David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Transport Security Amendment (Testing and Training) Bill 2019, which relates to the testing and training of Australia's aviation screening inspectors. This bill looks at two cohorts. Firstly, there are the screeners themselves—those screeners who you walk past every time you fly, with the beep beep of the archway and the putting of your bags through the X-rays. Those in this chamber know a lot about flying. The other cohort are the security inspectors who work for the Department of Home Affairs. They look at the training, and the compliance of that training, of those screeners. The purpose of this bill is to create a vital component of ensuring our aviation screeners are appropriately qualified for the work that they do in protecting all Australians from threats to air travel. It amends key parts of the Aviation Transport Security Act and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act to ensure a proper regime of training and inspection will exist.

Firstly, it creates a national training and accreditation scheme for the private industry contractors that the airports employ to provide screening services in Australia's airports. Without this sort of training and accreditation, we run the risk of having poorly qualified people overseeing vital security tasks at our airports. As a senator for Victoria, I've seen all too closely the damage that's done by security guards who are neither trained properly nor have their work overseen. The quarantine regime in Victoria has let the coronavirus pandemic spread throughout Victoria and into the rest of Australia. So having the right skills and qualifications for the work is, obviously, an important part of any security system.

Secondly, the bill ensures that the government's transport security inspectors can carry out the important compliance tasks that they have responsibility for. As you can imagine, there are all sorts of ways of testing these systems, and they need to have the sorts of tools and replica and imitation weapons that can be tested for. Without these amendments, they run the risk of prosecution from inadvertently offending state and other laws involving firearms, bombs and so on. The screener training and accreditation scheme strengthens the training requirements for screeners at airports, seaports and air cargo facilities. It creates a framework for a new screening qualification to be mandated for all screeners entering the industry. Existing screeners' qualifications will continue to be recognised. Screeners will be required to meet a national standard of competency. They will be required to pass annual accreditation testing before making independent screening decisions or clearing cargo for uplift.

As with all parts of technology, everything changes, and changes rapidly, in this space. X-ray machines that are being used in airports these days change rapidly, and how they view items is of the utmost importance, as you can well imagine. The way people are trained to use these machines is, equally, as vitally important as the machines themselves. How someone views, let's say, a pistol in a piece of hand luggage—whether it is lying on its side or front-on or at any of the different angles that it could be seen from—is important in case one makes a mistake and sees just a straight bit of metal or something that doesn't look obviously like a pistol. So it's absolutely vital that this sort of accreditation stays up to date with new technologies.

Our aviation security inspectors, who are part of the Department of Home Affairs, as I said, play a pivotal role in ensuring Australia's aviation security systems remain resilient against terrorist attacks. This bill introduces measures to clarify the ability of inspectors to carry out this important work. In particular, inspectors will be able to conduct system tests with test pieces at locations beyond screening points in an airport terminal without the risk of committing an offence under other laws, such as those relating to bomb hoaxes.

What is a system test? A system test is a compliance activity conducted by aviation security inspectors to assess whether a person is complying with the security obligations established in the Aviation Security Act. It tests the screeners' ability to find goods or contraband, as they are meant to do. A system test mimics possible terrorist attack pathways and probes for potential weak points in aviation security arrangements which an adversary may wish to exploit. For example, inspectors may place a test piece, such as a test weapon—and that might be an imitation firearm or a non-functional simulated improvised explosive device—in carry-on luggage and subject the bag to security screening at a passenger screening point at an airport terminal. From this, inspectors are able to assess whether a screening authority and its operators are able to meet their regulatory obligations to detect the presence of the test weapon and deny it entry to the sterile area of an airport. To ensure that these tests are as realistic as possible at the screening points, test pieces represent items that may be used to conduct unlawful acts, such as weapons, bombs, bomb parts and the like. This is done by design to avoid causing harm or injury to aviation security inspectors, airport staff and the general public. Test weapons are not functional. For example, simulated improvised explosive devices cannot be detonated and pose no risk to people.

This bill and the amendments this bill will bring about are important for keeping our security at airports up to date. I commend the bill to the House.