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

I thank my colleagues for their contributions, some more than others, to this debate on the Air Navigation and Civil Aviation Amendment (Aircraft Crew) Bill 2011. I want to address some of the contributions because they cannot be allowed to go unanswered. Firstly, Senator Gallacher says that this is not the way to go, but I note the senator's long interest and passionate advocacy in the transport industry. We have no dispute about that, but what I take issue with is the government's approach that says this is not the way to go. It raises a whole range of other issues and it pre-empts CASA on team management as well. When did CASA first raise the issue of team management? There was a discussion paper released on 25 August 2004. I reckon it is coming up to eight years; I think that is more than enough time. The fact is that the parliament has an obligation to act where there is a loophole. The parliament has an obligation to fix a problem that needs to be fixed. This is a problem that needs to be fixed.

It is fair to say that the government has fundamentally misunderstood the intent and the scope of this bill, as has Senator Edwards. The amendments were moved as a result of the committee process—and the committee process was a valuable one—to say that this was simply too broad. That is why I have introduced those amendments: to narrow the scope of the bill, to sort out the loophole that it is intended to fix. That loophole is: if you are on an Australian registered aircraft, a VH designated aircraft, on a domestic route that carries domestic passengers, then that cabin crew should be subject to the Fair Work Act; they should be subject to Australian terms and conditions. Anything less than that would be exploitation of those crews that are based overseas; anything less than that is actually taking away Australian jobs in circumstances where there appears to be an abuse of the special visas that are issued, because they would not be able to get a 457 visa in those circumstances. The amendments are the key to this and the amendments arose as a result of a committee process. That is something that this place does best: in a Senate committee we can rigorously assess legislation and subject it to scrutiny. I readily acknowledge that the legislation needed to be amended to narrow its scope and to remedy the mischief, if you like, of what is occurring right now.

Enough is enough. CASA has been talking about this for years. CASA does have a lot of work to do. I am not being critical of CASA, but I think it is unfair for CASA to throw its hands up and say that this is unnecessary in its amended form. I am not sure that that is what it is saying, but in any event the parliament has a role to sort this out.

Senator Joyce says that this bill will compromise the capacity of an airline to deal in the market it operates in and that it burdens airlines with more regulations and conditions. The key to this is the market in which these airlines operate. If it is a domestic flight—if it is carrying domestic passengers—it ought to be paying Australian wages and conditions or be subject to those rules, including fatigue management rules. The fact is if you have a flight with Etihad or United Airlines between Sydney and Melbourne, they cannot carry domestic passengers. They cannot, because rules of cabotage apply. They cannot do that, but Australian registered carriers can. That is a loophole that allows cabin crew to be paid much less than their Australian counterparts. What is worse, they are not subject to the same rules for fatigue management, and that is a real concern. As Senator Madigan pointed out so well, there is a real issue here with fundamental matters of safety. Senator Gallacher made the point that, if there is an emergency, you have to get people off an aircraft within 90 seconds. When you have cabin crew that have come forward to say, 'We are not safe to operate on an aircraft because we are so fatigued, because we are simply so exhausted, because we are simply so sleep deprived,' how on earth is that reasonable?

I thank Senator Edwards for his contribution, but he says that this is about an Australian company opening up its markets overseas. I think that criticism would be valid if we were talking about the bill in its original form, but the amendments sort that out once and for all. They unambiguously set out that the intent of this bill is to deal with domestic legs of flights where you are carrying domestic passengers and the way that they can be tagged as international flights. It is being abused, it is a loophole, people are being exploited and, what is more, it is taking away Australian jobs.

Senator Edwards mentioned that Qantas is a strong, iconic brand. I have no issue with Senator Edwards saying that. But why is it that so many of this company's 30,000 employees are fundamentally unhappy with the direction of the airline? Why is it that so many of the terrific men and women that work in Qantas on the ground and in the air, do the maintenance, fly the planes and crew the cabins are so fundamentally in despair over the direction that this airline is taking? Why is it that when something like 150 catering jobs were lost in Adelaide, those employees found out about it through the media? I think that shows disdain for the workforce, which must be noted.

These are matters that must be dealt with. Senator Edwards referred to the issue of the Qantas grounding; I will refer to that in speaking on the next bill. I think Senator Ludlam will also be making a contribution on the next bill. I thank the Australian Greens for their support of this bill and I thank Senator Madigan from the Democratic Labor Party for his support.

I wanted to reflect on the mischief here and on what the safety issues are. Government agencies in the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom have recently responded with increasing vigour to what has been described as a 'call to arms' to address the largesse of concerns that indicate that they collectively may have been complacent rather than chronically uneasy about underlying threats to and weaknesses in the modern aviation industry. This loophole is one of these weaknesses. Yet here in Australia the government response to the June 2011 report of the Senate Rural Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry into pilot training and airline safety was one of almost disdain for the issues unearthed, and we barely scraped the surface of those issues in that inquiry.

When you consider that those who have been at the forefront of raising these concerns are cabin crew and flight crew, I think that more than anyone they have a vested interest in the safety of their passengers. I want to back the concerns of pilots and cabin crew when it comes to issues of genuine safety concerns. For that matter, how well did Qantas, as a significant shareholder in Tour East Thailand, communicate its corporate ethos in regard to staff relationships, safety and fatigue management and just culture—that is, the culture of being able to complain about safety issues without fear of recrimination—to its crew? I can tell you, they did not. Those crew based in Thailand are by and large terrified of repercussions if they speak out on safety issues. They are terrified of taking sick leave even if they are unwell or injured. They are terrified of speaking out about fatigue issues. Qantas says, 'It is not our company,' but they have a 37 per cent shareholding in it.

I also want to reflect on what will happen if we do not act on this. If we do not act on this we will continue to unnecessarily put the lives of passengers at risk with fatigued crew. We will continue to have a situation where there are two classes of crew on a Jetstar aircraft—or indeed any other aircraft of an Australian airline—that is flying domestic routes tagged as an international flight. If an Australian Labor Party government can sort out the issue of our coastal trade, our shipping, to ensure that there are fair wages and conditions paid on a domestic shipping route where you are carrying domestic cargo, why on earth can't this be fixed? This should really be a straightforward matter.

While fatigue in pilots is the most obvious risk to flight safety, there are other personnel who may be required to make decisions or act in some way to preserve, or certainly not endanger, the lives and wellbeing of the travelling public and those who may, for however brief a moment, be under the flight path of an aircraft. It seems that the government and its aviation portfolio agencies think that these things are not important. Perhaps the opposition still thinks that the bill is an unnecessary interference in the conduct of business. Fortunately, the Fair Work Ombudsman does not share that view and has chosen to prosecute Jetstar over its entirely messy exploitation of cadet pilots under sham arrangements via New Zealand contracts of employment. Of course, the Fair Work Ombudsman has yet to report on its other active investigation into foreign cabin crew employment practices, but let us wait and see what that inquiry reveals.

Finally, I want to thank a person that I have relied on for good advice in relation to this, someone who I believe has great integrity—that is, Captain Dick MacKerras, who used to be chief checking captain for Cobham Airlines. He has also been giving advice to AIPA, the Australian and International Pilots Association. He is Adelaide based. As a former CASA employee dealing with these issues, he knows his regulations. I am very grateful for his technical expertise and wise advice in relation to these matters. Captain MacKerras is, like so many others in the airline industry, passionate about safety, passionate about getting it right. And right now we are making a mess of things when it comes to cabin crew, fatigue issues and so-called tagged flights being completely exploited in the context of saving a few bucks. That saving of a few bucks potentially compromises safety, but fundamentally it is wrong in the way that it exploits those workers who are based overseas and who work under lesser conditions on what are essentially domestic flights. That needs to stop. That is what this bill is about. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.