Australian airport security overhaul begins

A huge security overhaul at Australian airports has been welcomed by aviation industry, despite fears airfares may rise and jobs could go.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister John Anderson said yesterday that federal police would be stationed at all international airports and a review of security operations will begin within weeks.

Around 70,000 airport and airline workers' security passes would also be re-examined and pass-holders would have rigorous police checks to weed out workers with past "dark and murky" associations.

Airport staff would have to go through the same security screening processes as passengers.

Much of the cost of the upgrade will be passed onto airports and carriers, causing concern that air travellers may end up paying the cost.

Former British Conservative Party minister and security expert Sir John Wheeler has been appointed to review aviation security nationwide.

Australia's largest airport, Sydney Airport, welcomed the announcement and said it would fully co-operate with the measures.

Federal Labor described the overhaul as "common sense" but a knee-jerk reaction to recent allegations that Sydney airport baggage handlers were involved in drug-smuggling rings.

The Transport Workers Union (TWU) welcomed the plan but said it should be widened.

The NSW government said Mr Anderson was on "another planet" if he thought one person could solve Australia's airport security issues.

Sir John Wheeler, who served as an MP in the Thatcher and Major governments between 1979 and 1997, headed Britain's review of airport security in 2002.

Since then, he has been chairman of the body which oversees the United Kingdom's National Crime Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad.

He was named yesterday to head the Australian government's international expert review on aviation security and policing.

Sir John said some of the changes he would implement would be to carry out security screening checks on all airport staff, especially when they go onto the tarmac.

"Not only the passengers using the airports but staff of all backgrounds must be subject to proper searching procedures particularly when they go to airside and from airside," he told ABC radio.

"And I shall particularly want to listen to what the trade unions and the staff associations have to say about these things because it's the protection of their members that matters just as much as the protection of the public interest."

Sir John later told ABC Radio National it was not yet possible to say whether those airport workers found to have a criminal record would be sacked or simply stripped of their security clearance.

"Those are questions which are political questions, which must be answered by politicians in Australia - my duty is to try and establish what the risks would be," he said.

"As a general principle, I think that people who've got serious convictions for dishonesty have demonstrated that they are unreliable to work in a high risk area and I think most members of the public would think that too.

Sir John said he had overseen great change at British airports.

"A great deal of money too is being spent by Heathrow Airport to improve its security but among the things that were achieved was the setting up of robust airport security committees headed by the management in which all the key players contribute and are accountable to each other for what they do and improved arrangements for the use of CCTV (closed circuit television) product," he said.

London-based aviation security expert Norman Shanks, a former head of security at Heathrow Airport, said the main change implemented by Sir John was getting government forces talking to each other and sharing information.

Sir John said he hoped to present his report to the federal government by late August or early September.

"The federal government has made its decision to have this review, it's been kind enough to entrust me with it as a completely independent person, that's quite a brave decision because the government doesn't know what I will recommend to it but I shall certainly tell it the truth as I find it," he told the Nine Network.

Sir John said Prime Minister John Howard had confirmed he would be given all the cooperation he needed to complete the review.

He said he expected to encounter many of the same problems at Sydney Airport as he found at Heathrow. He would not say if airport workers in London had been convicted of drug offences.

"The workforce at Heathrow Airport was in excess of 70,000 and of course it had people who committed crime and of course it had security problems and I imagine it won't be dissimilar to what I may find at Sydney Airport for example," Sir John said.

"It's important that when my review gets underway that I can understand the existing methodology that you have to check employees to ensure that they are free of criminal activity, both convictions or active criminal activity, and of course that the procedures that will be in place will be as good as you could reasonably expect in a free and open society."

- REUTERS