The Transport Security Act in Australia was drafted in a hurry by bureaucrats in the Howard Government and with a premise that 'pilots' had committed the September 11 terrorist attacks.
As we all now know the terrorists were not qualified pilots, but terrorists who exploited an unsuspecting flight training industry and had undergone sufficient flight training to 'point and shoot' aircraft on the day that had been placed either in climb or cruise by the respective flight crews.
These truths need to be considered in the light of the worldwide tightening of security assessment now associated with those seeking to undertake flight training and the Act in Australia needs to be revised for all the very sensibly reasoned arguments in the earlier posts on this thread.
Airline Crews are responsible for all the security aspects underscored by the TSA and the aircraft Captain under the Civil Aviation Act and the CARs is totally responsible for aircraft safety and security.
These facts were ignored by the public servants who drafted the TSA and it is past time to conduct a practical retrospective on the TSA with a view to recognising flight crew responsibilities and re-according them the respect that should be associated with their responsibilites under the law.