resolved during that time.

Labor has been critical and continues to be critical of the government’s careless and widespread use of single and continuing voyage permits for foreign vessels with foreign crews who do not undergo appropriate security checks. It has also criticised the government for permitting foreign flag of convenience ships to carry dangerous goods on coastal shipping routes and failing to ensure ships provide details of crew and cargo 48 hours before arrival. It is clear that more needs to be done. Despite its delayed introduction, this bill, as I have said, is a welcome measure. It is not the comprehensive solution the government touted that it might be back in 2005 when it was first mooted. However, as I have said, it does go some way to addressing some of the problems.

I take this opportunity to thank the secretariat, the Chair and the Deputy Chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for the work they have done. Perhaps this is also the first opportunity in the chamber to recognise that the previous chair of the committee has moved to a different committee and we now have a new committee member. I place on record my appreciation of the work of the previous committee chair, Senator Marise Payne, who worked diligently and tirelessly on the committee over many years, representing the coalition’s interests on that committee. She also ensured that the minor parties and opposition received a fair go at the witnesses. I put that on the record for those who might be interested.