Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill would amend the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003. These acts concern the issuance of security identification cards, ASICs, and maritime security identification cards, MSICs. It comes to us as a response to a recommendation from the National Ice Taskforce for greater rigour in guarding against drug smuggling in ports and airports through a toughening of background checks.

When this legislation came on in the other place in the 44th Parliament, we the opposition noted our concern about whether the addition of an organised crime check to the existing terrorism check might inadvertently reduce the level of rigour that applies to the terrorism check. That remains our concern. Our worries about these administrative matters have been deepened by the government's strange secrecy about its broader position on transport issues and its ongoing attempts to undermine Australian jobs. I note you are nodding with me there, Mr Acting Deputy President Ketter. Security standards in Australia's maritime and aviation sector should have nothing to do with politics. Public safety is our only priority. Laws and regulations relating to the security of ports and airports need to be tough and clear so Australians, and criminals who might wish us harm, are in no doubt of the strength of our resolve to keep our nation safe.

The legislation before us would take background checks on workers in airports and in the maritime sector. Under existing arrangements, people applying for aviation security identification cards and maritime security identification cards undergo background checks. Those checks are designed to establish whether applicants have links with terrorist organisations. This bill would add an extra layer of checking, to ensure that applicants have no links to serious and organised crime. The opposition will not oppose the bill, because we take security seriously. However, we are deeply concerned about the glaring inconsistencies in the government's approach, particularly when it comes to maritime security.

It was less than 12 months ago that the government asked the other place to support laws that would have removed Australian mariners from coastal trade and replaced them with overseas crews who have not been through the maritime security identification card checks. What was known as the notorious 'Workchoices on water' legislation would have allowed overseas vessels paying their crews as little as $2 an hour to undercut Australian vessels, whose owners are required to pay Australian level wages. It would have destroyed Australian jobs and it was quite rightly rejected in this place.

Today, we are being asked to toughen background checks on Australian mariners in the name of security. We argue that these proposals are at odds, so the opposition seeks clarity. On the one hand the government wants to enhance security with better background checks, but on the other hand it seeks to reduce security by clearing the way for people who have not been subject to security checks by replacing people whose backgrounds have been vetted. That does not seem to make sense to us.

Australians know and need to know more about the government's forward agenda for the shipping and the aviation industries. During last year's election campaign—the longest in decades—the coalition released no policies on aviation or shipping. All we have to guide our understanding of the government's forward agenda is its history, and that is a history of trying to undermine Australian jobs. Labor on the other hand has a comprehensive shipping policy that covers the full range or maritime issues, including: security, industry taxation arrangements, workforce planning, cruise shipping, ports, the Australian International Shipping Register and Labor's approach to coastal trading. We also have an aviation policy that sets out all of our policy principles for that sector. If anyone wants to know where Labor stands on aviation and shipping, they can go online and access those documents.

Australians deserve to hear more information about the principles underlying the coalition's policy in shipping and aviation. That is the thrust of the amendments put forward in the other place and again here today. Our amendments would require the government to do exactly what Labor has already done: sit down and put in the work required to frame aviation and maritime policies. The opposition has always seriously considered enhanced security measures and will also take a non-political path on such matters. Australians of course demand nothing less. Australians also expect us to look at the whole picture around any picture put to us. As it stands, we cannot see that full picture. Let me be clear: Labor supports well-targeted measures that address serious and organised crime. Those who use our aviation and maritime transport systems as means to distribute drugs or other contraband into, out of and within Australia commit crimes. We know it happens, and sensible measures to minimise this trade, detect the perpetrators and bring them to justice are initiatives that Labor will of course support.

The report of the National Ice Taskforce from December 2015 was welcomed by Labor. We support measures to align and refine the security identification cards and maritime security identification cards to ensure that persons accessing secure areas around airports, ports, aircraft and ships are subject to proper background checks. Labor also supports a transport security framework that has a clear purpose in its own right. Transport security is a vital mission for government. It is a qualitatively different task from targeting organised crime in our transport system. We trust that the government has systems in place to ensure the strong focus on transport security will not be lost with the addition of a new purpose.

However, it is not clear that the security issues are always considered when the government develops aviation and maritime policy. Two substantial acts exist which govern, respectively, transport security at our major aviation and maritime gateways, including offshore facilities, and which also extend to aircraft and maritime vessels within our jurisdiction. The Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003 are both post-September 11 pieces of legislation that seek to implement a transport security environment targeting that class of risk. The two acts currently target unlawful interference in the aviation and maritime sectors.

'Unlawful interference' is currently defined in both acts as being acts that impede the operation of airports, aircraft, ports, offshore facilities or ships, or which place the safety of facilities, ships or aircraft at risk, with exceptions for mere advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action. The current focus is, accordingly, on targeting deliberate behaviour which may cause harm to passengers, crew, aviation and maritime personnel, the general public and damage to property. In a word: terrorism. The changes proposed will add a new, secondary purpose to both acts as per above, and administer this solely through changes to eligibility criteria for existing aviation security identification cards and maritime security identification cards.

There is a potential risk that widening the purpose of the transport security legislation will confuse the two missions of transport security and targeting serious and organised crime in the transport system. Both these tasks are important; the question is whether achievement of both is best done via the mechanism here.

Labor expressed concerns arising from the Senate inquiry in the previous parliament about how this change affected the transport security mission. It is also not clear that the government has fully thought through what it wants in these changes, and that is a concern. The Ice Taskforce called for the aviation security identification cards and the maritime security identification cards to include checks to target 'serious and organised crime', as did the Attorney-General's Department and the coalition majority on the Senate inquiry that last looked at this bill. But the bill is worded much wider than that: it looks at 'serious or organised crime'.

It is of concern that two phrases with different meanings are used variously by the government without nuance as to the difference. In adding new scope to an existing vital mission, it is essential that we are clear about what the mission is. Labor will seek to amend the bill to clarify this, and we hope that the government will support our amendment.

A quarter of a million people currently hold an ASIC or MSIC card. In the quest to target organised crime, it is important to acknowledge they have a right to be fairly treated by this change, as their jobs are at stake. While we will not tolerate criminals in our midst, we need to be careful that how we specify the offence could unfairly affect existing participants in the system. Labor will be carefully scrutinising the regulations that follow this bill, particularly in the area of offences and their relation to the behaviour the system seeks to eliminate. Such a system should have well-justified offences and cut-offs. It should not be open to abuse.

Refusal of an MSIC or ASIC can mean that employees lose their jobs. For this reason, the system must have a robust appeals mechanism. Labor will move to require this in the legislation, and we will carefully scrutinise the regulations when they comes forward.

This legislation fits within a wider system of aviation and maritime transport security. Labor is concerned that the focus on our ports and airports does not remove a focus from those outside secure areas who also have an opportunity to participate in serious crime via the transport system. This includes personnel and their managers packing and unpacking containers in establishments away from secure zones where ASIC and MSIC cards rule. We should care about who is moving high-consequence domestic cargo around our ports. Ammonium nitrate, explosives and fuel should ideally be moved by holders of MSIC or ASIC cards rather than crew on Maritime Crew visas, that are less able to be verified.

And we deserve a government that believes in promoting Australian jobs in shipping and aviation. We know that government can better vet Australians than foreign employees. That only stands to reason. This government in the last term effectively tried to replace some Australian aviation workers with foreign crews when it considered changing air cabotage arrangements in northern Australia. And in shipping, we had Work Choices on water. The government tried to replace the Australian flag on the back of Australian vessels with the white flag of surrender on Australian jobs.

If you work in Australia, you should be paid Australian-level wages: it is that simple. Labor's laws backed a level playing field for Australian shipping employers when bidding for work in Australia. It is in Australia's economic, environmental and national security interests to maintain a vibrant Australian shipping industry. None of the major environmental accidents around the Australian coast in recent years have involved Australian-flagged vessels. If you drive a train across the country or a truck down the Hume Highway, you should be paid Australian-level wages. Arrangements should be no different on the blue highway from the Hume Highway.

Quite apart from removing a level playing field based on Australian standards for Australian aviation and maritime businesses and the people they employ when competing for work in their own country, these policies also work against improved outcomes in targeting transport security and organised crime. Work Choices on water continues to cast a threatening shadow over job security in the maritime sector.

The government's failure to produce shipping and aviation policies mean that we have no idea about its future intentions. I have no doubt whatsoever that the government takes maritime and aviation security seriously, but I and the opposition fear that its ideological warriors will be back for another attempt to destroy Australian shipping. Indeed there are numerous senior ministers who, before and since Work Choices on water was rejected, have indicated their support for its key principles. The government has bitter ideological divisions which are graphically demonstrated by the conflicting nature of the bill before us—and, I might say, many other pieces of legislation—and the government's previous positions on shipping. That is why we seek to amend the bill.

Our concern is not only about the lack of a government policy on shipping and aviation. In recent months there have been a range of other indicators that raise red flags for the opposition. For example, a High Court judgement last August exposed the government's zeal for facilitating the replacement of Australian workers with cheap overseas labour. In December 2015, the government granted working visa exemptions to overseas workers on oil and gas rigs in Australian waters. The government had argued that oil rigs were vessels. It wanted to help employers to cut costs by hiring overseas workers instead of Australians. In August, the High Court ruled the exemption invalid and declared the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection had exceeded his authority.

Since the rejection of Work Choices on water, the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure has continued to undermine Australian maritime jobs by abusing provisions of the existing laws relating to temporary licences. Existing legislation allows the use of overseas crews for temporary work around Australia's coasts when no Australian crew is available. In the most flagrant example of this abuse, the government, last year, issued a temporary licence allowing the operator of the MV Portland to sack their Australian crew and replace them with a foreign crew. The Portland has been operating between Western Australia and the Victorian port of Portland for two decades. This work is not temporary and an Australian crew were available. The existing Portland crew were sacked and escorted off the vessel.

Honourable Senator:

An honourable senator interjecting—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it is a shame. Over the summer break, the Commonwealth and Victorian governments reached a deal with the Portland smelter for taxpayer support to allow it to keep operating; yet, as far as we know, this government is happy to continue to have the smelter supplied by a vessel crewed by overseas mariners. Let's not forget that only two years ago the Harper review into competition policy proposed allowing overseas aircrews to undercut the Australian aviation sector. The conservative economist Ian Harper wanted to allow foreign airlines coming into Australia to be allowed to also fly Australian domestic routes in direct competition with Australian airlines. Just as with overseas mariners, these overseas employees are paid less than their Australian counterparts.

With so many red flags waving, the government needs to be up-front with the people of Australia on its plans for aviation and shipping. Labor is always up for supporting genuine security measures, but, even if we support this bill before us today, it seems highly likely that the government will undermine the bill's objectives with a fresh attack on Australian shipping. We know this because we have clear evidence that the government previously discounted warnings from its own security advisers by advancing Work Choices on water. We know also that, having failed to secure passage for that disgraceful piece of legislation, it has continued to promote its vile objectives in both word and deed. And we know, despite the political controversy caused by its previous attack on Australian shipping, it chose during the recent election campaign to refuse to outline its future intentions. It is time that the government started being straight with the Australian people. It could do so by accepting our amendments.

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

I am rising to speak on the Transport Security Amendment (Serious or Organised Crime) Bill 2016. In making my comments on the bill today, I want to reiterate the view that the Greens put in our report when the regional and rural affairs and transport committee inquired into this bill last year, which is that we believe preventing serious and organised crime in our ports and airports is a critical issue. But the question remains whether trying to tackle that by tacking that provision onto existing bills, which primarily were intended to deal with threats of a terrorist nature, is an appropriate way to enact appropriate security measures.

Although we see merit in trying to align the powers of the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003, we still have some significant concerns with the legislation in its current form. And this is important because this bill has the potential to affect up to 260,000 Australian maritime and aviation workers. We believe that there is the potential for the proposed new background checking to be very punitive for people with particular histories of involvement with drugs. Access to employment is very important for those with a history of drug or alcohol abuse and should not be denied to people who have successfully rehabilitated their lives. We are concerned that, by attempting to add a secondary purpose to the maritime security or aviation security ID cards, the bill's measures could unreasonably exclude work opportunities for a large pool of already disadvantaged Australians seeking work. The fact remains that these cards—the ASIC and MSIC cards—were and should still be primarily identity cards, not security cards.

We are also concerned with the history of this bill. Submitters representing the workers have shared their concerns that they still do not feel that they have been appropriately consulted and engaged with the development of this legislation. We remain hopeful that, if there are amendments to this legislation being considered and in the rollout of this legislation, there will be more effective consultation.

In particular, our concerns about this bill also relate to whether it is tackling what are the fundamental security concerns because if we are serious about tackling the security holes that exist in our maritime and aviation security policy settings we need to work out whether tacking these issues onto another bill is the best way to achieve appropriate policy. It seems the reason ramping up the checks on maritime and aviation workers is being focused on is that it is the area that fits with the government's ideological agenda, it is relatively easy to do and it gives the impression that they are doing something whilst there are gaping holes in other elements of our security regime.

During the inquiry into this bill we saw lots of submissions that talked about the existing flaws and loopholes in the maritime crew visa background and security checks, and the fact that foreign aviation workers can be excluded from the need for ASIC cards. There is also the issue of exclusion of managers from stevedoring companies and trucking companies who are responsible for things like personnel recruitment, rosters, allocation of ship berthing and directing security. These are positions which are unquestionably vulnerable to infiltration by people seeking to cause damage or to engage in illicit activities, and yet these are not being addressed. In fact, managers, operators and workers in container packing yards, for example, who are often backpackers, have no requirement for MSIC checks. These yards are sometimes only metres outside of the security container terminals and the workers have the responsibility to place customs locks on containers, but they are exempted from the MSIC program.

Then there were the issues raised during our inquiry into flag-of-convenience shipping and the huge flaws and the huge, gaping holes in the regulation of these ships. In seeking to deregulate the domestic shipping industry we have been opened up to many, many more flag-of-convenience vessels. What we risk is that we have a much higher-risk workforce predominating in our shipping industry and a far fewer number of MSIC registered seafarers who are working our domestic shipping routes. This imbalance in itself—the fact that we have a majority of seafarers that are plying our ports, plying our shores and going in and out of our ports are on flag-of-convenience ships rather than on Australian flagged vessels—is a particular security concern.

In the Senate inquiry into flag-of-convenience shipping on the Australian coast there was a startling admission that the federal government's Department of Immigration and Border Protection made where it warned that there are features of flag-of-convenience registration, regulation and practice that organised crime syndicates or terrorists may seek to exploit. Reduced transparency or secrecy surrounding complex financial and ownership arrangements are factors that can make flag-of-convenience ships more attractive for use in illegal activity, including by organised crime or terrorist groups. This means that flag-of-convenience 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.

Here we have a bill that is presenting this image that we are getting serious about organised crime when we know that we have got many, many more areas where there are gaping holes. Some of these areas have been identified and they are alarming. The fact is we have flag-of-convenience ships that are involved in the carriage, storage and delivery of really dangerous cargoes, including ammonium nitrate. There is huge evidence that with regard to the background checks for maritime crew visas for foreign workers who are engaged on flag-of-convenience shipping there is a lot that can slip through the net. So we have ourselves in a particularly vulnerable situation. We have critical infrastructure of oil and gas production, exploration and storage where we have foreign workers with inadequate checks having access to that. Yet we are focusing on increasing the security checks on Australian workers. We have Australian city ports where there are no security checks at all and where foreign crew on foreign flagged ships and flag-of-convenience ships are free to come and go through open gates. These are where we really have the problems and where we really need to focus our efforts if we are serious about addressing serious and organised crime.

We really think it is important that we are addressing issues of serious and organised crime, but we feel that this current legislation is failing to deal with the real problems. So the Greens do not believe that this legislation should be supported in its current form, but we are open to seeing this legislation improved. We understand and have considered the Labor Party amendment being proposed to this bill. We think that amendment, if passed, would significantly improve some of the aspects of this bill. In particular, rather than imposing these background checks just on Australian workers for serious or organised crime, the fact is it should be serious and organised crime considered. If an Australian worker is denied a visa there needs to be a process of appeal because it is important not to be denying Australian workers a visa unilaterally, with many people missing out on their opportunity to be working in our ports. We have to have an appeals process, particularly if you compare that with the situation of the many foreign workers on flag-of-convenience vessels who do not have to have the same checks. We have all of these gaping holes. We know that we can have foreign workers coming through our ports without the same checks, but we are unnecessarily and inappropriately having to have very restrictive arrangements on Australian workers working on our ports.

We look forward to the rest of the debate on this legislation and we look forward in particular to discussing the amendments that have been proposed by the Labor Party. I am hoping that we can see some vastly improved legislation that we will be able to support.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It now being 2 pm we will proceed to questions without notice.