February theme: Aviation securityAussies worried about security of small planes, regional airports

Security procedures in place at 140 Australian airports would have failed to stop a hijacking attempt similar to the incident Friday when a woman stormed the cockpit of a small aircraft in New Zealand and stabbed two pilots. As many as 2.6 million passengers go through regional airports unchecked because there are no facilities to screen adequately for explosives and weapons. Security at regional airports has been a long-term complaint of the Labour Party while in opposition, but so far, writes the Sydney Morning Herald’s Yuko Narushima, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, and Regional Development Anthony Albanese has done little to redress it. On Friday he said maintaining aviation security was an “ongoing and evolving task. We will continue to strengthen security at the nation’s regional airports.”

The hijacking of the nineteen-seater plane between the small town of Blenheim, on New Zealand’s South Island, and Christchurch prompted the opposition spokesman on border protection, Christopher Pyne, to stress the importance of air marshals on flights and warn against cutting back the Howard government scheme, something which, Pyne said, would “only give comfort to the wrong kind of people.” The the chief executive of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia, Terry Wesley-Smith, disagreed. “You’re never going to prevent the possibility of a nutter doing something stupid,” but to have marshals on regional planes would be “a gross misuse of public funds. The threat isn’t there.”

He said it was more important to remember why security on planes was heightened. “You’ve got to look at the aim of the exercise, which is to prevent aircrafts’ being used as weapons as they were on September 11. These aircrafts are too small to be significant weapons.” It would be more effective “to profile the passengers and base your security activities on the nature of the passengers rather than put down blanket coverage on each aircraft,” he said. His call echoes an antiterrorism plan agreed to recently by the European Union and Australia which would give Canberra access to private data on people flying in from the twenty-seven-nation bloc, in a deal similar to those with the United States and Canada, where information can be kept for fifteen years.

The weekend’s news overshadowed Albanese’s $1 million dollar pledge to boost safety at remote airstrips. His spokesman said regional airports were not on alert after what seemed to have been an isolated incident in New Zealand. In Australia, only craft for thirty people or more must have solid cockpit partitions. The plane in New Zealand had a curtain. Renewed interest in airport security comes as two cleaners at Brisbane Airport were arrested last Thursday for alleged theft.