[Peetwo]

Chester under siege on Airport security & safety - Part II  

Following on from the recent discourse on the ever popular Chester thread - Chester under fire on airport safety..err security & safety - Nick Xenophon has now jumped into the fray in support of the AusALPA concerns, with some even more embarrassing MSM coverage...

Pilots concerned about aircraft security
Updated: 8:19 pm, Wednesday, 2 August 2017
   

Airline pilots are seriously concerned about inconsistencies in the security screening of ground and air staff at Australia's major airports.

The Australian Airline Pilots Association is questioning why its 5000 members are subjected to stricter screening than others with aircraft access, including baggage handlers, cleaners and catering staff.

'It's our belief that for a long time that has been a gap in the aviation security system - that people that do have access to the aircraft should have the same level of screening as people that come through the terminal,' Australian Airline Pilots Association president Murray Butts told Sky News Australia.

'The people conducting the screening within the terminal should be government employees, in an organisation such as TSA, and we have said that with the super ministry that's being created under Peter Dutton, we believe that's a great opportunity to achieve that.'

The demand for action echoes calls by transport workers and federal police as airport security is tightened following an alleged foiled plot to bomb or gas a passenger plane out of Sydney.

Pilots are also unconvinced about private contractors doing security screening rather than a government agency.

Captain Butt says these issues have been raised with the government in the past but have fallen on deaf ears.

Senator Nick Xenophon, who spearheaded a recent inquiry into aviation security, has told Sky News he will urge the government to plug the screening gap when parliament returns next week.

'Right now I'm focused on the loophole in the legislation in terms of domestic flights you don't have to show any ID, I think that's something that needs to be looked at,'he said.

'Pilots, more than anyone, want to make sure that their passengers go from A to B safely.'

The Transport Workers Union has also panned airport security, saying high staff turnover means workers without security clearance are being granted access to high-risk areas.

National secretary Tony Sheldon says casual staff are allowed behind the scenes without adequate training.

He wants a single authority in charge of national airport safety.

Deakin University counter-terrorism expert Professor Greg Barton believes everyday Australians will be willing to accept delays if they know exactly why the screening procedures are in place and has called for greater security procedures at regional airports.

'Regional airports should have proper security clearing of all hand luggage,' Professor Barton told Sky News Australia.

'There should be identity checks for all passengers flying in Australia, whether they're flying domestically or internationally. It wouldn't be a great imposition on people flying if people understood the reason they might accept why they may have to go out and get an identity card if they don't have a licence or a passport.'

Police fear organised crime figures are getting work at airports and ports and exploiting their security passes to influence the screening of cargo and passengers.

More than 60 organisations and companies can issue aviation and maritime security identification cards, with the AFP warning the more people who can dish them out, the more vulnerable they become.

There are 250,000 aviation and maritime security cards issued but the regulator responsible cannot say how many workers have ceased employment and not given their cards back.

The passes are issued by organisations including airlines, the immigration department and port operators, and while the Office of Transport Security runs card-return campaigns, nobody has ever been fined for refusing.

The agency is investigating adding biometrics to security cards and cutting the number of issuers.

It is also boosting screening of airport staff working in restricted areas, expanding the scope of background checks and forcing those who issue ID cards to verify identities face-to-face.

Anyone with links to serious or organised crime would be blocked from getting identification cards under legislation before parliament.

Also via the Oz...

Pilots want ID checks on domestic flights

8:26pmEAN HIGGINS

The peak airline pilots body has demanded the government requires domestic passengers to show photo ID before boarding.

The peak airline pilots body has demanded the federal government require domestic airline passengers to produce photo identification before boarding aircraft, as part of a three-pronged strategy to tighten airport security.

The call, announced in Sydney by Australian Airline Pilots Association president Murray Butt and South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon, will put more pressure on Transport Minister Darren Chester.

Mr Chester has flagged increased security measures at airports since arrests at the weekend of alleged Islamic terrorists in Sydney over a claimed plot to bring down an airliner.

But security experts say those measures — such as randomly and publicly searching by hand suitcases that routinely will be X-rayed out of sight anyway before being put in the cargo hold — are more show than substance.

However, ID checks matched against terror watch lists would make a big difference, says international security and terrorism expert Carl Ungerer.

• READ MORE
  
• Etihad ‘assisting’ in terror probePAUL MALEY
  
• Airline push back on security crackdownEAN HIGGINS, TESSA AKERMAN
  

“Sixteen years after 9/11 it seems incongruous that screening at airports still has gaps,” said Dr Ungerer, formerly of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and now at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

“Aircraft remain a high priority for terrorists because it meets their criteria for spectacle. Checking names against passports, as is done on international flights would seem to be a sensible precaution.”

ID checks matched against terror watch lists would make a big difference, says Carl Ungerer.

Aviation analysts suggest big carriers would privately lobby against such a requirement, which would undermine cost-saving efforts to reduce counter staff by having customers collect boarding cards from auto­mated kiosks and drop their bags at conveyor belts.

The federal government is also reluctant to meet another call by the pilots association: that a single federal government transport security agency employing its own staff take over airport security. In the US, such officers check passenger identities.

“There would be significant cost to government in establishing a single, centralised screening authority and developing the capability to manage it on an ongoing basis,” Mr Chester told The Australian. “The government also considers that a single, centralised screening authority would not result in any foreseeable improvement in security outcomes and would likely result in a cost increase for the travelling public.”

Police patrol Sydney Airport on Monday. Picture: Getty

The third call from pilots and Senator Xenophon was for the federal government to require ground staff such as baggage handlers, caterers and cleaners, to face the same security screening as pilots and passengers.

Such workers, often casual staff or subcontractors, only have to flash ID cards at the security entrance and are not usually undergo metal detection screening or bag searches.

“It’s an inconsistency that needs to be rectified,’’ Captain Butt, who flies Qantas A380s, said in Sydney.

“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to envisage how terrorism-inclined ground staff with access to planes on the tarmac could carry out an act not in the interest of that aircraft,” Captain Butt said.

Mr Chester told The Australian on Wednesday night: “There would be challenges and costs in implementing identity checking for all domestic flights.

“For example, there is no consistent form of identification used domestically across Australia.

“Domestic travellers (for example, minors) may not hold a valid Australian driver’s licence or ­passport.”

Of course none of the issues mentioned are any sort of revelation, you only need go back some 9 months to the evidence given by Alan Kessing at the refreshed now defunct Senate Airports Security inquiry:

Senate Inquiry: Airport & Aviation Security MKII

21 Mr Allan Kessing (PDF 102 KB)

    
Then yesterday Binger, in the Oz, wrote a late article summarising the Allan Kessing submission and evidence given in the inquiry:

Airport screening a ‘facade’
1:56pmMitchell Bingemann

Whistleblower Allan Kessing says passenger screening is a “useless facade”, and intelligence gathering needs resources.

MTF...P2

[url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/national-security/islamic-state-fighter-links-to-passenger-plane-terror-plot/news-story/5c0a20c9818e4f4423b8d998a8ebc5ef][/url]