Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Aviation Transport Security Amendment (2009 Measures No. 2) Bill 2009 deals with reforms to the air cargo sector. It proposes a series of amendments to the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 that is aimed at improving the security of the air cargo supply chain. The bill will expand the definition of cargo to mean an article that is reasonably likely to be transported by aircraft and will also expand the definition of industry participants who can certify cargo to include regulated air cargo agents and accredited air cargo agents. The circumstances under which cargo can be certified by these groups or by aircraft operators will be prescribed under the regulations.

When thinking about exports, most Australians think of coal or iron ore exported through our sea ports. But many Australian exporters depend on the air cargo service to reach their overseas customers. There are other options for sending goods to overseas markets, but there is no quicker way to get exports to their destinations than by air. Many Australian businesses and their customers are prepared to pay a premium to ship goods by air. It is interesting to note that in the year 2007-08 international airfreight traffic totalled 780,000 tonnes. Both inbound and outbound international aircraft air freight have shown increases in recent years. Outbound international airfreight, that is Australia’s exports by air, totalled some 300,000 tonnes in the year ended 30 June 2008. Nearly 70,000 tonnes of this airfreight was carried by Qantas jets, but many other airlines were involved in the carriage of the airfreight. Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Cathay Pacific and Air New Zealand each carried over 20,000 tonnes of outbound air cargo. Over 40 per cent of outbound air cargo in 2008 was sent through Sydney Airport. The most common destinations for outbound air cargo sent from Australia were Singapore, Hong Kong and Auckland. In many of these cases Australian air cargo would have been forwarded on from these intermediate destinations to reach customers elsewhere around the globe. Clearly air cargo is an important part of domestic freight.

The coalition always supports any legislation or action that will improve the security of air travel, be it for freight or for passengers. Accordingly, we will be supporting this bill. The shadow minister for transport, the Hon Warren Truss, who is in the lower house, spoke on this bill when it was introduced and gave some details of the actual amendments and what they actually involve. The coalition, and indeed Australia, is fortunate in having someone with the expertise that Mr Truss has in dealing with transport matters. As senators will recall, Mr Truss was the Minister for Transport and Regional Services before the change of government and, in that role, made a magnificent contribution to the advancement of transport in all of its forms in Australia. He has taken a very close interest in the air transport industry and, indeed, in transport safety.

That brings me to another issue relating to air transport, and that is a notice of motion from the Special Minister of State that has been on the Notice Paper all week. No-one on our side of the parliament can quite understand what it means and what it is about. Indeed, Mr Truss and his office have had difficulty in finding out from the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Mr Albanese, just what this notice of motion is about. We see on the Notice Paper that it is said to be a rescission of a resolution of the Senate disallowing the Aviation Transport Security Amendment Regulations.

Senators might well recall that last year the coalition, in conjunction with the Independents and, I think, the Greens—I am not quite sure about that—disallowed a regulation made by the minister which dealt with a number of things. In short, it put strict liability onto pilots if the door of the aircraft should be left open, as opposed to the company that owned and operated the aircraft being held liable. Quite rightly, the pilots were incensed by the strict liability being theirs when such an event might occur through absolutely no fault of their own. Safety requires that the pilots go into the cockpit, shut the door and then concentrate on flying the aircraft. But this regulation meant that even if someone else opened the aircraft door the pilots were strictly liable—that is, before the coalition and the Independents assured the disallowance of that regulation. Now, that was 5½ months ago. If the government want to reintroduce a regulation, they have to wait at least six months to do so and then it can be debated again. But for some strange reason that nobody can quite understand the government have, at the 5½-month mark, introduced this motion to rescind the regulation’s disallowance. If they waited until some time in March, our next sitting week—when we next come back after today—they could introduce that regulation again if they wanted to. However, as I said, for a reason that escapes any interested observer, this motion has been put before the Senate now.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ronaldson interjecting—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator Ronaldson rightly says, it is just bizarre. What is perhaps even more bizarre is that, although the motion was introduced on Monday and it is now Thursday, as I understand it, it is not going to be dealt with this afternoon either. So what was that all about?

One can only surmise that Mr Albanese was playing games with this to try and support his announcement on security issues, supposedly, which was rushed forward earlier this week to try and take a bit of heat off the government’s complete mismanagement of the Home Insulation Program, that fiasco—to try and save Mr Garrett’s political skin by diverting attention from Mr Garrett to security matters. We all know those security measures were rushed forward. The government has been sitting on them for months, I understand, and had not intended to do much about them. But, hello, Mr Rudd has a political problem, so what does he do? He creates some spin that will hopefully capture the attention of the news cycle—it does not matter what the real policy issues are; that does not seem to count—and away we go. We can only surmise that, as part of this spin to try and save Mr Garrett, this motion was introduced into the Senate to be dealt with. But, as I say, here we are at the end of the week and we are none the wiser as to why it was introduced now, and it seems the government is now not going to proceed with it. It is still on the Notice Paper, but the word is that it will not be dealt with this afternoon.

Even if it were to be dealt with this afternoon, one would still wonder why this motion was brought forward. This is a motion to rescind a disallowance motion passed by the Senate 5½ months ago. One still wonders why this was not left until we next come back. We are away for a week after this and then we are back for a couple of weeks. By that time, the six months will be up and, if the government want to introduce it, they can do it then—without needing to bring forward this rescission motion for the disallowance by the Senate.

When this motion appeared on the Notice Paper, a lot of people became concerned. The coalition, as at the last time I spoke with Mr Truss, had not been able to garner from Mr Albanese what the purpose of this was. Were the government intending to bring back the same regulation that had already been disallowed or was there some other purpose to this? Mr Albanese was not forthcoming, which I understand is normal. Certainly, it did raise concerns with people with a particular interest in this area—and who could have a greater interest in this area than the Australian and International Pilots Association. On 23 February, they published a media release which says:

The Federal Government’s reintroduction of changes to the Australian Aviation Transport Regulations preventing licensed pilots accessing the flight deck and transferring legal liability from airlines to pilots could decrease air safety …

Pilots are concerned that the Regulations, which were developed with minimal consultation—

and I interpose there: are we surprised about that? As we know, the Rudd government are big on talk. They say, ‘We’re consulting with all relevant stakeholders,’ but when you look behind the words you will find that most of the consultation in any field of policy endeavour is pretty limited. As I was saying, the AIPA media release says:

… the Regulations, which were developed with minimal consultation or expert input by pilots and were last year defeated in the Senate, may be reintroduced in the same form and that this may result in poor quality outcomes.

It goes on to say:

Legal advice prepared by one of Australia’s leading Senior Counsel, Brett Walker, also confirmed AIPA’s view that the new regulations were both inappropriate and unnecessary.

“Shifting criminal responsibility to the pilot in command undermines a long held aviation principle that the airline is ultimately responsible for the actions of its pilots,” …

“Any other approach risked allowing airlines to claim they were blameless for accidents and incidents.”

The media release goes on to say:

The association has also commissioned an independent risk specialist to investigation the Regulation’s premise that pilots travelling in flight deck jump seats were a safety and security threat.

This was the argument the Rudd government used when they tried to impose this regulation on the industry. They said that a pilot flying the plane when he is the captain in charge is quite okay but if he happens to be getting a lift somewhere in the jump seat he suddenly became a safety and security threat. Whereas, of course, international evidence shows that in many cases a pilot in the jump seat, a third pilot in an aircraft, has actually assisted in avoiding incidents and, indeed, in making air travel safer. The media release from the pilots association goes on to say:

“The results of this detailed, independent study clearly found that having an additional licensed pilot on the flight deck enhanced safety and security, which is hardly surprising, because if you can’t trust pilots on the flight deck, who can you trust,” Captain Barry Jackson said.

It is another one of these silly things that the Rudd government have introduced. They do it without proper consultation. They have come forward with legislation and regulations to capture, as I say, the new cycle spin. I would not do this but someone down Senator Ronaldson’s way at a country cabinet meeting recently referred to the Prime Minister as Prime Minister Blah Blah. Of course I would not call him that because I know it is unparliamentary. Obviously this person who attended the country cabinet meeting was less than impressed.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They picked him in one.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They picked him in one. Thank you, Senator Ronaldson.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like John Howard picked you in one. Absolutely hopeless.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hello, we have someone who does not agree that it is Prime Minister Blah Blah; someone who makes the interjection and then runs for the door to try and help the Labor Party resurrect their failing fortunes in Tasmania, it looks like.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s not too crash hot for the Liberal Party either, Ian.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Put it this way, Senator Sherry, if I were to pick which of the Liberal and Labor Party polling results I would prefer, I would easily go for the Liberal Party one. I do not want to get involved in Tasmanian politics. It is just a pity that Senator Polley cannot keep her invective for, perhaps, the Greens who are overtaking the Labor Party in Tasmania rather than direct it at me just when I was reporting what a constituent of Senator Ronaldson has said about the Prime Minister and called him Prime Minister Blah Blah. If rules did not prevent it I would have thought that was a great terminology, but I know I am not allowed to say that. I think the person who coined the phrase, Prime Minister Blah Blah, was very, very astute.

I have been misdirected here. I was simply saying that this is a government that is guided by the media cycle, by the blah blah, but when it comes to action it is rushed action, it is for actions that are not consulted. Indeed, the notice of motion, which is on the Notice Paper, I hear is not going to be dealt with. I hope that it might be dealt with because I am fascinated as to why this is being brought forward three or four weeks before it could have been dealt with anyhow by the government. Perhaps the government are so busy running around trying to pick up the mess left by Mr Garrett that they have not even bothered to work out that they could have brought it back six months later had they wanted to. Of course if they do bring it back six months later I can indicate that, if it is the same regulation they are going to impose, unless they have a brand new argument that convinces us of the unsafety of the situation that now exists, the coalition would again be opposing it. I mention it in relation to the Aviation Transport Security Amendment (2009 Measures No. 2) Bill 2009 which we are discussing today, because it is—

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At last he mentioned it.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He finally got to it.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the Aviation Transport Security Amendment Regulations are not relevant to the Aviation Transport Security Amendment Act I do not know what is. That is why it was important to raise these things. People like me and the airline pilots association and I am sure every airline pilot travelling around and from Australia will have a very, very great interest in this motion before the Senate, which we do not seem to be dealing with. Why was it there? That is the question. Perhaps Senator Sherry will explain that when he speaks later.

As I said earlier, any legislation that assists with transport safety and security is something that will always get the support of the coalition. It will not in relation to that other regulation I mentioned because it was a silly regulation that in fact detracted from aviation safety, and that is why we disallowed it six months ago and why we will continue to do so. This bill does, we believe, actually enhance transport security, and that is why the coalition will be supporting it.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Aviation Transport Security Amendment (2009 Measures No. 2) Bill 2009 will enhance the security of the air cargo supply chain, the Office of Transport Security and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, which regulates the transport security industry, to minimise the risk of unlawful interference that could result in catastrophic consequences for an aircraft with an improvised explosive device in air cargo. The security of air cargo is critical to ensure Australia’s compliance with the Convention on International Civil Aviation, the Chicago convention, and also to ensure we meet the security requirements of key trading partners such as the United States and the European Union.

On 9 February 2010 the government announced a comprehensive package of measures to strengthen Australia’s international and domestic aviation security regime against emerging threats. The package includes measures to enhance Australia’s air cargo supply chain security framework. The government will provide financial assistance to industry to install X-ray explosive trace detection technology at selected locations and establish a regulated shipper scheme. The enhanced measures will enable identification of high-risk air cargo for technology based examination to take place at an earlier point in the supply chain where cargo consignments are less consolidated. The bill and its regulations will ensure that when a parcel gets to the airport there will be assurance for the person who loads the air cargo that it has been security cleared. The bill provides the foundation for a whole-of-supply chain security system which is sufficiently flexible to meet changes in the external environment. I note the support of the Liberal and National parties for this legislation.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.