Mr BEVIS (11:00 AM) —The Law and Justice Legislation Amendment (Marking of Plastic Explosives) Bill 2006 seeks to give effect to the Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection, Montreal 1991. Importantly, the passing of this bill will enable Australia to accede to this convention. The marking of plastic explosives bill implements the obligations of the 1991 United Nations convention, which is the last of the 13 United Nations counter-terrorism conventions to which Australia is yet to be a party. In October 2004 the Howard government announced in its national security policy its intention to accede to the convention. As usual, the turnaround time between the Howard government saying they were going to fix a security problem and actually doing it has proven ridiculously slow and long. They seem to suffer from some permanent jet lag on security related legislation. However, this is a positive bill and the opposition was happy to facilitate its passage through the Main Committee so that it could be dealt with by the parliament before it rises, presumably at the end of this week.

The purpose of the marking of plastic explosives convention and this bill is to provide a means to improve the detection of explosives and to deter the misuse of explosives, by terrorists particularly, by requiring that more detection agent or odorant is incorporated into the manufacture of plastic explosives. The United Nations Security Council resolution 635 of 14 June 1989 and the United Nations General Assembly resolution 44/29 of 4 December 1989 urged the International Civil Aviation Organisation to intensify its work on devising an international regime for the marking of plastic or sheet explosives for the purpose of detection. This bill makes possible special machines or sniffer dogs to sense the odorant and make it easier to detect plastic explosives.

The danger with plastic explosives is that they are a very malleable product—easy to mould, for example, inside the lining of belts, shoes, bags and other devices. They are almost odourless. Typically, plastic explosives will not set off metal detectors and they are generally stable and resistant to temperature changes. That makes them a significant threat in the current environment.

This bill inserts a new subdivision B into division 72 of the Criminal Code and creates offences for trafficking in, manufacturing, possessing, importing or exporting unmarked plastic explosives. The bill gives the Australian manufacturers of explosives a total of 12 months in which to comply with the provisions of the bill. The bill has a six-month delayed commencement clause to allow Australian industry time to retool their manufacturing methods to comply with these new standards, and we think that is appropriate.

The convention and this bill arose as a consequence of the terrorist bombings on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland in December 1988. That attack killed 259 people on board that flight and 11 others on the ground. This, sadly, was not the first, nor has it been the last, incident in which plastic explosives have killed innocent people. Canada was one of the first countries to mark plastic explosives for the purpose of detection because of events in 1985. In 1985, two Air India 747 aircraft began flights from Canada. A plastic explosive device is suspected to have caused the crash of one flight in the Atlantic Ocean, south of the Republic of Ireland, killing everyone on board. A bomb in the luggage from the other flight detonated in the baggage-handling area of Narita airport, outside Tokyo in Japan.

In December 2001, passengers subdued a man on a flight from Paris to Miami in trying to stop him from igniting his shoe, which contained a bomb made from C4 plastic explosives. In the United States in 2003, undercover investigators for the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General sneaked weapons and explosives past security at 15 airports. This serves as a reminder that the legal means to combat plastic explosives must be accompanied by the political will to implement detection equipment or to train and deploy sniffer dogs or other similar devices.

In August 2004, Russian officials said they detected traces of the RDX high explosive in the wreckage of one of two crashed jetliners. RDX is a common explosive. When it is in a raw powder form and mixed with compounds to a consistency of putty, it effectively becomes a plastic explosive. RDX is second in strength to nitroglycerine amongst the common explosive substances. Clearly, it is a very dangerous material. As part of a counter-terrorism exercise in 2004, French police randomly planted a plastic explosive in a passenger’s suitcase at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

Mr Danby —Just to test them.

Mr BEVIS —To test them, as I am reminded by my friend and colleague. Unfortunately, the police failed to monitor the bag on the conveyor belt and throughout the airport. It ended up rolling out into one of the 90 planes with an international destination and was lost in the luggage of an innocent passenger. It still remains missing. This was a gross mistake on the part of the French police but that error does serve to demonstrate the dangers that have to be fixed and addressed. Hopefully, this bill will go some way towards ensuring that, whether it is an exercise or the real thing, such an event could not occur again.

X-ray machines detect metal but they are not good at detecting plastic explosives. New technologies have emerged since 1991 so that many explosives, even those without the odorants added, can be detected. Such equipment must be properly installed, carefully maintained and expertly operated to successfully interdict plastic explosives.

Australia’s accession to this convention is desirable. It sets a good example for others to follow. Much of the world could not easily purchase and seamlessly implement the new technologies that are now available to detect plastic explosives. In any event, the sorts of examples I have just given indicate that further procedures are required. If this convention and this bill encourage countries to add odorants to their explosives and to train sniffer dogs to detect such odorants then the travelling public and the world at large will be a safer place.

We have seen too many security blunders at Australia’s airports under the current government. The September 11 2001 terrorist attacks put the Howard government on notice to fix aviation security dangers. The airport security review conducted by Sir John Wheeler again put the government on notice to fix these errors, although you would have to ask yourself why it was that, four years after September 11, we needed to have a British expert come here and write 150 pages about what we should have been doing in the four years in between.

In the last year or so we have seen baggage handlers going through passengers’ luggage and stealing a camel outfit and wearing it around at Australia’s largest airport. We have seen unauthorised public vehicles driving around in security areas at Sydney airport in a road rage incident. Labor has raised concerns on many occasions about the security at regional airports and most recently, this year, about security on flights from regional airports, in particular Dubbo, Ballina, Devonport and Burnie, to major cities. It was not that long ago that grenades were found on a flight that landed at Darwin airport. The government recently tried denying the famous ‘plank of wood’—the door-chock security located on the public side of a doorway at Sydney airport. All a terrorist needed to do was pick up the loose-fitting piece of timber on the public side of the sliding door and they would have been given immediate access to the runway. The government denied that for days until photo evidence was provided to prove the point. That is not good enough. The Howard government’s incompetence and arrogance in these matters has put lives at greater risk than should be the case.

This bill is a useful bill. It will assist law enforcement agencies to ensure that those who would use plastic explosives to disrupt the normal run of life and the freedom of citizens will find that much more difficult. I commend the bill to the House. What we now look forward to is a competent government enthusiastically, vigorously and effectively implementing it. I hope that we will have such a government after the next election.