A News Limited exposé on airport security lapses has the airlines and airports in stitches even before its expected publication tomorrow.

Crikey has been shown a list, readily available from the Office of Transport Security, which News is believed to have paid for through the FOI process, of “aviation incidents” at airports in the past 18 months.

It contains at least 122 incidents, including 43 at Sydney Airport, 30 at Perth, 16 at Melbourne’s Tullamarine, and 15 at Brisbane. Sources say these will be used to blast a scandalous lack of security at the major airports.

But this is where the giggles begin.

It is overwhelmingly a list of detected breaches or attempts to breach airport security.

Such as one detection of knitting needles at Hobart Airport, and at least two knitting needle discoveries at Sydney Airport.

It must have been an exciting moment at Melbourne Airport on January 12 last year when a hand grenade was imaged by hand luggage X-rays. It turned out to be a replica. Would have also been a  thrill when a bullet was found on a seat of a jet that had arrived at Melbourne Airport on May 16, last year.

However the list does appear to be somewhat anodyne or incomplete in places.

While the bikie murder in Qantas domestic terminal at Sydney Airport on March 22 last year is noted “assault detected at terminal, four males apprehended”, there appears to be no record of passenger disorder at either Sydney nor Perth after well-reported stuff-ups by various carriers that left passengers stranded late at night.

It is also hard to believe that fewer than 10 people were reported as making inappropriate comments about things such as bombs or hijackings to airline or security staff.

The list seems to be an endorsement of security at Australian airports, in that almost all of the incidents involved people getting caught doing potentially illegal things, such as smuggling toothpaste, or reporting themselves when they realised that it was actually a capsicum spray can in their pocket, or a retracted box cutter.

It includes, however, a small number of large scale screw-ups by security. For example, where people entered the airside part of a terminal through doors only intended to be used as exits, resulting in the massive inconvenience of unloading planes ready to depart and emptying the buildings in order to rescreen everyone who had been inside.

And there are a few mysteries, where passengers self-reported carrying a knife, apparently a small one, only to have it returned to them before boarding their flight. This was  also the case at Sydney for a passenger who brought a “properly documented” empty rifle into terminal but “forgot” to empty a magazine not attached to it.

He and the rifle continued their journey together, minus the bullets.

And several passengers and at least one airline employee refused screening, or requested an exemption, and were in each case ejected from the terminal.

There may be a case that airport security in Australia is full of holes and a joke. There is definitely a case to be made that security arrangements in this country are in general theatrical or token in nature.

But the list of reported incidents lends no support to the view that there is a wholesale evasion of security protocols by the public.

Rather it seems that we are going along with  sensible and nonsensical security measures at airports, and, apart from a murder and the odd bullet, sword, or tube of toothpaste, behaving ourselves.