Then and Now - ASIAL Australian Security Industry Association

CELEBRATING 40 YEARS
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS
ASIAL 1969-2009
THEN AND NOW:
LICENSING AND TRAINING
By Rod Cowan*
76 //SECURITY INSIDER AUG/SEPT 2009

THEN AND NOW: ASIAL
Security, in its infancy, had little in the
way of licensing, with security
operatives lumped in with private
investigators and debt collectors under
various private inquiry agents‚ acts.
Until well into the 80s’ obtaining a licence was as simple as
filling out a form’ paying a fee, and taking it to a local licensing
sergeant at times a case of VB could expedite matters after
which you could strap a gun to your hip and protect premises,
go on patrol and provide cash carrying services; businessmen,
such as caravan park owners, were known to some to carry
concealed .357 Magnums for “personal protection”.
NSW was the first State to enact industry specific
legislation, when the then police minister, Peter Anderson (now
head of Macquarie University’s Centre for Police, Intelligence,
and CounterTerrorism), introduced the Security (Protection)
Industry Act 1985.
At association and institute meetings, the talk was of the
lack of consultation with industry claims Anderson rebuts but
the big question being whether there would be a grandfather
clause allowing those who had been in the industry for some
time to skip the required two days training (with an additional
day for firearms). As it happened, many security officers
welcomed the training, saying it helped them understand the
job and their legal rights much better. Far from the new
licensing requirements sounding the industry’s death knell, as
predicted, it spawned a whole new industry in security training
only a few companies offered such training before and a new
revenue stream for off-duty coppers working as trainers or
running their own training companies. Course material had to
be approved by the police licensing branch and run by a
sergeant (who said his qualifications for assessing training was
his training as a fitter and turner).
The next major turning point came in the mid 90s’ when
ASIAL, mainly through the work of its then president Larry
Circosta, developed a sophisticated model of co-regulation.
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SECURITY INSIDER AUG/SEPT 2009// 77

THEN AND NOW: ASIAL
1960s > 1970s > 1980s > 1990s
Circosta’s success in getting the attention of regulators helped
at a Federal level by South Australian senator, Nick Minchin, son
of ASIAL’s first president, Devon Minchin was highlighted in
1996, when he presented plans for industry regulation to a
national meeting of chief police officers, which were met with
nodding approval.
By now, a hotchpotch of laws and regulations had developed
in all eight Australian jurisdictions, with NSW, SA, and WA
providing the most comprehensive licensing regimes, while
other States and Territories overlooked key areas, such as
locksmiths and alarm monitoring centres.
A 1997 NSW Act, based on the ASIAL co-regulation
model, including a Master Licence scheme with mandatory
membership of an accredited industry body (seen as a core
element in ensuring compliance and standards), was hailed
as ground-breaking, attracting international attention and
praise from delegates from as far afield as the US, UK,
Denmark and China.
The wheels began to wobble, however, when under the guise
of competition, non-security associations were allowed to apply
for accreditation by late 1999 there were 10 such bodies.
Then, despite the success of security operations for the
Sydney 2000 Olympics, including temporary licensing schemes
and close co-operation between police and private security,
goodwill towards the industry quickly dissipated. Media
reporting of assaults, criminal activity, poor standards, and
incompetency reached a crescendo in 2004, with the death of
cricketer David Hookes during an altercation with a door
controller outside a Melbourne pub, and a Sydney cash-intransit
guard shooting a robber fleeing the scene. In both cases,
the security personnel were found not guilty in subsequent
prosecutions. Nonetheless, negative reports continued
unabated. In Adelaide, authorities voiced concern over bikie
gangs allegedly infiltrating the nightclub scene, selling illegal
drugs, laundering money and stirring up violence. Numerous
firearms thefts from security guards prompted the NSW Premier
Bob Carr to push for“vigorous reform” of the industry, telling
ABC radio:“I‚ve got no respect for the security industry with my
full support, the police minister, John Watkins, has been treating
them pretty roughly I think the way they’ve handled weapons, for
example, the sort of security they’ve applied, has been
shameful.
The inevitable response was for politicians to order wholesale
reviews of security legislation, resulting in ongoing amendments
and changes to laws. Such changes had little consistency, and
created all manner of practical difficulties, such as in
photographing, fingerprinting, and record checks slowing to
bring outstanding applications to unacceptable levels.Tensions
between regulators and industry began to grow.The Victorian
licensing regime, for example, with its dual system licensing for
some, registration for others was described by ASIAL’s President
78 //SECURITY INSIDER AUG/SEPT 2009
Security is still not there, yet. But if on track, COAG’s
efforts around security guarding could see standard
licensing categories, probity checks, competencies,
skills, and mobility in force by January 2010.
as “ill-considered, unworkable and driven politically”.
While the pugnacity of ASIAL’s former CEO,Terry Murphy, has
since given way to its current CEO Bryan de Caires’s consensus
building approach, ASIAL continues to work with States and
Territories towards creating nationally consistent co-regulatory
models of licensing.
But, federal mutual recognition activity could well see the
most far-reaching changes.
Already, in 2005, a special meeting of the Council of
Australian Governments (COAG) on counter terrorism had put in
train a raft of changes, affecting CCTV, monitoring, training and
licensing.
Based on the Mutual Recognition Act 1992, which enables
ministers from two or more states or territories to jointly declare
occupations equivalent, and the conditions needed to achieve
equivalence, a February 2006 COAG meeting agreed to new
measures to enable people with trade qualifications to move
more freely around Australia, without additional testing and
registration, saying full mutual recognition of vocational licences
should be in place by December 2008.
Security is still not there, yet. But if on track, COAG’s efforts
around security guarding could see standard licensing
categories, probity checks, competencies, skills, and mobility in
force by January 2010.
Which would be, after all, only 10 years longer than any real
progress on a national railway gauge.