Qantas boss Alan Joyce backs terror plan

Australia’s biggest airline will implement any measure recommended by government to reduce the terror risk at airports.

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, centre, and Qantas CEO Alan Joyce meet employees during a tour of the Qantas maintenance facility at Sydney Airport today.

Australia’s biggest airline, Qantas, has backed the Turnbull government’s new national security strategy and will implement any measure recommended by government to reduce the terror risk at airports.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said business should share responsibility on reducing the terror risk with police and the security agencies.

“Our position has always been that safety and security are our top priorities,” Mr Joyce said.

“If the experts recommend that there are changes to how we process passengers through the domestic airports, through the international airports we take that advice, we implement it and we believe that safety and security should be the top priority for every airline and, certainly, they are for us.”

Malcolm Turnbull released a national security strategy yesterday, aimed at preventing the kind of terrorist attack seen in Barcelona last week.

The “Strategy for Protecting Crowded Places from Terrorism’’ is effectively a guide for businesses that provides advice on how to protect public spaces from terror attacks.

The federal government is also considering a security clampdown at domestic airports, with cabinet last month presented with a proposal to introduce security checks that apply for international flights, including restrictions on liquids, identity checks and full body scanners.

Mr Joyce said the airline would adopt any proposal the security agencies recommend.

“Where the risk gets to the stage where we have to put extra security measures in that is absolutely the case,” Mr Joyce said.

“We have very close contact with the security agencies and with the government and whatever they recommend, whatever they ask us to do we will implement it.”

The strategy document released yesterday emerged from the Australia-New Zealand Counter-Terrorism Committee, the body that co-ordinates anti-terrorism efforts between the commonwealth and the states.

Bill Shorten also threw his support behind the strategy.

“Sometimes you have got to worry about cost, as you always should, it is taxpayer money, but this is one issue where cost shouldn’t be the driving issue. If it needs to be done, it should be done and it should be done as quickly as possible,” he said.

“On airport security, if the experts say we need to improve our security procedures around airports then we should.”