Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Ellison. I ask: will the minister outline to the Senate how the Howard government is continuing to improve the security of our nation’s airports to best protect travellers?

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Ferguson, for a question which is important to all travelling Australians. Some 60 million people a year travel through our airports. It is important that we give the assurance to the travelling public that our skies are both safe and secure. Today I announced the appointment of 11 airport police commanders. I did so with the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, and Mandy Newton, the national manager for aviation security. Ian Thomas, the airport commander of Melbourne airport, was also there. It was interesting to hear that he had an extensive background in policing in Victoria. Indeed, the people we have appointed to these positions are senior police officers drawn from around the country, be they state or territory police or Australian Federal Police.

This is a $55 million initiative which builds on the recommendations that were made by the Wheeler report. We announced today the allocation of $22 million for the appointment of our airport police commanders, and a further $33 million will be spent on backing them up with the necessary resources and technology so that they can carry out their important tasks. It sets in place a clean line of command—a line of command that will be responsible for the strategy, law enforcement and security of an airport. It will bring into play all the stakeholders across the board, be they law enforcement or even the private sector. This is something which is an important initiative and will see uniformity across our 11 major airports.

Of course, much has been done in the area of aviation security, particularly airport security. We have seen a ramping up of the personnel of the Australian Federal Police Protective Service. They are the armed personnel you see at our airports, and they carry out an important job. We have seen an increase in the bomb detection dog squads. We have seen an increase in relation to our protective liaison service officers. We have a number of them across these 11 major airports from the Australian Federal Police. Importantly, we now have in operation our four regional response teams. They have been working out of Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. They have visited some 70 regional airports in relation to ramping up security at our regional airports. As well as that, we have our joint investigation teams comprising law enforcement personnel from a variety of Commonwealth agencies. I am pleased to say that Customs has been involved in that. They were put into operation last year.

We are implementing increased security at our airports. For some years now we have had our air security officer program. It was very pleasing to see, for the first time in Australia, the international air security officer program here in Canberra. That was a recognition by the international community of the great program we have put in place which is operating both domestically and internationally. As I have said repeatedly, security is a work in progress and there is still work to be done in relation to security. We have to meet the emerging threats and challenges in relation to aviation security, and we will be doing that. We are working to implement our joint intelligence teams and the community policing model. Today was an important announcement—a further commitment by the Howard government to aviation security and making sure that our skies are both safe and secure.