Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor media release

$24.9 million to stop terrorists and criminals flying into Australia

The Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor today announced the start of work to expand an airline passenger security system to better protect Australia from terrorists and criminals.

At the Leadership 2010: Tourism and Transport Infrastructure Summit in Canberra today, the Minister announced that design work will soon start on the second stage of the Enhanced Passenger Assessment and Clearance program, or EPAC.

The first phase of EPAC is helping government agencies to better identify persons of interest at the border.

“The next phase will see more data collected earlier from airline reservation and check-in systems to achieve faster risk assessment of a greater number of passengers,” Mr O’Connor said.

From 1 July, Customs and Border Protection will work with partner agencies to design a system that better identifies risk indicators, trends and patterns that will be used to assess whether travellers are who they say they are and are entering Australia for a legitimate reason.

“Armed with more detailed information and smarter analysis tools, border protection, law enforcement and intelligence agencies can work together to identify passengers of concern and take swift action,” Mr O’Connor said.

“With the changes, suspect passengers can be intercepted before they leave their country of origin and action can be taken earlier to protect Australia from any threat.

“This new level of information will improve our ability to track and stop suspected terrorists and those involved in serious international crime from boarding planes to Australia.

“And that means one thing – a safer Australia,” Mr O’Connor said.

The Minister said the new measures will also strengthen the partnerships between agencies working to protect the Australians from terrorism and serious crime.

The $24.9 million dollar investment over four years was allocated in the 2010-11 Budget.

Media Adviser: Jayne Stinson 0458 547 512 jayne.stinson@ag.gov.au