Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (10:16): All politicians who participated in the debate on the Aviation Transport Security Amendment (Screening) Bill 2012 should perhaps declare an interest in it because we, as a group of Australians, use airlines perhaps more than most other groups of Australians. We are very conscious of aircraft, airlines and air travel safety. Madam Acting Deputy President Crossin, you are from the Northern Territory and would also experience this: each day you see more and more Australians on aeroplanes going to work, very often in their fluoro jackets and steelcapped boots, and so air travel in Australia is a very common exercise for a lot of people. That is why it is important that the government of the day continue to work towards maximum safety and security for all those who are travelling in aeroplanes. The security and safety of our transport system is a matter for the national government and a matter that the national government, using its funds collected from the taxpayer, should fund. Whilst I am gratified to see this further step forward, I take note of what Senator Xenophon has just said: that there are perhaps other things we could be doing. I digress by saying I was recently, as part of the defence subcommittee, with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation in Adelaide. Of course I cannot say too much about what was happening there, but I can say how gratified I was to see the work that the DSTO is also doing on matters of airline safety. It is important that the Australian government and the Australian taxpayer take the maximum steps possible to secure the safety of our skies. That is why I am particularly concerned about the way this particular program has been implemented by a government that has shown itself to be quite incapable and inept at administering any program. I raise today the instance of the airport on Horn Island in the Torres Strait. Again as you would know, Madam Acting Deputy President, as one who travels widely in the more remote parts of Australia, using an aircraft to get to Horn Island and the Torres Strait is not a luxury; it is the only way you can get there. The costs of living on Thursday Island are notoriously high, obviously because of the transport costs into the area. The average cost of a return airfare from Cairns to Horn Island or Thursday Island is $623. The cheapest you can get this week is $540; the highest is $716. That is just to get from Cairns to Thursday Island. If you live on Thursday Island and you want to go to school or a doctor or visit relatives, you do not have the option of jumping in your car and driving there; you have got to go by air. There is only one airline operator—they provide a very good service, but it is not cheap. Double the price from Cairns to Thursday Island, and you could almost fly from Sydney to London return these days. I only mention that to show how very expensive it is to live on Thursday Island or the other islands in the Torres Strait. In addition to the normal extra costs of living in those parts of the world—and I cannot let this or any debate go by without emphasising this to a government which seems uncaring—you add the carbon tax to the price of airline fuel and other costs, and the cost of living for people living in that part of remote Australia is exacerbated. It increases exponentially beyond that for every other Australian, and every other Australian knows the impact that the toxic carbon tax is having on their cost of living. In the Torres Strait, it is even worse. On top of that, you then have the aviation transport security amendment, which has required Thursday Island airport at Horn Island to install this facility to screen everyone. I say to you, Madam Acting Deputy President, again as a Northern Territorian, that you would know what I am talking about here. If you are worried about the security of Australia, I have to tell you that people getting on a plane in Horn Island are low priority. Thursday Island and the other Torres Strait Islands are just a few kilometres from another country, Papua New Guinea, where TB is rife and where there are different things—and let me say there is more than that—that come through the chain from PNG down through the islands into North Queensland and into a wider Australian operation. There are illegal immigrants looking at getting into Australia through those areas. Whilst it is great to hear the government insisting that Horn Island gets its screening facility, at the same time they remove the only Navy patrol boat that was based on Thursday Island and which used to participate in it. I have had reports this last week that the 51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment, which is the eyes and ears of the Army in Northern Australia, has had its training areas cut back. I am told that the Customs facility, which used to be on Thursday Island in strength, has been decimated. They are the real issues. If the Gillard government is interested in the security of Australia then it should be actually increasing funding for those front-line security enhancements rather than insisting that Horn Island Airport install a screening facility to screen the people who move through that airport. Again, Madam Acting Deputy President, you would understand the accuracy of this statement: most people on Horn Island, Thursday Island and the other Torres Strait Islands know everybody else. If there is a terrorist in the islands, most people would know about it fairly quickly. Most people at the airport know each other, and they know that when people come through in suits they are politicians from the south or public servants from Canberra—and a lot of them come through. The government has insisted—in its inimitable way of messing up the administration of any good policy—that this airport have this screening facility by 1 July 2012. I suspect that not many in this chamber have been through Horn Island Airport. It is part of my electorate in the state of Queensland; I go there regularly. I know Senator Boyce goes there quite a bit as well. I sure hope Senator McLucas does. I am disappointed that Senator McLucas, based in Cairns, has not been out there trying to help the people of the Torres Strait Islands on this particular issue. The Torres Strait Island airport, Horn Island Airport, is owned by the Torres Shire Council. It has to operate it as a commercial business. I am told that already, to help with the administration of that airport, the Torres Shire Council imposes a passenger movement charge of $27.50. That is just to make sure that it can continue to operate that essential facility. I repeat: to get in and out of the Torres Strait Islands, you have to go through that airport. There is no other way of getting there. Do you know, Madam Acting Deputy President, what that passenger movement charge of $27.50 imposed by the shire council has increased to since 1 July because of this screening facility? An additional $30. So, on top of the expensive airfare to get schoolchildren from the Torres Strait to Cairns and back, they now have to pay a $57 passenger movement charge; $30 of which has been imposed to pay for this facility. To give credit where credit is due—if you call it credit; I am not quite sure that you would—when this was introduced, the government said: 'Yes, we will put in some money. We will put in $650,000 to help you buy the equipment.' Buying the equipment is okay, but in the Torres Strait you have to house it somewhere. The terminal is small and the council has said that it has to either add to its existing terminal or build a new terminal at a cost of $7 million or $8 million or $15 million; I forget what it was. Whatever it was, it does not matter, because it is way outside its financial capacity. This is a council, I might say, that has very few ratepayers; it has a lot of financial assistance grants but not much other income. So it has to either build a new terminal or add to its existing terminal to house this screening facility, for which the government generously gave it $650,000. That had to start from 1 July. The council had no chance from when it was advised this had to happen until 1 July of extending the existing airport or building a new air terminal to facilitate and house this screening equipment. So what did it have to do prior to 1 July? It had to build a new temporary facility at a cost of, I think, several hundred thousand dollars—and I think I am being light there. It had to build this new facility adjacent to the existing terminal. It got a couple of containers, cut them up, cemented them in and put in the screening facility. It is making people walk out of the terminal, through the tropical sun or rain, down the street and in through these containers, so they can be screened and then get on their aircraft and go to school or hospital in Cairns. Again, Mr Albanese, in the typical generosity of the Gillard government, announced a program providing $4.9 million in funding assistance to help various regional airports in accommodating this. Of that $4.9 million, the Torres Shire Council was allocated $460,000. 'Very generous', one might say? But it is on a dollar-for-dollar basis. So the government will put in $460,000, providing that the Torres Shire Council puts in $460,000, but that council does not have one cent to put into that $460,000. It is a council that looks after Thursday Island. As I say and I repeat, it has a limited rate base and a limited income base. It has no means of getting its part of the $460,000. So, even to look after the temporary facility, up go the charges to get out of the airport from $27.50 to $57.50. The total cost of installing the screening facility, I am told, is $2.48 million. The initial $650,000 was provided by the government. If it were able to get the $460,000 that Mr Albanese has promised, provided it can match it dollar for dollar, the total funding would have been just over $1 million, leaving a shortfall of $1.141 million that somehow the Torres Strait shire council has got to find from somewhere. I would have thought that Senator McLucas, who claims an interest in Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait, would have been jumping up and down until that council got some fairness and equity. I have gone at some length to the figures as I understand them for the Horn Island Airport in the Torres Strait. Can I just emphasise that, whilst I relate specific figures in the specific locality, the same thing has happened everywhere across regional and remote Australia. It is a decision, again, of a government that has little interest in Australia beyond Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. It is all very well to put in these great enhancements, which the taxpayers as a whole should be paying for. It is good of the government to make air travel safer through screening. But please remember the pink batts. There is more to good policy than just announcing it; you actually have to implement it. If you are implementing it, you have got to understand that there are many Australians who already pay through the neck because they live in remote parts and this sort of policy that we are debating today means that this remote community is going to really get it in the neck financially. I repeat myself again: in the Torres Strait there is no other way of getting in and out. A lot of Torres Strait children go to universities and schools in Townsville and Cairns because the same opportunities are not available in that part of remote Australia. It is a matter of necessity; it is not a matter of choice—they have got to go through that airport. The cost of living in the Torres Strait is already enormous. The carbon tax is going to exacerbate that. On top of that we have this great safety decision of the government to install this screening, but they leave it to the local shire council, which means the local people, to actually house it. I see the minister taking some interest. Whilst I am, as usual, being political and emphasising the political points and the toxicity of the carbon tax, I do hope that the minister might at least investigate what I am saying and perhaps try to help those people in remote Australia. We all know that Torres Strait Islanders are not in the most wealthy quartile of the Australian population. There are a lot of public servants up there, but most of the locals work and earn an income, but not the sort of income that allows them to pay $716 just to fly down to the nearest place where there are senior hospitals, schools, boarding schools and universities. That is a cost of living. On top of that is the normal $27.50 passenger movement charge, because it is the council that runs the airport—nobody else—and then on top of that an additional bill of $30 per passenger to move through the airport to pay for this. I am told that some of the cost is being passed on to Qantas, which takes the air service there. But naturally Qantas is a business and you would expect it to do nothing other than pass whatever its additional cost is on to the passengers. So up go the airfares again. I conclude by again saying, yes, we want security in our airlines and we do need transport security facilities. This is a step towards doing that, but it should be paid for by Australia as a whole. It should be paid for—could I suggest, rudely perhaps—by Canberra public servants paying their taxes, as well as every other Australian paying their taxes. It should not be lumbered onto the people of Torres Strait, who have a huge additional cost just to have this screening facility installed at Horn Island Airport. As I say, I hope the minister may, whilst rejecting my political rhetoric, at least have a look at the issues I raise and see if there is some way that the government can further assist places like the Torres Strait or other parts of regional Australia who are in real difficulties and have real unfairness thrust upon them by the implementation of what should be a very good policy initiative.