Protecting our border protectors

Because of the mechanics of the budgeting system the Australian Government uses, the reality is that a service must be cut or spending to be approved. Unattainable efficiency dividends merely result in a reduction of spending.

Airports are already short-staffed at the primary line and need more customs officers. As a consequence of budget cuts the regulated passenger processing targets were adjusted for 2012-13 resulting in: – The target to clear 95 per cent of inbound passengers within 30 minutes adjusted to 92 per cent in 30 minutes; – The departures target to process 95 per cent of passengers within 10 minutes to 95 per cent in 15 minutes; – An extra five minutes on average nationally to customs clearing both in and outbound, an increase of up to 24 minutes at Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth at peak periods for inbound processing.

The way of measuring inbound processing times is fundamentally flawed. With Australians being increasingly processed by Smartgates, international passengers languish in long queues, particularly in the peaks.

In 2010-11, Commonwealth expenditure on staffing costs for the ACBPS and Australian federal police was approximately $215. 5 million. Revenue generated from the passenger movement charge (PMC) in 2010-11 at $47 per passenger was $630. 6 million. Consequently the PMC already generates approximately three times the amount spent on staffing for customs and federal police, with the surplus accruing in consolidated revenue. Based on the above, passenger facilitation and airport security actions have the potential to be self-funding if the PMC surplus was not directed to consolidated revenue.

The 2005 Wheeler Review remarked that: “Terrorism and crime are distinct, but potentially overlap. At its most basic, a culture of lax security or petty criminality can provide opportunities for terrorists to exploit weaknesses in airport security. ” The Review led to the current “all-in policing model”, suggesting border security, crime and terrorism are similar in their nature and that a common, integrated and unified front must be put forward.

When one government agency is underfunded, the efficiency of the total border security (crime, border protection and anti-terrorism, government revenue collection, migration and quarantine services) endeavour including national security are made irrelevant if one of the major ‘cogs’ in the border protection machine is weakened.

By recognising the various agencies working together to protect the border as common in their objectives and funding not only will the entire effort be more effective but also the total cost will be reduced.

Current Government policies encourage tourism and aviation growth. With the increasing international passenger numbers the ACBPS workload is set to not only double on a national basis within the foreseeable future, but is growing at even higher rates for individual airports.

The AAA supports the ACBPS position made clear in the Customs and Border Protection Strategies Outlook 2015 (dated December 2007) when it stated as an implication of its mandate that: “maintaining the current facilitation rate and current business processes, even with the full introduction of some automated processing (SmartGate), a cumulative total of 300 more primary line officers will be required at airports around Australia by 2015. The annual requirement for more primary line officers will peak in 2013, with over 60 additional officers needed in that year and each year thereafter. ” Air freight is high-value and time- sensitive. When the Government underinvests in customs, this will either cause airfreight to suffer revenue loss from taxes and duties, or create easy opportunities for criminal elements.

Meeting these challenges will require an integrated approach from all relevant agencies. Either an increase in people deployed, or an investment in technology and infrastructure must follow. Increasing people deployed requires additional annual funding. Investing into technology and infrastructure requires upfront capital expenditure.

Already the system does not have enough capacity. Therefore people cannot simply be replaced with machines. This would only leave similar capacity, but less flexibility. Machines must be introduced in addition to the current employees to ensure capacity building.

Our borders are only as strong as our weakest link. The government has hollowed out customs to a point where criminality has been able to flourish while incoming passengers languish waiting to be processed.

We welcome the launch of the government’s upcoming plan for changes at customs, but these will only be successful if backed by funding.

Airports are already short-staffed at the primary line.