Australian security checks spark diplomatic row

CANBERRA - Helen Clark is now in good company.

Two other international dignitaries have joined her in being pulled aside and given the once-over by Australia's zealous immigration security staff.

Passing through Melbourne in October 2003, Clark was plucked from the queue and subjected to a body scan, even after security officers were told she was Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare is so incensed at having to take his shoes off while passing through Brisbane Airport he is threatening to refuse Australian aid.

In Port Moresby, demonstrators marched on the Australian High Commission to demand an apology.

Now Somnath Chatterjee, Speaker of India's Lower House of Parliament, has cancelled a trip Downunder because Australian officials refused to waive normal security checks.

Unlike Clark, who did not object at the time and appeared only mildly miffed in public comments, Somare and Chatterjee have come out punching at an unrepentant Australia.

Canberra's position, as it was when Clark was screened, is that security checks are non-discriminatory and anyone arriving on a commercial flight is subject to them.

Prime Minister John Howard told Melbourne radio his wife Janette had been required to remove her shoes at foreign airports and now routinely took them off because they contained strips that set off metal detectors.

Howard has not himself been singled out for extra checks, but Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told ABC radio: "He would indeed remove his shoes if the detection device indicated there was metal in his shoes - of course he would.

"I think I should make it absolutely clear as we have done to everybody regardless of what country they come from, that if they use commercial aircraft there are the arrangements, this is the law of the land."

Downer said arrangements could be made for Somare to be screened in private on future visits if necessary, and that private screening had been offered to Chatterjee.

But neither was mollified.

Somare told PNG reporters that he had never been subjected to such insulting treatment and that he considered it an offence to leadership in the region.

He has put on hold acceptance of an A$800 million ($860 million) Australian aid package until Canberra apologises, which Australia has made clear it has no intention of doing.

"It is a question of us providing support to them - not the other way round - and so, ultimately, they are the masters of their own destiny, not us," Downer said.

In New Delhi, Chatterjee has cancelled an official visit to Australia to attend the executive committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

"I don't think the Speaker of a country can be treated as a security risk," he told Indian reporters. "It is an affront to India and its Parliament.