Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What's becoming clear is that we have a situation where we've had three major drug busts, with kilos upon kilos of cocaine coming into the country, and on those occasions we've identified that it was on foreign crewed ships. We've got ammonium nitrate flowing around our borders and taken from coastal port to coastal port by foreign crews. We've got people that are on MCVs that are given what appears to be the tick and flick and then we have Australian seafarers who have a thorough check—and a thorough check is not inappropriate. In actual fact, we're in agreement with the government that the thorough check should take place. What we're in disagreement about is that the vast majority of people who are actually plying on our coastal ships and coming into our waters and our ports are not checked in an appropriate fashion for being terrorists or checked for criminality, because there is no sensible way, on the descriptions we've just had, that there could possibly be the same detailed checks that take place for those particular crews. You'd think that there would be high danger areas about which you'd make these considerations.

As has been suggested in an amendment from Labor, we should look at important areas where there's vulnerability, and of course the MCV is one of those very fundamental areas where there is vulnerability. We should be turning around and making sure that those people are held to account, if they're doing something wrong. Many of them aren't, but there are enough doing something wrong to see thousands of kilos of cocaine over a period of time, over years, cross our borders. As we saw in that example I gave just a few minutes ago of Port Botany in March this year, it's coming from people that are going out to these foreign crewed ships and bringing in multi amounts of cocaine and illegal-gotten gains and money onto our shores.

It's clear we must make sure we have a proper and robust system. What I'm not clear on is if the government agrees with the former Department of Immigration and Border Protection's 2017 finding that there are 'features of flag-of-convenience registration, regulation and practice that organised crime syndicates or terrorist groups may seek to exploit'. The report says:

Reduced transparency or secrecy surrounding complex financial and ownership arrangements are factors that can make FOC ships more attractive for use in illegal activity, including by organised crime or terrorist groups.

This means that FOC ships may be used in a range of illegal activities, including illegal exploitation of natural resources, illegal activity in protected areas, people smuggling, and facilitating prohibited imports or exports.

Does the government agree that the department of immigration is right?