Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today is another sad day for regional tourism. Regional tourism operators are really hoping that they can start to recover some of the money and business lost last year through the pandemic and as a result of border closures and restricted travel for well over 12 months. Today they woke to read that Rex Airlines is cutting some of its regional routes. They say they are doing this due to predatory behaviour by Qantas. However, the routes they are cutting are routes that only Rex services. It is a very sad day.

I understand that regional aviation is an expensive business to be in, and I also understand that businesses need to, at the very least, break even. At the same time, Qantas has announced that it will develop some new routes into regional areas, including, for example, Adelaide to Mount Gambier, Griffith to Sydney, and Melbourne to Merimbula. However, these are routes that are already serviced, whereas the routes that Rex cut in order to compete against Qantas on these new routes are routes that aren't serviced by anyone else. For example, the Bathurst to Sydney and Cooma to Sydney routes were only serviced by Rex. The community of Cooma had advocated for years to get an airline service back to their community so that people could travel to Sydney for business, for medical appointments or for recreation. We are now going to see that service closed down again. It must be heartbreaking for the community of Cooma. They're also cutting the Adelaide to King Island route; there is no easy alternative to get from Adelaide to King Island.

I can understand that the regional communities that depended upon these aviation routes must be feeling absolutely devastated, particularly the small businesses and tourism operators that had relied on people being able to get to their communities easily and efficiently and people living in these communities who relied on these airlines to get to things like medical appointments. Importantly, this move has longer-term impacts on the communities in rural and regional Australia. We know competition is a mechanism that helps drive efficiencies and potentially cut prices, but, where competition leads to a business undermining its own sustainability, it's not healthy competition at all. Competition that is a race to the bottom is a race that is lost to all.

I just want to let these regional communities know that I stand with them. I will be advocating on their behalf to all airlines to have a look at these regional routes and to reassess. Instead of looking at paths where they see an easy, competitive mechanism, maybe they could look for where the gaps are and at how to get people into regional Australia to help revive our regions, help their business and help other regional businesses across Australia.