Camel man will say sorry

The West, 12 April 2005, p.3:

"The baggage handler who paraded across a Sydney Airport tarmac in a camel suit will meet the man whose bag he took it from to apologise.

"The sacked handler plans to meet David Cox, who said yesterday he felt terrible that the father of two had lost his job and would accept the apology."

Shades of the plastic-spider-in-the-meat-pack affair of a year or two ago... The apprentice butcher was sacked -- but gained a new position with a butcher with a better sense of humour. The baggage handler was also a larrikin, someone who just saw the possibility of a joke, but it went a bit too far. Except for the report further on in the same paper...

..o0o..

Thinking Lateral
Need new thinking for your own problems? email nick leth at gmail dot com

Corby lawyers to present reports of baggage tampering (p.9)

Who are these people, these baggage handlers, who seem to have free access to poke around inside our baggage?! The Schappelle Corby case hinges on a story of someone -- someone in the baggage handler area would be my guess -- who stuffed kilograms of cannabis inside Corby's baggage. That story becomes more believable when a baggage handler not only pokes around inside baggage -- but he pulls out the contents and casually tries on the camel suit! What was he really looking for: money? jewels? a good laugh at someone else's expense?

I suggest that we need some sort of control over people who really have no business at all accessing the baggage that they are handling. Their job is to move it, not to explore inside. It seems a bit extreme but -- in light of the cannabis smuggling accusations -- perhaps we need to see our luggage sealed before we let it out of our sight.

Then there's that parade across the tarmac...

Is this man an idiot? Sure, he can be offensively intrusive in the "privacy" of the baggage handlers' area. It's just him, his mates, a few cannabis smugglers -- noone who will report his stupidity to those who care. Then he parades out into a public area... What a drongo!

Do we have airport security?

So what about airport security? The government has introduced new rules, including the need for every person in a secure area to wear a government-approved ID badge. Red badges for high security areas, grey for low security areas. These are anti-terrorist measures. You must be a current employee to enter secure areas.

Okay then... We have employees who search through baggage, who remove and use what they find. Are there others who remove and keep what they find? We have -- allegedly -- employees who add cannabis to baggage and who are so stupid that they forget to remove it at its intended destination. What else are they smuggling in our baggage?

We need some means of protecting our baggage. I don't want to be an unknowing smuggler. I don't even want baggage handlers prying through my baggage. At least one overseas airport inspects baggage -- with the owner -- then seals it with tape. We may not need the same system in Australia. As individuals, though, we may need to consider sealing our own luggage, before we trust it to the backroom antics of the Sydney airport baggage handlers.

..o0o..

Independent Thinking
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