Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That's an excellent adaptation, Mr Acting Deputy President. I rise to speak in favour of the Transport Security Amendment (Testing and Training) Bill 2019. Before the advent of COVID-19, 38 million people travelled through Australian airports and marine ports annually. Like the many Australians who work for our airlines, our airports, tourism operators and business travel companies, I'm really looking forward to seeing that level of movement, that kind of volume of passengers, return once the restrictions we currently face are eased. So many livelihoods, and indeed lives, depend on Australia maintaining its reputation and its record for being one of the safest places in the world to travel. That's why, as technology develops and the risk landscape evolves, as those who would seek to do us harm come up with ever more creative ways to go about it, the coalition government is doing all that is necessary to maintain that reputation for being a secure, trusted destination.

Let me explain what this bill does to contribute to that important result for all Australians. The first thing it does, and this is quite significant, is create powers for aviation security inspectors to engage in covert testing of aviation industry participants' security systems. That is a whole lot of industry speak for saying that it's really important that people who work in, particularly, aviation security, but it is also true of maritime security, are able to run tests—

Senator Rice interjecting—

It's really important that people who are working in the security space in our airports are able to conduct tests that reflect the nature of the items that might be smuggled through our airports. They need to be able to test the kinds of scenarios that might arise in the event of a terrorist scenario. And they need to be able to do it in a way that is real enough to equip the people working in these roles with the skills they need to be able to respond swiftly and with confidence in the event that the worst did happen.

The bill also makes for sensible precautions. It means that, for instance, the weapons that would be used in conducting these types of test scenarios are dummy ones. They're not actually live weapons. They aren't live bombs. They're dummy devices. They're able to be used within airports and in mock-type scenarios to help the people who need to work in these environments, using ever-evolving new technology, to learn the skills they need to be able to adapt when it really matters. What pops into the mind of many people when they hear that is, 'Well, hold on, we've got plenty of laws in this country that say you can't have a bomb hoax at an airport. That itself is a crime,' and that is a good pick-up by those people who noticed it. So one thing that this bill also does is to make it clear that when people who work as security officers engage in these training exercises, or when training officers or inspectors come to airports and run these types of exercises, and in doing so introduce items that look like they pose a serious threat and could be construed as a hoax, they aren't actually liable under civil or criminal law for the fact of that mock scenario. So that's another important thing that the bill does.

It also clarifies and aligns the legislative basis in a consistent way across the country for training and accrediting people with qualifications for undertaking these important screening roles. As I've mentioned, the shifting technology landscape is important in security screening, and so it's important that there are opportunities for people who have been doing this work for some time to access professional education that continues to update their skills as time passes. It's also important to make sure that the training that people are receiving is sufficiently tailored to the nature of the work, not just, say, the kind of general security training that someone who might become a security guard at a nightclub, for instance, has undertaken. There is a different set of skills that's required at an airport and that is clarified by this bill. But consistency among the different places in Australia is also clarified, to make sure that we are making it easy for people who are working in this field to have their qualifications recognised wherever they go.

Finally, the bill also provides for the creation of legislative instruments, like regulations, to make provision for the nuts and bolts of making this stuff happen—the provision of identity cards, for instance, for people who work in security screening roles and provision for what their uniforms should be like so that people who undertake these roles can be easily identified, particularly in an emergency. So these are, in broad terms, the goals of the legislation.

In many ways, this is a simple and somewhat unglamorous bill. Like a lot of the hard work of government, it's not necessarily shiny or the kind of thing that people want to have reported on the front page of the paper. But it really does matter, because security staff who are up to date with how to use the latest technology, who are able to identify up-to-date threats from those who would seek to do Australians harm and who are at the top of their game because they are being regularly tested on their ability to implement those skills on the job are the people who are best placed to keep Australians safe when it matters most, and that's something that should give all Australians great confidence.

I've said something about the covert security testing that will be facilitated by this bill, and it's worth explaining the situations in which inspectors and testers will have the benefit of exceptions from criminal and civil liability for their activities in training and testing people to do this work well. The circumstances in which a person would get that kind of an immunity are where the test is, firstly, conducted in good faith—they're doing it for the right reasons in the course of their work, for instance. The second criterion is that the test doesn't seriously endanger the health or safety of any person, because it's important that both people at work and passengers don't have their experience become an unsafe one as a consequence of these activities. The final criterion is that it doesn't result in significant loss of, or damage to, property. Where those three criteria are met by a person who is helping with testing and training exercises, they will get the benefit of that immunity from civil or criminal liability. It is important that we give people who are engaged in this work the ability to go about their business knowing that they're not at risk of breaching other laws like, for instance, the one I mentioned about there being bans on bomb hoaxes in our airports.

When I go to the topic, though, of the training provisions of this bill, it's worth going back to 2016, when Mr Michael Carmody completed an inquiry into aviation and maritime transport security education and training in Australia. It had a look at all of the different types of training that were done in this area, the outcomes that were being achieved by the people who had undergone that training when they were assessed and the overall quality of the training options that existed in the aviation and maritime sectors. He made a bunch of recommendations for its improvement.

One of the things that that inquiry identified as being important was the need for clarity about what constitutes sufficient qualifications under national standards. So he suggested the introduction of standardised qualifications for people who undergo this type of work on a day-to-day basis, distinguishing it from other types of security laws, and he also highlighted the importance of there being national tests so that those people who were engaged in this work were reaching a consistent standard nationwide. He highlighted the need for ongoing on-the-job training and a continuing education and professional development program to be available for people who work in this area so that they could keep up with changes in terrorists' tactics—for those who are responsible for identifying them day-to-day, that's an important factor—and also have the ability to keep up with the technology that's being used to identify these items when they're on the job.

So this bill, consistent with those recommendations, acts upon the suggestion that there should be a more specific security screening qualification, and it introduces national minimum standards for on-the-job training and continuing professional development for screening officers and it brings in national competency testing for screening officers. You might be thinking: 'What if you're someone who has been working in this field for many years and you've been doing it either with basic on-the-job training or on the basis of a more generalised security qualification? What does that mean for you?' That's a pretty fair question. The people who fall into that category will get recognition of those parts of their skillset that are relevant to their work. They will get accreditation that reflects the skill level they've reached. They will also get the benefit of a 12-month period of transition so that, if there are little extra modules that they might need to pick up in order to make sure they're meeting the national standards, they'll have some time to do that. We don't want to be unreasonable when we're asking this of people, particularly in an industry that's facing some disruption at the moment. The 12-month period will make it much easier for people to adapt to this in their career.

There's also something to be said for the strength of the endorsement that this bill has got from parts of our community. While the Department of Home Affairs has explained why this bill is necessary, I always think it's nice to be able to look to somebody beyond the department to see whether or not it is getting the same kind of encouragement from elsewhere. This bill has received support from Dr John Coyne. He is the head of the Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement Program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an organisation that I really respect. In the course of his submission, Dr Coyne highlighted that the provision of explicit powers for security inspectors to conduct covert security systems would provide a much-needed additional mechanism to maintain the security of Australia's aviation sector. He noted that, as screening technology improves and terrorists innovate, the minimum level of training for screening officers must also increase if they are to continue to mitigate risks.

So that's what we're doing. We're arming the people who, every day in their work, protect us by detecting threats and managing risk and who are willing to put themselves on the line as they go about making sure that they keep Australians who are travelling safe. As we give them the tools that they need to do their jobs well, it's important that we as a society make sure that we continue to look out for their interests by making sure they are at the top of their game and that we look out for Australians by equipping them to protect them as best as possible. We need to make sure it all works together to achieve something that really is quite big, and that is a safer Australian transport sector, with flow-on benefits for trade, for travel, for business relationships and for Australia's attractiveness as a safe and fun place to visit and to do business.