Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to put on the record, given that we are back here talking about the Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crime) Bill 2020 again, that I don't know how many times since I've been in the Senate we have been discussing this bill, and basically nothing has changed. The Greens remain opposed to this bill. It is a flawed bill. It has been developed with a flawed process. People have been raising concerns about this bill for the last four years, and the government haven't listened to them.

Obviously, issues of organised crime in our ports and our airports are really, really serious. It's something that we need to get right. This bill, as my Labor colleagues have been pointing out, is incredibly flawed when it comes to our maritime ports, in that it's an overly onerous, overly restrictive process for Australian seafarers which does not apply to foreign seafarers, who are much more likely, because of the conditions that they work in, to be potentially part of organised crime networks. What the minister has been saying today is that things are fine because these seafarers are supervised and because there are maritime security zones which can be established. Clearly, this isn't what happens in reality. Clearly, we have massive gaps in our maritime security that are not being addressed by this bill. Yet, at the same time, there are overly onerous restrictions. It can be months before a seafarer manages to get their MSIC reviewed. And for what purpose? It is not solving the issue of the massive gaps in our port security processes.

With regard to the differences between our airports and our seaports, the Greens are happy to support Labor's proposal today to split the bill. There are different circumstances. But we think that, as far as aviation workers go, this bill is also flawed. There are also issues which have been raised by the Transport Workers Union with the totally opaque process as to whether somebody gets issued with an ASIC, the lack of review and the lack of accountability, if somebody is denied an ASIC, as to why that's the case.

These issues have not been addressed, and they have been on the table, as I said, for four years now. Yet the government just reckon that they are just going to push it through. They're just going to ride roughshod over the interests of workers. Basically you just raise the issue of security and that's meant to make us all say: 'Oh, okay. This is how it has to happen.' But no. You can have a difference between having a problem and what solution you apply to that problem. If we have a problem with our maritime security and our aviation security, with organised crime and drugs coming into the country, then, yes, we need to deal with it. But we do not need to deal with it in the way that has been outlined in this bill, which has many totally unwarranted impacts on workers.