Mr CAMERON THOMPSON (10:47 AM) —I am pleased to be able to speak to the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill 2002. It is very timely. The Australian community is discussing the section on aviation security in this bill, because aviation security is something that people are talking about all the time, something that people need reassurance on and something that they are concerned about very deeply. I acknowledge the comments of the member for Braddon, and I may refer to them later on. I also took notes yesterday while listening to what the shadow minister for transport had to say about this legislation, and I will refer to some of them. In fact, I will start with them. The shadow minister referred to a quote from the American ATA president, Carol Hallet, which I think is ideal, in which it was stated—and I will paraphrase, because I was not quick enough to write down all the words as they came out—that an expensive security system responding to what happened in the past rather than what happens in the future is not acceptable. That sums it up. We have to plan for an environment in which the nature of threats to aviation and to the community in general are rapidly evolving. It is changing all the time.

The member for Braddon spoke about people carrying weapons through airports. Sure, that is a threat that has been recognised in the past and has resulted in the installation of metal detection gear at airports, but that is not the total consequence of what we are thinking about now. The range of potential threats is much wider. It is not going to be acceptable to merely cover our bases in terms of the threats that existed in the past. We have to think laterally, look at all the possible threats and have contingency plans that deal with all of those. A tremendous task has to be undertaken by the government. I am very pleased that in the 2002 budget an amount of $128.5 million over four years was allocated for measures related to airport security—measures such as the provision of air security officers through the Australian Protective Service, the provision of an airport counter-terrorism response, the provision of more bomb dogs and so on. That was a welcome response from the government. It really was a first cut at it. There is much more that has to be done.

As a member of the Defence Subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, on 29 October I inspected the readiness of the Tactical Assault Group East team—the TAG East team—and the counter-terrorism facility at Holsworthy Barracks, which was very impressive. The arrangements put in place by Lieutenant Colonel Greg de Somer are very impressive. We witnessed the provisions they have made for training TAG East. Among other things, we witnessed the capability of their sniper force—their ability to enter a room and recover hostages and deal with the hostage takers. They also showed their ability to effectively assault a building from the outside, to come through the windows and doors at once and come to grips with a hostage situation or some other situation. They also showed us, in a much more military sense, their capability to assault a position. All of those skills could potentially be required today or in the future in defending security at airports.

Having that capability located on the east coast of Australia, a capability that practically matches that of the existing SAS unit in Western Australia, is a great relief to me. To see how efficiently they are trained and how skilled they are is a great relief. It means that we have a capability on the east coast of Australia that is truly flexible, that can deal with all kinds of threats that may arise not only at airports but also at other venues and that can respond to them very quickly and effectively. This is evidence that the government is responding effectively. As I have said, the range of tasks we need to undertake is widespread, as is the comprehensive response we need to make. The efforts in this regard have to go on.

Carol Hallett said something else in the speech that the shadow minister quoted—that there is a public right to know the general parameters of the security system, but we should provide no road map to those who would cause us harm. The old saying `loose lips sink ships' was mentioned there. I think that is entirely appropriate.

Other measures have been undertaken. I mentioned, for example, the issue of having marshals located on airliners. That is one thing, but other things are happening too. The airline manufacturers themselves have been playing a quick game of catch-up. They have been providing upgraded security in cockpits. Boeing and Airbus, the main manufacturers, have been coming to grips with things like providing a stronger cabin door and video surveillance. Further down the flow, in the airlines, there are measures now that put strong limits on who can access the cockpit and when. You do not have, the way you used to have, off-duty pilots or a sales rep hopping in the jump seat and seeing what the pilots do. You could take your kid to have a look at the cockpit. That was something I used to enjoy. Security demands that we abandon that kind of approach and be much more demanding and much more careful about who gains access. That is a reality today. No longer can an off-duty pilot hop in that jump seat.

Years ago, I was a trainee air traffic controller. In those times, an air traffic controller could hop on the plane and sit there and discuss with the pilots, while they went along, issues about airspace and things that were of concern. Now we have to think about security first, and those days are well and truly gone. In those days, I remember being instructed that we were very tricky as aviation administrators because we had the wonderful transponder. If there was a hijack or an emergency, the pilots could get the transponder to squawk a special code and on every radar screen would appear the letter H for `hijack' or E for `emergency'. Those facts are known all over the place now. That is not such a tricky thing anymore. It has been superseded many times over since then. Now, when you have to prepare security measures, the activities of the people who set out to flout those security measures constantly leapfrog them and you have to respond. As I said at the start of my speech, that whole process is accelerating very quickly.

Turning to the member for Braddon's comments—and I do not want to hold him up, because he is sitting there—he protested that he was not deluded. However, I noted in his speech that he shouted out: `Don't tell me I am deluded, Minister!' I looked about and I could not see the minister anywhere. That surprised me. But I think he talked about some very serious issues. One of the valid points that he made was the issue of user pays—the fact that we have to treat this as a security issue and that it is not something where the users of the aircraft should pay or pay solely. At the moment you could create any kind of threat in any kind of environment, whether it be on a train or at a football match. In Queensland we are going to have the World Cup next year at our new Suncorp Stadium. It will be fantastic and people should attend but, once again, there is the question of security. In the days pre September 11, people would probably not have given a great deal of thought to all the potential assaults that might be committed against a venue like Suncorp Stadium with the World Cup happening. Today we must, so it has changed, yet we would not set about trying to add 10 bucks to the cost of a ticket to Lang Park to cover the extra security measures. I think people would agree that we want to see the security measures there anyway. The same principle applies in relation to air travel.

The fact is that, from an Australian perspective, in the public mind we have had three big assaults on our basic understanding of security and the way we look at life. We had September 11 in 2001, we had the Bali bombing on 12 October 2002 and now there has been the example of the Kenyan tragedy. For those of us who regularly use airlines, the fact that there were shoulder launched infra-red missiles fired at an aircraft is just mind-boggling. It requires such a change in our understanding of the nature of potential threats to aircraft that you really wonder where you can start. Listening to the radio, I think it was this morning, they said that anywhere within 50 kilometres of an airport you could launch one of those things and bring down a 747. Even at the time immediately after September 11, I honestly do not think people were focusing on that as a potential threat. There was all the talk about someone having broken that taboo, having hopped into aircraft and used them as suicide weapons. I do not think anyone had thought that someone was going to actually get out with a shoulder launched infra-red missile and try to bring down a passenger aircraft full of innocent people. But that is the reality that we now face and, as I say, this situation is continually evolving, and it is evolving so rapidly that the nature of our response is getting bigger and bigger.

The member for Braddon said that Dash 8s can be just as big a threat. That is true; I agree with him on that. I do not think anyone is honestly saying to the member for Braddon that a Dash 8 aircraft cannot be a threat. In fact, I remembered immediately that within about a week of September 11 we had an incident in Europe in which someone flew a light plane into a building. That caused immense disruption, death and destruction, and that was only a small light plane. So we have to look at all of these kinds of contingencies in a way in which we never have before. Indeed, I noted from what the shadow minister said that there has even been discussion about nationalising airlines. It is just incredible that you could go so far as to think about that sort of thing. It really is an example of just how far things have gone and how difficult the potential question that we face is.

Schedule 2, which is the part of this bill that deals with the terrorism issue and with the threat to security, repeals part 3 of the Air Navigation Act 1920. That is about security measures and it provides, for example, penalties for people who might gather, use and otherwise abuse aviation security information. It also provides criminal penalties for those kinds of things. Other elements of aviation security, such as hijacking and violent crimes on board aircraft—which are currently covered in the Crimes (Aviation) Act 1991—are going to be superseded by the Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002, so this is part of a response.

One thing that the shadow minister did say was that he found the response inadequate and he criticised it because of the nature of taking the issue of responding to terrorism and security out of the legislation and putting it into regulation. I think that that is a commonsense response to this new environment that we are facing. If you need to be able to come up with changes to a response to a problem as quickly as we need to develop it today, it is crazy to think that we should have to come back and look at legislation again. We have moved on from that. We are in a situation where we do need to be able to develop regulations and have them implemented so that we can respond to this change. If we can do that, we can do it much more effectively than being reliant on the vagaries of parliament, and, for heaven's sake, the Senate, in responding to those sorts of things. It is important that Australians have a sense that the authorities have these problems in their sights, and they can do that only if amendments can be made to regulations quickly and effectively to deal with threats as they emerge.

I have mentioned that aviation is an important industry and that we are responding in relation to security, but we have to realise just how reliant we are on air travel because of the nature of Australia and our economy. Whereas a small European country might be affected if there were a serious curtailment of air travel, Australia would be absolutely stricken if we could not rely on a safe, secure air transport network. It is of absolutely core importance to us. Here in the Southern Hemisphere we rely on planes for international trade and we rely on them domestically for so many things. It is important that we facilitate ready and continuing access to an efficient air transport network. I note that as a result of a cabinet meeting in December 2001 the Department of Transport and Regional Services was directed to review all these issues and it has been engaging in industry consultation with Qantas and Virgin airlines and with Australian airports. That process needs to go on because the security response needs to be effective but still has to facilitate tourism and air travel to those regions of Australia that rely on them. Without that we are going to cause immense damage to our own people within Australia.

While we need focus on questions such as how we deal with the threats of infrared weapons and those sorts of things, we cannot stop the process of trade. We have to insist that air travel remains accessible to Australians. So far I think the government has had a good handle on dealing with this, even responding, for example, to the criticisms of the member for Braddon in relation to regional airport security. The Prime Minister has been out there saying that we have to look at proper scanning of everything going onto regional flights. The government has been up front about that. There has been dialogue not only with industry but between members in this place who have their fingers on the pulse locally. Whichever side of the House they come from, those people have a clear duty to keep bringing forward these issues and to continue this debate so the issue of airport security remains to the fore and we can get on top of that issue and stay there.