Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the disallowance motion relating to the Aviation Transport Security Amendment (Security Controlled Airports) Regulations 2019. Unlike Labor, the National Party know where the regions are and we fight for the regions every day. We don't just talk about it; we deliver, and that's what we've done tonight.

I'd like to start by affirming my support for the minister's actions in taking these additional steps to secure passenger security. Last week I chaired the Regional and Rural Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee hearing into the introduction of additional security measures to regional airports. These security changes were proposed on the basis of a recommendation arising from a report of the Inspector of Transport Security, ITS, titled Review into security at Australia's security regulated airports. This report contains information that is protected under the Inspector of Transport Security Act 2006. Protected information under this act includes information or documents obtained or generated in the course of exercising powers or performing functions under the ITS Act. The release of the ITS report would have a substantial adverse effect on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the Department of Home Affairs, and the inspector recommended that this report not be made public.

But, sadly, the world is now a place where airport security is an important element for our national security and, most importantly, for our safety, and we rely on the evidence and the advice of experts like the ITS to provide the most up-to-date advice to ensure our airways remain the important connection between regions and cities and that they remain safe. Labor spent a considerable amount of time going over and over a line of questioning over this confidential advice, which was a real distraction from the most important issue, which is: who pays for us to enjoy the national umbrella of safety?

The decisions taken by the Minister for Home Affairs in this regard are important, and I doubt that anyone of any intelligence would question the outcome of greater security utilising the best available technology. I, like every National Party member, undertook to come to this place to represent the people who live in the very places where aviation was born in Australia and to respond to the potential impacts of security charges on regional aviation. The current security measures generally in place at most airports in Australia are as a result of the tragedy of September 11, and the responsibility for ensuring these measures rests with each airport, which is designated as the screening authority charged with operating the security functions. This includes the cost of the procurement and maintenance of capital equipment and also the cost of the screening personnel. These costs are typically recovered via a per passenger charge that is collected by the airlines on each ticket sold and passed back to the airports.

Regional aviation is critical to the success of regional Australia. It allows people to stay connected to their broader communities, to their families, sporting events and holidays, to businesses and to tourism. The ability to fly from Brisbane to Charleville meant I didn't have to drive eight hours in the middle of summer, at six months pregnant, for a much-loved cousin's wedding at Tambo which otherwise I could not have attended. Flights also give people easy access to the Stockman's Hall of Fame at Longreach and the Australian Age of Dinosaurs museum near Winton. Longreach holds the nation's soul in its dusty streets, and the Qantas museum, the Stockman's Hall of Fame and Cooper Creek sunset tours are all must-do tourist activities. And just two hours up the road Winton has a world-registered dark sky sanctuary, where stargazers congregate for crystal-clear views of the heavens. The town also has the Waltzing Matilda Centre and the Australian Age of Dinosaurs museum, where it is impossible not to be infected with museum founder David Elliott's enthusiasm for Australia's prehistoric past, when monsters roamed the outback.

But to give you some perspective: Winton is 500 kilometres from Townsville, 760 kilometres from Rockhampton and nearly 1,200 kilometres from Brisbane. Driving there through the outback is a special event, but many people are denied the opportunity to visit these towns. I hear city based friends talking of mini-breaks. They have the luxury of jumping on a cheap flight to another capital city for a weekend away. The low cost and high frequency of city-to-city flights is completely unimaginable for regionally based Queenslanders. Mount Isa, Roma, Emerald and Rockhampton are all regional centres that value commercial flights so highly. Miners and boarding school kids fill and empty these airports with well-practised ease. High-vis clothes, hard hats and Western hats mix together as miners arrive and depart, and country kids come home from boarding schools excited and leave glassy eyed with emotion. Last time I left Mackay airport, a lady needed a hand. She was travelling to Brisbane for cancer treatment. She was alone. She had no family to get her there or to meet her, but air travel allowed her to get to the specialist 11 hours drive away. In Mount Isa a family considers whether to travel to Townsville to watch their beloved North Queensland Cowboys play. They could drive 10 hours each way but often opt to fork out $500 each to fly, and that's if they're lucky, because surge pricing around Cowboys games can push the costs up significantly. Christmas holidays can feel not very Christmassy at all. Usually, I can fly with the kids for about $300 one way, but last year, on 13 December, I was caught out when airfares skyrocketed to $900 per person one way. Fortunately, it was not an unplanned trip for a funeral or a family emergency or even for a business emergency requiring expert help to be flown to a regional area, which adds significant costs to any regional business. Hopefully, this is painting a picture for you of an essential industry for the many people who live and work in regional Australia, where the tyranny of distance has such a huge effect and where price fluctuations due to airline policies, privatised airports and government regulation make the necessity of air travel horribly expensive for tourists, for families and for business.

When each of us come to this place we come with a sense of purpose, of who we fight for and who we represent. We know the places we come from and the things that are so important to our communities and our people, because people matter. In my maiden speech only last year I spoke about the chasm between city and country, between the people who generate the great wealth of this nation in agriculture, mining and tourism and the cities, where we all seem to need to get to.

One of the silver linings of this corona crisis is the realisation of what we can now do with technology. Remote working, online education, telemedicine, wi-fi notifications and verifications from mobile phones have all come forward at a pace that would not have been imaginable without the urgency of a pandemic. But one of the things we have not been able to solve is how to move ourselves one place to another in a way that is both affordable and safe. It costs 86c for each person to be processed through security in Sydney but more than $30 per person in a regional centre. At Townsville airport this charge is presently $2.71 per departing and arriving passenger and in Mount Isa it's $6.22. Industry is very mindful that these costs are an impost on travel, especially for smaller regional airports, where the costs are typically higher due to low economies of scale. Remember that these are all numbers generated on pre-COVID modelling and numbers.

From January 2021, body scanners and advanced CT X-ray scanning equipment will be introduced at many airports, including Townsville. This will require major redevelopment works. While the federal government has provided funding for the works, airports will have to factor in the increased cost, which will eventually be borne by air travellers. Practically speaking, I understand that the cost of screening would have been invoiced as a lump sum to each airline, who in turn would have claimed it back from the federal government. It is an arrangement that had industry support, but it seems to me, as it seems to my National Party colleagues, that these are all variations on the cost to deliver a single nationwide security network. A nationwide security network allows for a single price to be charged across the nation to cover the great throughput in Sydney and the much less frequent travellers regionally. If we require a nationwide solution then it goes without saying that a nationwide price is the answer.

Costs such as these do not seem significant, but as a retailer in my previous life I know how pricing changes can make the sale of a certain item vary considerably. It does not take a huge increase in costs to push a product out of the reach of average consumers, and in regional areas this can be a factor in stopping a young family moving out there to take one of the many well-paying and stable jobs that so desperately need to be filled.

As I considered these changes, I was forced to study the two incredibly important issues of national security and the costs of living in regional Australia in the one instrument. I support the Minister for Home Affairs in his decisions around where and how security screening is carried out. I believe with every fibre of my being that, as a nation, we cannot accept differential pricing to be loaded onto regional communities to achieve the nation's outcomes. I sincerely thank the minister for his work in reconsidering these costs in this regard.

As we move through this coronavirus crisis and international travel remains somewhere in the distant future, the success and availability of domestic travel will be critical to rebuilding tourism in this nation. I expect that state tourism bodies across the land are currently pitching marketing ideas to lure Australians to Cable Beach in Broome, to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum at Winton, to Whyalla, to Roma's Easter in the Country Festival and to Mindil Beach Sunset Markets in Darwin. Now is a critical time to be ensuring that regional Australians get a fair go—a fair go to attract Australians to see the very best that we have at a price they can afford and in the safe environment that they expect. Again, I want to acknowledge my National Party colleagues for their incredible determination to stand with me to negotiate a better deal for regional airports.