Cover Feature - Frontline
‘Read for take-off’: Australia’s need for a comprehensive airport security and policing review
F By John Coyne ASPI.org.au
16 | Australian Security Magazine
or seventeen years, Australian governments only needed to mention ‘terrorism’ and ‘airports’ in the same sentence to get public support for new security measures. With each new disrupted terror plot, or tragedy, consecutive governments would announce new security measures, and of course additional resources, with little or no opposition. It is unsurprising then that today, we have not so much a well-designed security framework protecting our airports, as a legacy of layered new and old measures. With the Western Sydney Airport set to open in 2026 the time is right for a rethink of what the next generation of airport security ought to look like. And if we move fast enough, there might be time to build this system from the ground up in Western Sydney. The last time Australia substantially reviewed its airport security was in 2005, when Northern Ireland’s former Security Minister Sir John Wheeler completed ‘An Independent Review of Airport Security and Policing for the Government of Australia’. At the time Wheeler found that ‘Experience around the world has demonstrated that airport policing and security is a specialist field requiring dedicated and trained officers, integrated systems, appropriate technology, and real partnerships between federal and state agencies and relevant private sector personnel.’ Wheeler was right, and arguably these principles are still axioms for those
responsible for airport security today. Although, I would argue that he left out one key adjective: ‘holistically managed’. At the time of the review, Wheeler caveated his assessments with the observation that ‘there is no ongoing mechanism to draw together and assess regularly the threat of crime and criminality at major airports’. Without the benefits of this kind of reporting, nor the ability to divine the future, he could never have anticipated the domestic and international incidents that have occurred at airports over the proceeding 13 years. Deadly bikie brawls as seen in 2009 in Sydney, heightened terror threats, meat mincer bomb plots and mass casualty attacks at airports illustrate the changed scope of threats and risks faced at airports. To be fair, the Government did respond to the Wheeler review with policy and new money. Command and control was drastically improved with the appointment of airport police commanders. Engagement between security providers, airport operators and airlines was also radically enhanced: due to the efforts of all involved. There were more, and better trained, police at all of Australia’s major airports. However, like many policy initiatives, the funding for the project eventually terminated. With time, staff numbers and policy focus waned. In 2005, Wheeler astutely recognised the dual importance of new technology and system integration.