Mr McCLELLAND (Barton) (3.49 p.m.)—Again applying the pub test, what Australians realise is that those who are most self-righteous frequently have the most to hide. That is very much the case when it comes to the government and the Minister for Transport and Regional Services—and, indeed, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is at the table. One looks at their language. Each and every time we raise a crucial national security issue, they stand up with self-righteous indignation and accuse us of scaremongering. In fact, the Australian travelling public are scared. All those Australians who are investing $8 to have their baggage wrapped because they have no faith in the security systems at our airports are, according to this minister, wasting their money. Apparently, since the end of December 2003 there have been no security problems. He was somehow infused with the contents of this Customs report and has addressed all those issues, I think he said.

So there are no anxieties for the Australian public to worry about, despite the fact that since that time we have seen the Australian Federal Police conduct arrests with respect to the smuggling of cocaine worth some $15 million. I do not know how that happened, because apparently there were no security issues in existence after December 2003. They had all been addressed by the minister, by this miraculous scheme, by this legislation and by these regulations. There were no security concerns. The issues around the Schapelle Corby case motivated the government. I think the minister at the table may at least have had a role in the correspondence if not actually drafting it. He wrote to the Indonesian authorities and reported the serious allegations of the tampering with baggage that happened late last year.

I am not going to address the merits or otherwise of the findings in that case but I think it is fair to say that the Australian travelling public would recognise the reality that if drugs can be placed in a person’s luggage, so can guns, ammunition and indeed explosives. But nothing of this has been admitted. We are getting somewhere near to an admission of that fact today by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services but it has taken us a good 10 days of trying, giving him a few whacks in the House so he would recognise the systems failures, as indicated by this systemic criminal conduct at our airports—clearly revealed security breaches that could be exploited by terrorists. The minister has been somewhere near admitting that today. Even if people have their own views about the merits of the Schapelle Corby case, all Australians would recognise that it was at least a possibility that her bags were tampered with, certainly given the context of seeing a baggage handler—it is a comic image, but it has very serious repercussions—driving around an airport wearing a camel suit. Again, supposedly these things should not happen. That footage must have been before the end of 2003 because, according to the minister, the government have addressed all these things and this magic wand—the $93,000 package—has resolved it all.

I think the minister has an obligation and we are going to hold him to this obligation. We put to him this challenge: when he is satisfied that these issues have been addressed, he should tell the House and the Australian public what he has done to address the issues as identified in today’s Australian. He should let us know what they are doing to prevent passenger baggage containing large amounts of narcotics being diverted to domestic carousels to avoid Customs inspections. As it turned out in the Schapelle Corby case, some airports actually have video footage of at least some areas. The minister should assure us that all these black spots are actually now being videotaped, which, in my understanding, certainly is not the case. The minister should tell us for how long the video footage is kept. In the Schapelle Corby case, one airport kept it for 48 hours and another airport kept it for 28 days. There is no standardisation of the recording of these crucial security areas, hence there was nothing available to either prove or disprove at an official level the allegations that were made in that case—there should be. All areas should be under video surveillance, and with digital technology there is no reason why that video surveillance footage cannot be retained. The minister can explain why there are still these inconsistencies at our airports and what he is doing to address them.

I refer to the report of 39 security screeners having serious criminal convictions. We could probably accept that with the re-issue of security cards those persons were not re-issued cards. But the government can still satisfy us that their system is right in the context of there being an absence of an official means of verifying and checking documentation. Despite the fanfare of the Attorney-General about this new protective system and a cabinet submission claiming that $300 million was necessary, we see this budget allocating $6 million. So if they are satisfied that the primary documentation provided by people is accurate, the minister can come and explain that. He can also explain whether engineers retain duplicate keys and what are the precautions there. He can inform us where the black spots were identified and what is being done to put them under surveillance. He can tell us what is being done to screen 100 per cent of cabin crew, given that, as the Australian indicates, they were identified in the report as an extremely high risk. He can tell us whether that is occurring and, if not, why it is not occurring—I can tell you it is not occurring. Given the reports, he can tell us the extent to which Qantas aircrew recruited from overseas have been implicated in the importation of narcotics. He can tell us what is being done, given that outsourcing is still occurring of Australian jobs to overseas crew who are working at substantially reduced wages. In those circumstances, one would expect them to perhaps be more open to an approach by criminal organisations, both from their country of origin and in the course of transit. He can tell us what he is doing to ensure that those contracting out arrangements are being properly screened. But that would interfere, one presumes, with the government’s philosophy of unrestricted contracting out. The minister can come in and explain to us what review has taken place of the employment practices that exist at the airport. As the Australian indicates, there is a propensity for stacking of friends, associates and family members of these various gangs. He can tell us how those issues have been addressed. He can tell us how there are appropriate security checks in the contracting out of security services and then the further contracting out of those individuals who are on our screens.

The minister talks of best practice. There is absolutely no way that people—aircrew or otherwise—would go to the United States or Canada not being 100 per cent screened and there is absolutely no way that those countries, even with their so-called free enterprise philosophy—the United States in particular—would allow this ad hoc contracting out system that we allow in our airports. They have pulled those people under tight government control and authority. So for this minister to talk about us having world’s best practice when we see ‘camels’ driving around our airports is, quite frankly, fraudulent. But we are told that we have to trust people identified as drug smugglers, we have to trust people identified, if the newspaper article is correct, as religious fanatics involved in extremist organisations, we have to take them at face value, using these self-righteous values, and finally the minister wants us to put our trust in a ‘camel’ driving around an airport.

This minister has ultimate responsibility for airport security. While he might want to claim the title, drive around in the cars and stand up on his self-righteous podium, the bottom line is that unless he is prepared to get in the ring and address terrorism—and indeed use competent people such as Mick Palmer to support him—then he has no credibility at all. (Time expired)