Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill 2009 and the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009, which are being debated together. These bills reflect the Rudd Labor’s government’s commitment to a strong and safe aviation industry. I enjoyed listening to the previous speaker’s analysis of this matter, particularly in relation to regional airlines’ access to Sydney airport. As someone who flies from capital city to capital city, I do find it frustrating to queue up at Mascot behind a couple of small prop jets with maybe 12 or 20 people in them while several jets with hundreds of people in them are delayed. As a capital city dweller or a city slicker I have railed against those regional jets holding up much bigger groups of passengers travelling from capital city to capital city or, indeed, from overseas. So it was interesting to hear that particular perspective even if it was not directly related to the contents of these bills.

There are a number of obvious reasons why this government is so committed to reform in this area to ensure that a strong and safe aviation industry continues to serve Australia’s interests over the next not only few years but couple of decades. It is a critical industry for our country, most obviously because we are an island economy. Airline links to the rest of the world are very critical for not only our lifestyle but our economic prosperity, especially in areas of particular interest to me such as tourism but also for freight. So it is important as an island that we have a strong, safe, vibrant aviation sector, and these bills go towards that end. As a large continent, it is also very important for internal domestic reasons that our aviation industry remains strong and safe. It is important in ways that smaller, more densely populated countries in continents with sophisticated rail and road networks do not really understand. The previous speaker spoke about the capacity to substitute an air trip for a road trip if the schedule does not suit. But in many parts of this continent, unlike much of travel within the US or Europe, particularly Great Britain, there is simply no alternative to air travel. So it is very important that Australians have confidence in a strong and safe aviation industry.

It is an industry which is a very large source of employment. They are secure and well-paid jobs, by and large, in the aviation industry, which employs around 50,000 Australians. It is an industry which, particularly in our region, the Asia-Pacific region, is experiencing very significant growth. In spite of the global recession and the downward pressure that the economic turmoil we are experiencing at the moment is placing on international air travel, particularly leisure travel and business travel, the Asia-Pacific region, particularly around China and India, but not exclusively, is experiencing very strong growth.

That poses a range of opportunities for Australia, including its tourism industry, but it also poses increased competition for our airlines and airlines from the region which fly to and from Australia. Increased competition in the sector always places if not pressure then at least the perception of pressure on things like maintenance, quality of service, security and safety standards. As I say, if there is not pressure then there is at least the perception of pressure and the need for increased public confidence that those very important aspects of aviation are not being sacrificed in order to deal with the increased competition which the aviation industry is facing in the Asia-Pacific.

The government are—as are all members of this House, I am sure—committed to setting a very strong platform for this industry over the coming 20 years and more. As with so many areas of reform undertaken by this government, we have set about a very detailed consultation process with the community to ensure we do that right. Firstly, in April 2008 the government issued an issues paper intended to stimulate debate within the community about the need for reform in this area. It was a paper that attracted over 290 submissions, indicating a very high level of interest in the community not only from big players in the aviation industry but also from ordinary members of the community—community groups impacted by the activities of airports and suchlike.

After consideration of that issues paper in December 2008, the government, or the minister particularly, issued a green paper which contains a number of proposals which will be the subject of ongoing discussion over coming months but also some proposals highlighted for early action which are the subject of these bills. As I just foreshadowed, there is intended to be ongoing discussion over the course of this year about a number of the issues raised in the green paper, with the government intending to issue a white paper later in 2009.

There has been very strong support from stakeholders in this industry, including the big players, for this very considered, consultative approach to reform of aviation. There has also been strong support for these bills. The first bill is the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill 2009. It largely deals with the governance and powers of CASA. The recommendations are largely drawn from a unanimous Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport report in September 2008 but also pick up a number of issues foreshadowed in the green paper that followed that Senate report a couple of months later.

There are four components to the bill. The first component, as the previous speaker and other speakers have indicated, reintroduces a board to the governance structure of CASA, a board that was abolished in 2003. After that abolition, the sole decision-making authority within CASA lay with the chief executive officer, who also holds the statutory office of Director of Aviation Safety. CASA is a hugely complex and self-evidently important organisation within Australia. It employs some 600 staff and has responsibility for some of the most critical elements of community safety that we know of.

The green paper describes the role of CASA much better than that I could. Just to highlight the breadth of responsibility that this chief executive officer has in a strategic sense as well as in a day-to-day management sense, the green paper says on page 52:

CASA oversees the activities of over 42,000 licensed industry personnel (including pilots, Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers and Air Traffic Controllers), over 13,000 registered aircraft, more than 850 general aviation operators, more than 40 airline operators, over 700 maintenance organisations, more than 170 certified aerodromes, more than 130 registered aerodromes, and 26 air traffic control (ATC) facilities including major ATC centres in Brisbane and Melbourne.

CASA has a complicated dual role, being required to work constructively day-to-day with the industry it regulates, but also needing to take firm regulatory action against industry where necessary to ensure safety.

The Senate report I referred to earlier that reported in September 2008 heard overwhelming support from the industry for the reintroduction of a board structure into CASA. Certainly it is no reflection on the chief executive officer, who does a very outstanding job, but nevertheless all the key players that I have been able to research and which gave evidence to the Senate committee have indicated their support for a board structure. For example, going to that committee report at paragraph 2.99:

… Qantas submitted that the current governance structures are not delivering consistent policy direction and that the current responsibilities of the CEO are too broad.

They supported the concept of the reintroduction of the board structure. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association was also said to be supportive of this. Paragraph 2.101 said:

The committee heard evidence from a number of witnesses suggesting the re-establishment of the CASA board would have benefits for the governance of the organisation. AOPA told the committee that it considered the reintroduction of a board would provide a level of accountability for the CASA CEO and senior management.

The union for Qantas pilots, AIPA, also supported this approach. At paragraph 2.103 it says:

Captain Ian Woods from AIPA told the committee that, in his opinion, the re-establishment of a board would give CASA the ability to operate independently, with confidence, and in the public interest.

Lastly, but not least, the Australian Sport Aviation Confederation, ASAC, said in paragraph 2.104 that it also supported the reintroduction of the CASA board.

Although much of the green paper contains proposals for discussion leading up to the issuing of a white paper later this year, the green paper did foreshadow the intention of the government to act on that unanimous Senate committee recommendation before July 2009, which is how we find ourselves debating these bills today.

Within these bills, the government is proposing to introduce a five-member board. It is very clearly intended not to have members that represent sectional interests of the aviation industry but to have members with broad skills and experience relevant to the job. The job of the board will be to set the strategic direction of the organisation of CASA. The chief executive officer will properly be an ex-officio board member, responsible to the board for the performance of his or her duties and responsible to manage the day-to-day operations of the organisation that I outlined earlier from the green paper quote.

The legislation also deals with concerns within the industry that were highlighted in the issues paper and the discussions that followed that—concerns in the industry that the automatic stay provisions involved in safety investigations have become overly lax. The bill provides now that those automatic stay provisions will last for a maximum of only five days and that any extension of those provisions will only be able to be approved by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The third component of the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill reflects the identification in the green paper of the need to tighten CASA’s oversight of foreign operators. I talked in my introduction about the growth of competition within our region, which reflects—or is reflected by, depending on your perspective—a proliferation of new airlines within the region, including some low-cost and some more mainstream operators. From a tourism and consumer perspective, this is a good thing. Increased competition is driving down airline prices and, to quote an ad, ‘democratising air travel’ for many people within a region that is—not before time—finally becoming richer.

But the Australian community, Australian travellers and the Australian aviation industry need to know more about what these aviation operators have in their safety backgrounds. We need to know more than simply what those operators do while they happen to be in Australia, and this bill does that. The bill will now allow CASA to take account of a number of factors not currently within its purview: firstly, the conduct of those operators offshore, not just when they happen to be within the Australian jurisdiction; and, secondly, the level of safety oversight provided by the overseas equivalents of CASA within the home jurisdictions of the various airlines that now come to Australia.

The fourth and final component is that the bill closes a loophole in offences that are designed to protect the sector—and passengers, for that matter—from the carriage of dangerous goods. The act now contains an offence dealing with the carriage or the consignment of dangerous goods on aircraft. To close a loophole, this bill adds a further offence that deals with the negligent, as opposed to the wilful, carriage or consignment of dangerous goods on aircraft. It is self-evident that this is an important loophole to be closed.

The second bill is the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009. It is also directed at improving or increasing public confidence in the safety regulation of the aviation industry. In a nutshell, the bill delivers greater independence to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is currently an independent statutory agency run by a chief commissioner and a number of part-time commissioners. The level of independence currently in the act has been regarded by most in the industry and by this government as insufficient. The Miller review in 2007 recommended greater independence, and this bill delivers that, as was foreshadowed in the green paper.

The bill removes the bureau from any direction from the government, except that the minister can direct a particular incident to be investigated. Independence in this area is a core element of public confidence in an investigation authority, and this bill improves and solidifies the public confidence in an already outstanding bureau. I add for completeness that the level of independence contained within this bill is an element of the Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation and so reflects our existing international obligations.

In summary, these bills together constitute a very significant advance in improving public confidence in our aviation regulation. There is more to come. The minister, and the government more generally, is still engaged in a detailed consultation process arising out of the matters raised in the green paper. As I indicated earlier, we will see a white paper issued later this year that no doubt will contain a number of other important recommendations for reform in this area. The government is committed to a vibrant, safe and sustainable aviation industry well into the future, and these bills go a long way towards delivering that objective. I commend them to the House.

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