Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

The government says that the Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill 2020 will tighten up security checking on people who work in maritime ports and airports. What it's actually going to do is give public servants free reign to hire and fire workers at will. It gives bureaucrats the power to kick someone out of a 10-year or 20-year career based on nothing more than a hunch that they might do something wrong in the future.

Don't get me wrong, I don't really have a problem with bureaucrats. But when I know they've come in from school or the parties have picked them up when they're young and they have no life experience and they come through this house, it scares the hell out of me; I'll be honest about that. I'll tell you what: that's a pattern of behaviour that's been going on for years. By the time they've made it to the stage where they're high up in the Public Service and they're making decisions about other people's lives, I have a problem with it when they've lived in this bubble. I have a significant problem with it.

Do you wonder why, in this house, we're not making the best decisions we probably could for the nation? If you're comfortable with thinking that the government makes the right call 100 per cent of the time, you'd be happy with this bill. If you have no worries about the government's ability to figure out what the right thing to do is, you tell me to go ahead and vote this legislation through. But I know, and you know, that the government gets things wrong, and so do the bureaucrats. If we pass this bill and they get things wrong, they could destroy someone's entire livelihood—not just their livelihood but their family's too. And for what? For nothing. The mistakes of a public servant sitting in a government department could force airport workers and maritime workers onto the dole queue. That is what this bill has the ability to do. It changes the security assessments done on the workers who need access to secure areas in our maritime ports and airports.

At the moment, to be allowed into secure areas in our ports or our airports, those workers need a maritime security identification card, an MSIC, or an aviation security identification card, an ASIC. Every person who has access to those secure areas has to get one of those cards. This is great. It's wonderful. So they should. This bill would mean that someone who has a criminal conviction from years ago could lose their job because of that. I don't know about you people but I've spoken about this many times in here. Just because somebody buggered up when they were a bit younger, if they've already paid the price, they should not have to pay the price twice. That is very un-Australian. Do not dip at them twice, especially if they've got themselves back on their feet and they've become a great citizen in this country. Why should they get punished for something that they've already done their time for? For what? How is that fair? They should not be punished twice. Once is enough. That's the way it works here in this nation. You don't penalise them twice.

The second part of the bill scares me even more. That's the part that means the government could reject someone's application for an ASIC or MSIC because a public servant thinks that they may commit a crime in the future. These are the guys, with no policing or court experience, making decisions over a crystal ball, saying, 'Oh, you know what, mate? I reckon they'll do that again.' Come on! This is not how it works. Last time I checked, you guys didn't have a crystal ball, and these public servants don't have access to one either. You're playing with fire here. This is not the way it should work. And, if you do have this crystal ball, then please bring it out on the floor so we can finally get some things right, because we'd all like to have a shot at it.

You can't see into the future, and you can't determine or dictate somebody's life by some sort of second-guessing. That is not fair. I want to be really clear here: I don't want ice getting into the suburbs. I don't want ice running rampant. I know the effect this can have, and has, on families and I don't want it getting the chance to do the harm I know it's capable of doing. But the way to stop it is to go after people who are spreading it. That's who we should be targeting. If you really want to put your foot down on this stuff, when it comes to ice, you're going to need to double your border force, you are going to need a lot more state police and you are going to need a lot more feds out there on our streets. That's what needs to be done. If you want to deter it, put the boys in blue out there, and make them loud and proud so they can be seen. That's your deterrent.

If you really want to tackle this stuff, stop twiddling around the edges. That's all you're doing, twiddling—you're not even tweaking, you're twiddling. If you want to fight ice, fight it with fire, not an MSIC card. Don't throw that in my face because of my past. I won't tolerate it. While you're out there, put some more quarantine officers on the job. Wonderful! Great! There's a good start. Get into those courts, and put some legislation bills up here that make harsher penalties. You want to get the kingpins? I'll tell you what: put them in jail for life, once they get there. They're called deterrents. That's what works. That's how it works.

A bill that makes it easier for an anonymous bureaucrat to end the career of a person who's done nothing wrong gives that person no chance to defend themselves against that wrong decision. That's not how we keep our communities safe. It's how we'll ruin another family's life, and their life—because they made mistakes earlier on in their life—but it does not keep the community safe. If we say that honest, hardworking people should lose their jobs and lose the ability to work in any other job in the same industry, based on evidence they never get to see, considered by a bureaucrat they'll never get to meet, we open up the chance that some nong at a desk will get it wrong and cause them harm. That's what we're doing here. We're allowing a public bureaucrat to come in here, without any investigative skills, policing skills or law skills, to make decisions on somebody else's life. That's what we're seeing here.

I won't have somebody else judged or determined on whether or not they should hold a security working permit by some sort of public bureaucrat who has spent a lifetime living in a bubble in Canberra. I won't do that, because over the years I've seen those bureaucrats make too many wrong decisions and ruin people's lives. They have no life experience because everything has been given to them on a silver platter. They've made their way to the top without any security checks and without any questions being asked about why they got in here in the first place, let alone policing checks. It seems that what's good for the goose is not good for the gander.

I have no confidence. Bureaucrats get things wrong. The way you normally check those things is by taking them to court. That's what we should be doing here. That's how it works in this system. That's how it works in this country. If you have evidence that someone's bringing in drugs, then throw the book at them. Make your case. Stick hard evidence to get a conviction. Do what you're supposed to do. If you want more power to make that happen, then, as I just said, I'm ready to talk. Come on, bring it to the table. Don't be lazy. Do it the harder way. Bring in the bills. Make it happen. But don't put some bureaucrat in control of this. It's just lazy, lazy, lazy.

I'm not going to hand over the power to go around the courts and just let public servants decide who's innocent and who's guilty based on evidence that would be torn apart if it ever went to court. And—here we go—guess who's going to pay for this? Guess who'd pay for it? The taxpayer. That's right; the taxpayer. You go and pay for this. You go and pay for the poor decisions that are made up here. You go and pay for it, because nothing will happen to the public servant. Eventually they'll just be promoted and moved on to another department. That's how it works; it's just like how the military works. The higher ranking you have and the more you bugger up, the more you get posted and the more you get promoted. It's standard procedure.

It is shameful. Maybe giving that kind of power would keep people on their toes, but honest people shouldn't have to fear the overreach of their government, let alone that of a public servant. That's what this bill will do. It will make it too easy for a bloke to tick the wrong box and put you at the end of the dole queue. Your kids won't get fed and your mortgage won't get paid, and there'll be absolutely nothing you can do about it, unless, of course, you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight it in the courts. And I wish you the very best of luck with that, because that's where we're heading here! Anybody who wants to go through the court system had better have some dimes behind them because they are going to need them. And if you're not working because some public servant said so, then you've got a problem.

Anyone who has ever seen a public servant tick the wrong box or make you fill out the wrong form has seen what happens when you get it wrong. It's annoying and it can be soul destroying and it can destroy your family. Imagine that you didn't get that chance, and then you'll see what kind of stupidity this bill represents. Who in their right mind would think that the same people who dreamed up robodebt should get to decide, without any trial, whether you're too dodgy to keep working in your chosen career? I see we've learnt nothing from the past—and the recent past at that. I get why they want the power to make these choices without the chance to have them reviewed properly, because who wants to give someone the right to show how wrong you are? Who wants to give a normal person out there the right to show up the government and call them out and say, 'Hey, you were wrong'? Wouldn't that be embarrassing going towards an election? But why would I vote for something that gives one side all the power and the other side none of the power, in the hope that the power isn't abused?

I hold very little hope, let alone faith, in that power not being abused. If you want me to vote on something based on trust that you'll only use it for good, show me an example of a policy where that has ever happened in this place. Find me one government program where nobody has ever made a mistake and caused detriment to somebody else's life. Mistakes should be found and fixed. They shouldn't be swept under the rug, which, once again, is common practice here. If the government want the power to put you out of business, you should demand that they have extraordinary evidence to be able to do so. Not only will this bill not require them to have that kind of extraordinary evidence, as is common practice in our legal system; it won't even require them to share with you what the evidence is when they make a decision to end your career. Very scary, isn't it!

Let's shut down drug importation by hitting people who are importing drugs. Don't ask me to support any enormous new power to punish anyone you see fit for punishment based on nothing more than a hunch, which is all you're doing. It's so untidy and it is so un-Australian. It's a pattern with this government—every two weeks, there's another scandal. They argue they've done nothing wrong, that there's nothing to see here. What's new? A bit of self-reflection might explain why they're not getting my support today. If you want to go in hard against ice importers, by all means do so. I'll help you at the table, no worries. I'll do it in five minutes—just call me in. Just prove they're importing ice before you throw the book at them. As far as I'm concerned, those people who are smuggling drugs into Australia deserve everything that's coming their way. If you want to lock them up for life, I'm with you. But, because the penalties for drug importation should be so high, the threshold you've got to meet before you're punished for doing it should be high, too.

On indulgence, I'd compare this to the current investigation into alleged war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. The accusation has been made and it's got to be investigated, but, until accusations are proven, they're just allegations, and that's all they are. An allegation isn't a conviction, and we shouldn't ever treat it as such. You've got to prove that someone is doing the wrong thing before you punish them for doing the wrong thing. That is the Australian way. I get that sometimes proving it is hard. However, tough! Suck it up. Show your resilience and get out there and prove it. Do it the right way. Show some leadership.

I can tell you that all it takes for an innocent person to become a guilty person is for someone to accuse them of something, and you lose what it means to be guilty at all. What matters is what is proven. Evidence does matter, and evidence needs to be on the table. An accusation isn't a conviction, and the power should not be given to a public servant to say so. Put the evidence on the table and do it properly through the courts, through the law, and follow it correctly.