The white powder in a populated public area of Parliament House looked out of place, but the response seemed simple enough. There were procedures in place.
A Type 2 incident, which involves “powder out of place”, requires the area to be cordoned off. Staff are supposed to call a Hazmat team and the Australian federal police should be informed, with the option to use the mobile testing device which sits in the parliamentary basement.
Which is why security officers were “shocked” when one of their superiors wet his finger, stuck it in the loose powder and appeared to pop his finger back in his mouth.
“It’s salt,” he reportedly declared.
A security officer familiar with the incident, who spoke to Guardian Australia on the condition of anonymity, said the event on 22 November had quickly gained notoriety among security staff, who were still on alert after the loss of a confidential 1,000-page security manual 12 months before.
“We are all trained. We all know we have these policies and protocols for a reason,” the security officer said.
“What if someone had put that powder there to see how we would react? And there were no reports, the AFP were not informed, there was no review of the incident.
“Most times, these things are nothing. But it is for the times they are something that we have rigid processes in place. The AFP go to everyone’s electorate offices to tell the staff what to do if there is a white powder incident. And this happened in the federal parliamentary building.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Parliamentary Services, who liaised with the Speaker of the House and the president of the Senate, did not deny the incident had taken place, but declined to answer questions.
“DPS is unable to comment on matters relating to operational security,” she said.
The Labor senator Kimberley Kitching, whose questions at October’s estimates hearings revealed the loss of the parliamentary security manual by a contractor, said the seriousness of the incident demanded answers.
Kitching said she was already aware of the incident when contacted by Guardian Australia.
“The government has spent most of the summer making hysterical law and order claims about Victoria, but on Parliament House security they haven’t got their own house in order,” she said.
“Recklessly ignoring proper security protocols risks exposing everyone at Parliament House to the potentially catastrophic consequences of a white powder attack.”
New security measures to deal with such incidents were put in place after 2005, when powder was found in letters delivered to Parliament House. Those procedures have since been fine-tuned.
Roger Henning, of the private security company Homeland Security Asia Pacific, said he had “never heard of such a response in my decades of involvement in this sort of thing”.
“It is an absolute no-no to touch any powder, because you don’t know whether it is caustic, you don’t know how harmful it can be,” he said. “There is no place for this in Parliament House, or anywhere else.”
Tim Roberts, who runs Powdersafe, a company which develops safety procedures and products to deal with potential powder threats, said a number of new highly potent toxic drugs had made their way into Australia in recent years, with the potential to “cause serious health impacts”.
“I can’t believe that in this day and age, something like that would happen,” he said.
“Not only do those actions endanger that person’s life, they potentially cause an issue for emergency services and anyone else who may have to respond. To put your finger in an unknown substance is to play Russian roulette.”
Security has recently been tightened around parliament, with $126m spent on upgrades, including the controversial decision to build a fence around the building, for reasons which remain confidential.
