bosnich, I can only post in sympathy for you and your wife's experience...and I would say go forward with your complaint to your local MP. I am a regular aircrew member through Australian ports and I can say in all honesty, security "officers" there are amongst the very worst in the world. I have witnessed one in BNE who shouted at and abused an old lady, reducing the poor lady to tears, and who I then took issue with, causing an argument between us as I told him in no uncertain terms to leave her alone. As an aside, I related that story on here on yet another thread about security and I received a PM from the security manager at BNE airport asking for more details as he was quite shocked at the incident. In SYD I have on more than one occasion been told that I am getting randomly selected for "extra" security measures, which is mainly wiping my bag, and hat(
) for explosives. On one occasion I asked the officer if it was really necessary and he said, and I quote, "we can do this the hard way or the easy way"...I broke out into laughter and said to him, "What are you going to do? Handcuff me and throw me on the ground?"
I don't know what it is there, but honestly, the goons at airport security clearly feel they have some special powers that free them to act like complete a$$holes
