Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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AIR NAVIGATION (AVIATION SECURITY STATUS CHECKING) REGULATIONS 2004 2004 NO. 207

Subsection 26 (1) of the Air Navigation Act 1920 (`the Act') provides, in part, that the Governor-General may make regulations not inconsistent with the Act prescribing all matters which by the Act are required or permitted to be prescribed or which are necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act, and regulations in relation to air navigation, being regulations with respect to any other matter which the Parliament has power to make laws. Paragraph 26(2)(a) of the Act provides that without limiting the generality of subsection 26(1), regulations may be made for or in relation to aviation security.

The Government decided in November 2003 that pilots were to be subject to background checking from 1 July 2004. Regulations are required to give effect to this decision, in particular to ensure that certain persons may be excluded from applying for a flight crew licence where they are deemed to have an adverse security status.

The purpose of the Regulations is to allow background checking to be conducted on applicants for flight crew licences, and to allow the Secretary of the Department of Transport and Regional Services to declare someone as having adverse security status, therefore making them ineligible to apply for a flight crew licence.

The Regulations also:

•       allow for the exchange of personal information between the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the Department of Transport and Regional Services (`the Department'), the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police to facilitate background checking;

•       provide that the Secretary must inform both CASA and the relevant person that the relevant person has been declared to have an adverse security status;

•       allow a person who is declared to have an adverse security status to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal; and

•       allow the Secretary's power to declare a person as having an adverse security status to be delegated to SES and EL2 employees in the Department.

The Act specifies no conditions that need to be met before the power to make the proposed Regulations may be exercised.

The Regulations commence on 9 July 2004.

Authority:       Subsection 26(1) of the Air Navigation Act 1920.