Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I'm happy for us to get the transcript of the evidence provided by Border Force officials that they had holdings on Captain Salas going back to 1994 and that they had boarded his ship several times. I will quote LNP senator Barry O'Sullivan, who said in this same Senate hearing:

This is not going to end here for me … you have left me once more very concerned about the security arrangements in your agencies, if someone like Captain Salas does not qualify for a red flag. You might not want to know, but I suspect that ordinary Australians would want to know when the Salases of the world are in our ports … G-U-N-S—I do not give a rat's arse where they are coming from or where they are going. We need to know when these sort of people are in our company.

I apologise for the language, but that is the language used by former Senator O'Sullivan in relation to Captain Salas.

What I would say to people who may be watching at home is: this is not just about Captain Salas; he is but one example of the point that Senator Sheldon and I and others on this side of the chamber are trying to make, which is that, when the government says that there is some kind of thorough check of foreign crew, that there is some kind of process that flags the character issues or the other issues, I can't take that at face value. We have the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in 2017 telling this Senate that the regulation around flag-of-convenience vessels and foreign crew has holes and gaps in it that allow for the importation of drugs or for terrorist activities. We have an example—just one—in Captain Salas, who has been wanted by the New South Wales coroner for questioning for some time. According to the then Department of Immigration and Border Protection, this is someone whom they have had holdings on—those are their words—since 1994. They have boarded his ships multiple times. They indicated in this hearing that they had concerns about him, yet he gets to come back and go to Gladstone and Weipa.

These are the issues that we're flagging—that the maritime crew visa checking process is not thorough enough. If we couldn't take the word of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in 2017, whose word are we going to take? We need to take the advice of our national security agencies closely. We need to take heed of it, and that is what this amendment seeks to do. Our view is that this bill is a good step, but it is not strong enough; hence, our invitation to the government to either accept our amendment or come up with one of their own, or a process of their own, to deal with foreign workers to strengthen the requirements. I've now heard the minister say several times that when foreign crew get off the ship they cannot access areas without being supervised, without someone with an MSIC. But the evidence we have now heard throughout multiple inquiries is that that is simply not the case. Talk to any wharfie; you will know that that is not how things work in practice.

Let's see if we can tackle it from another side. Minister, how many people would typically be in a crew on a foreign vessel? How are those crew supervised when they get off the vessel? How many would be doing the supervision while they're in a secure area?