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

Well, that's amusing, isn't it? We've just been told that we're closing off entry points. It is simply not true. I appreciate the fact that the minister has not been informed yesterday or the day before of the answers that were given yesterday morning and yesterday afternoon regarding this subject, because you aren't closing off all the entry points. In actual fact, Senator Seselja said:

An MCV—

a Maritime Crew visa—

check is tailored to a temporary visa for entering Australia; the ASIC-MSIC checks are more detailed assessments of people with an ongoing need for unsupervised access to the secure areas of Australia's ports and airports.

What Senator Cash quite clearly said was:

Maritime crew visa holders who do not hold an MSIC are required to be escorted and monitored by an MSIC holder at all times whilst in a restricted zone of a seaport.

What has happened at Geelong? Two foreign crew, who have not been MSIC checked, who have not had the more rigorous check, have now absconded into the Australian community. What was the response from the government and the ABF? It's taken them days to start responding to the Geelong Advertiser, days to start making public announcements about what is happening with those two individuals and days to give any sort of indication as to who these people are. What's particularly worrying is the government's politicising of the ABF. You would have thought that, when two people were found to have absconded from a ship, the government would have notified the public and asked for the public's involvement. But they didn't do that because they wanted to hush it up. National security is not an issue when they want to hush something up. Quite clearly, this government is making sure that there is still access to our ports for foreign crews who are carrying out criminal activities—gun running and the sorts of things that put our country in jeopardy.

At this point, those two people and what their motivation is haven't been identified. But what has been demonstrated is that they could have been terrorists, they could have been importing drugs or they could have been gun running. What do ABF do? They don't notify the public. These are the people at the forefront of national security, yet they don't notify the public that there has been a breach of our national borders. They hush it up because of politics—not in the interests of national security but because they wanted to make sure they weren't held to account for the failings in the system which we've been highlighting in the past 24 hours.

It is critical that these maritime crew visas be upgraded and reviewed, and not only in light of the fact of what's happened in Geelong. As we discussed yesterday, last year Rio Tinto had eight ships off Queensland. Four were Australian vessels with Australian crew with MSIC passes, the high background checks. The four others were flag-of-convenience vessels with foreign crew and low security checks. If you want our borders to be secure then make them secure by making sure the standards apply to foreign crews as well. That will protect the community. That will protect all Australians.

To go back to the case in Geelong, we have seen Border Force refuse to give details of the two Asian sailors who are still at large after abandoning ship in Geelong, something that is keeping the community on edge over whether the duo is dangerous or carrying COVID-19. That's from a report just this morning in the Geelong Advertiser. So here's the Advertiser, a major communication network, making sure it announces it to the public, to the local community in Geelong—'Keep an eye out; this is critical'—while the government keep trying to hush it up. They haven't made people in Geelong aware for many, many hours and, of course, there's still no detail. 'But don't worry,' we heard yesterday. 'We don't have to actually escort a foreign crew member on a maritime crew visa, because they're supervised by somebody on an MSIC card.' One of the comments made in the Geelong Advertiser, which I take to be accurate, was:

It's understood security footage showed the pair creep at pace down a gangway and set of stairs before disappearing into the night.

Where was the surveillance? It wasn't there.

The thing that's particularly disturbing about this is that over the past five years we've had evidence and more evidence about these foreign crews breaching security at our ports. Of course, the government didn't act. Why didn't they act? Because they say that it's too complicated and it actually involves too many resources.

Here is a government that has the hide to say it is protecting our borders. It didn't notify the local community for many hours. It still hasn't given details days after these people absconded. Here is a government that has turned around and said that it's too expensive to make sure our border is secure. When we're talking about potential gun running, terrorist activities and drug running is it too expensive? They do not have a system in place. This amendment proposes the government having a system in place that is properly considered to make sure our ports are protected and we have security at our ports.

In the last days they have said that there's a conspiracy about why we want changes. Why we want changes is self-evident. We want changes because they secure our borders, they secure Geelong and they secure our community. As I raised yesterday, we have large amounts of ammonium nitrate being moved around on coastal shipping by foreign crews. None of them are security checked. Only about a third of that tonnage of ammonium nitrate was involved in the unfortunate incident in Beirut that caused the devastation and terrible loss of life. It was horrific. If that were to get in the hands of a terrorist, it would be extremely horrific in any country, but particularly this country. But they say, 'Don't worry; we haven't done security checks on them.'

We get 24 or 48 hours notice that these people have been given a low-level security check. We've seen in Geelong how that low-level security check works. It doesn't work. We've seen in Geelong how the supervision and oversight of people who don't have MSICs doesn't work. We've seen another instance where our borders have been put at risk by this government's lack of action. They're hiding behind politics and engaging in cheap political point-scoring rather than making a decision to make our borders secure and support the very sensible amendment that has been put up by Labor. We will secure our borders. We will protect our borders. We will protect them from foreign seafarers, not only Australian seafarers, if there is a concern.

Quite clearly, the government has failed to act in an appropriate way to make sure the border is protected. As I said, we've seen the Rio Tinto example and we've seen examples at the RRAT inquiry. In response to question on notice No. 3 in the RRAT inquiry, Home Affairs also admitted that foreign crew are not subjected to routine—as we've seen—bag checks or inspections for drugs, weapons or other contraband. There are no metal detectors to detect other weapons being imported into the country and no checks by drug detector dogs. These are the people protecting our border. They talk about the ways and means of securing our borders. Instead of pretending to secure our borders, they should be.

Minister, is it the government's intention to review the maritime crew visa? I noted yesterday that they said they have not done a review of the maritime crew visa whilst doing an assessment of what should happen at our ports and security. They are leaving the bulk of the people left behind. (Time expired)