Australian Opposition Says Government Has Failed To Deliver

Homeland security is just as much a hot-button topic for politicians in Australia as it is here in the US. The Courier-Mail newspaper in Brisbane reports Australia's Labor party accuses the government of failing to deliver promised security upgrades on time, putting regional airline passengers at risk.

Last December, Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson announced a $66.18 million dollar (US currency) program to upgrade aviation security and promised it would be in place by July 1st. But Labor's homeland security spokesman Robert McClelland says the government has quietly delayed the plan -- without explanation. Some $21.3 million was to have been spent upgrading security at regional airports throughout Australia. The plan also would have paid for reinforced cockpit doors on commuter prop-driven aircraft with more than 30 seats.

"The Government made a commitment to have these programs in place by July 1 this year. Once again they have missed this deadline and broken this promise," Mr McClelland said. "Airbrushing references to the deadline off the [government's] website may solve the embarrassing political problem of the Howard Government missing yet another national security program deadline, but it does not deliver heightened security to Australians passing through our airports."

Anderson said the program is still very much alive and denied that it had been stalled. "We never set a deadline on the regional airports. We are at the planning stage but that is different to implementation," he said.

FMI: www.fed.gov.au