Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my colleagues for their contributions and I think that Senator Heffernan summed it all up pretty well. This is a bureaucratic blunder and it needs to be sorted out. Let us look at where the priorities are. I will just comment on what Senator Ludwig said. I trust Senator Ludwig on most things because he is a trustworthy person, but if it is a question of aircraft security I will trust the pilots. Senator Ludwig says that this will close a dangerous loophole. Well, it is dangerous for this regulation to stand given what the airline pilots have said about it.

I also think that it is very unfortunate that the government has gone down the path of invoking the terrible events of the September 11 terrorist attacks and those who were convicted only recently in the United Kingdom who were planning to blow up a number of transatlantic aircraft. So do not invoke September 11. Do not invoke terrorist attacks and planned terrorist attacks as some sort of shield to say that this is a good piece of regulation. I think it is clear that all of us want to maximise airline security and safety of passengers, but it is about how we do it and the best way of achieving it.

If the government wants to fix this up, it involves, effectively, two lines in the regulations: get rid of strict liability, and allow other pilots to sit in the jump seat—and this can be brought back very quickly. Let us reflect on what the airline pilots have said. They have said that there has been a lack of consultation and what I have been told by Australian airline pilots in relation to this is that there was no consultation on the development of these regulations with the airline pilots as required by the Legislative Instruments Act. Australian airline pilots were not advised of the development of this legislative instrument or given the opportunity to contribute to the development of a regulation that relates directly to their area of expertise and imposes criminal liability upon them. Going back to what Senator Ronaldson said about those split-second decisions, let the pilots do their job. Don’t let them have the spectre of strict liability, criminal liability, against them in terms of this.

There was no regulatory impact statement, according to the pilots, by the Office of Best Practice Regulations as required by government policy. And in terms of what Senator Back has said, Bret Walker SC has indicated that this regulatory change could have been achieved by minor amendments, but the government has not gone down that path. We have got a situation here where the pilots say that this will reduce rather than increase airline safety, that these regulations are punitive and that the regulatory change is inconsistent with global best practice. To this extent, I commend the work of Senator Wortley and Senator Back and all those who worked on the Regulations and Ordinances Committee because they have revealed what I see as significant problems with these regulations.

The Airline Pilots Association International has 58,000 members. It is based in Washington DC, and this is what they said about these proposed changes. They said:

We struggled with the issue of cockpit access here in the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The initial government response was similar to what you are facing in Australia in the ban of all nonoperational crew members from the cockpit.

They went on to say:

We found that contrary to the intent of our regulators and legislators it did not increase safety and security but, in reality, adversely affected it.

So that is what we need to look at.

I think that what Senator Milne said about the issue of the culture of safety is important. What this will do is shift responsibility away from airline management and onto airline pilots. It is entirely counterproductive. That would be a retrograde step in terms of safety. I think that Senator Macdonald also made a number of important points in terms of the process here: it can be fixed with, effectively, two lines to resolve this once and for all.

I think that we need to sort this out. We need to do our job in the Senate to knock out these punitive regulations. They will be counterproductive in terms of airline safety. The government can go back to the drawing board and with some simple, clear and relatively minor amendments we can sort this out once and for all, and I urge all honourable senators to disallow these regulations.