- Home
- Hansard & Papers
- Legislative Assembly
- 7 June 2005
Airports and Ports Security
Printing Tips |
Print selected text
| Full Day Hansard Transcript
« Prior Item |
Item 11 of 30
| Next Item »
Page: 16434
Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: My question without notice is addressed to the Minister for Police. What is the Government's response to community concerns about airport and port security and related matters?
Mr CARL SCULLY: There has been much discussion recently about airport security following Schapelle Corby's defence, following Operation Mocha, following a customs report. There has been much discussion about airport security, and what is the Federal Government's response to corrupt baggage handlers, to people who work at the airport and who are the known associates of criminals, to no-one having their bags checked when they go to work or when they come home? The Federal Government's response is: Open a NSW Police station.
In another instance at Port Botany at the weekend, what was the response of the Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, and the Leader of the New South Wales Opposition, John Brogden, to drugs being imported into our ports on container vessels? They said, "We need more Water Police at Sans Souci." Here we have customs officers that are more focused on raising revenue than on law enforcement, and who are not doing what they should to check a sufficient number of containers coming in to Port Botany.
One would imagine that because standards are so tough at a Federal level, one would not even think of putting a container on a truck. So here we have to have a fleet of Sydney Water Police vessels waiting under a container vessel for someone on the equivalent of a sixth storey to hurl a package down into the water, and Water Police to catch it in a net before it reaches the dinghy below. What a load of nonsense! I inform the House that 150,000 containers per year out of 3 million are checked by customs. Why would anyone bother hurling a bag of heroin from a ship to a boat below when they could leave it on the container for a crane to lift it off the ship and put it onto their truck, with almost a 95 percent degree of guarantee that they will get it to their corrupt warehouse?
[Interruption]
The honourable member for Lane Cove, known as Lord Nelson, chimes in. Obviously he is interested in policing matters. He put a question on notice to me that stated, "Dear Minister, please let me know what steps you will be taking to increase police at the Ryde Local Area Command." My answer was, "There is no Ryde Local Area Command." So I say to Lord Nelson: I would stay out of this if I were you.
Mr Richard Amery: This is no way to treat a war hero.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Mount Druitt to order.
Mr CARL SCULLY: The Federal Government talks much about border protection and national security. Our airports and ports need that national security.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Murrumbidgee to order.
Mr CARL SCULLY: Despite the Federal Government's best efforts and its alliance with the Opposition in intending to paint this most misleading picture that the New South Wales Government is responsible for the airport, in fact the airport is a Commonwealth place. Why do members think the airport was sold? At the first sign of pressure, when a camel head costume was stolen from a passenger's luggage and corrupt baggage handlers were exposed, the Commonwealth wanted airport security to be a New South Wales Government responsibility. The Commonwealth bolted into the fog and pointed back and said, "Ken Moroney, please come forward and fix the problem at the airport." When the airport was sold for $5.7 billion, the State Government did not get a cent, nor should it, because the State Government did not own the airport.
John Anderson approved that disgraceful development at the airport, and ignored all of our planning laws. Why did he do that? Because he could, because the airport is a Commonwealth place. New South Wales police officers cannot go to the airport to prevent drugs from coming into this country, although they do have a community policing role, there is no question about that. NSW Police regularly patrols the airport and reacts when necessary, and proactively deals with crime based on intelligence. At a recent meeting with Max Moore-Wilton he told me that he wants lots of cops at the airport, just to make him feel good. I told him that we would not put our cops there just so he could feel good, but we would put police at the airport when needed for the sorts of crimes that are occurring. By the way, we will not put more police at the airport than are at the Eastgardens Shopping Centre, no more than he could expect anywhere in that local area command.
There is a police station one kilometre from the airport, a few minutes away, which responds as needed and it regularly patrols the airport. Bag snatching, shoplifting, assaults, violence and malicious damage are matters that NSW Police will deal with. In 1997 the Federal Government asked the State police to put in a bid on a user-pays policy for the airport. We put up a commercial proposal to establish an airports patrol, an airports police command, with up to a couple of hundred cops. There would have been State police all over the place on a commercial basis. The Federal Government said no to that proposal, it wanted the cheap and nasty option. It did not want to deal with policing; it wanted to pay just a few dollars to deal with, probably, counterterrorism issues. That duty was given to the Australian Protective Service group, which became an arm of the Australian Federal Police.
John Anderson then said that that was ludicrous and ridiculous because the State Government could not charge for the presence of police. The Federal Government asked the State Government to put in a tender, which it rejected, and it got what it paid for. The Federal Government got a handful of Australian Protective Service people, and they are not highly trained police officers: it got what it paid for. No State police will be able to make sure that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation does the proper checks; no State police will be able to make sure that people with serious criminal convictions are not employed. Ken Moroney cannot turn up at the airport and tell Geoff Dixon to sack people because they have criminal records. Ken Moroney and the NSW Police cannot do what should be done; that is, baggage handlers have their bags checked going to and coming from work on each shift so that we know what they are taking in and taking out. That can be done only at a Federal level.
John Anderson's response has been pretty ordinary. He has finally conceded that people with a serious criminal conviction should not be working in sensitive places around the airport. However, his pièce de résistance—
[Interruption]
My wife teaches and speaks French.
Mr Ian Slack-Smith: Point of order: Can the Minister give us subtitles please?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Barwon will resume his seat.
Mr CARL SCULLY: In the face of all this corruption, criminality and lack of certainty about safety and security, there is an airport supremo. I thought, great, we are going to have an airport security authority, similar to the Homeland Security Agency in the United States of America. We are going to have a reasonable number of people employed to replace the private security guards who are employed on the most casual basis. They will be at the airport and will check the X-ray machines and set the standards for hiring and firing; they will go to Qantas and Sydney Airports Corporation Ltd and say, 'These are the criteria you must follow to hire and fire staff." They will have people at the staff entry and exit gates. But, no, that will not happen.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Epping will come to order.
Mr CARL SCULLY: John Anderson is not going to employ staff or an authority, just one supremo. That person will be in a civvy suit, working out of the back of a Holden at the airport with a laptop and mobile phone, rushing to the X-ray machine, bolting down to Qantas to hire and fire, over to the carousel baggage counter, back to where people are arriving and departing. That is an absolute joke. Recently John Anderson became upset when I said, "Whenever John Anderson is confronted with a crisis he is on another planet." If John Anderson thinks that one person can somehow fix this problem he really is on another planet. Before concluding I will comment on Max Moore-Wilton. Max has been very mischievous on this matter.
I thought Max the Axe was a businessman, the chief executive of the airport. I did not think he was still the head of the Prime Minister's department. But I think he is intending to mislead and deceive the public into coming to the view that there is a joint State-Federal responsibility for dealing with international drug cartels, dealing with criminality and corruption at the baggage handling level. Sorry, Max, the New South Wales Government will continue to do what it can with community policing, but to suggest that the Government and its Police Force do not regard drug importation as very serious is not only wrong and outrageous but also offensive. Operation Mocha, a very successful operation, resulted in the arrest of many people. It was that operation that revealed the corrupt baggage handling at Sydney airport. Operation Mocha was conducted with the assistance of the Australian Federal Police, but primarily it was conducted by the State Crime Commission and up to 100 New South Wales police.
The Government will do what it can to find those involved in conspiracies, arrangements and intentions for the importation and sale of drugs. We will round them up and lock them up. But what we cannot do is send New South Wales police officers to the airport to deal with corrupt baggage handlers, people who should not have been hired in the first place. I say to John Anderson: for goodness sake, please make sure for once and for all time that when people go to work at the airport their bags are checked on the way in and again on their way out.
Last modified 05/12/2007 16:31:59 : Update this page