Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Airspace Bill 2006 and the Airspace (Consequentials and Other Measures) Bill 2006. The primary focus of the bills is to transfer the function of airspace regulation from Airservices Australia to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, CASA. The Labor Party support this in principle, and so we will be supporting these bills.

The Airspace Bill 2006 will ultimately address the perception that a conflict of interest exists between the roles of Airservices as both a commercial air navigation service provider and the regulator of the level of service to be provided. This change is acceptable in terms of our support. The bill will then require the minister to make an Australian airspace policy statement on the administration and regulation of, and policy objectives for, Australian administered airspace. Labor welcome this as it has been one of the key areas in which problems have arisen. It will mean that, for the first time, the minister will have to do something about this public policy area, which will involve CASA. He will have to look at a number of issues that have arisen out of the roles that Airservices Australia and CASA play. Unfortunately, since the minister was appointed, he has shied away from these issues.

There are a number of very serious problems lying within the confines of CASA and its role that need to be resolved. I think we would acknowledge that these problems are very serious and ought to be attended to and that they cannot be solved by the minister or through his office alone. The Labor Party have outlined on a number of occasions in the Senate and in this place our belief that these problems are of such a serious nature that they ought to be considered by a Senate committee. We ought to have appropriate powers to do a proper and thorough investigation.

Labor have been seeking a full inquiry into the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. This position, which we believe is a reasonable one, has been on the record for a long time. Why do we want an inquiry? Because we have very serious and grave concerns about CASA’s performance and the fact that Australians are slowly losing faith in Australia’s aviation safety regime. This simply translates into people losing confidence in flying. That is unacceptable. I have spoken before in this House about the perception and the reality of air safety in Australia and about how it ought to be treated with the utmost importance. It should be front of mind in the minister’s actions and statements and in the conduct of the regulators responsible for this area.

There has also been a lot of public concern about why these issues have not been examined in detail by a parliamentary committee. The reason may appear simple on the surface, but the government has a majority in both houses and has the power and capacity to deal with this if it wants to. The government could come into this place today and set up a full inquiry to deal with some very serious issues of safety in Australia. It would be very welcome, but the government refuses to do that.

People might make value judgements about why the government refuses to acknowledge these problems and to act on them. Labor proposes that when this bill is considered in the Senate it should be referred to a committee. Such a committee should look at not just the Lockhart River tragedy but also the performance of CASA. The government’s ability to block such a move by using its Senate majority is wrong. The government should not block such an inquiry; it should move on and allow it to happen.

The Lockhart disaster could have been avoided but for CASA’s incompetence, and a number of issues are outstanding. If people disagree with that statement, there is an opportunity for an inquiry and we can find out whether that statement is right or wrong. There is the challenge for government: if the government believes that the statement I have just made is not true, it should set up a full inquiry. Let us find out whether or not it is right. People need to know whether CASA’s incompetence needs to be rectified to avoid any other tragedies in our skies in the future.

People need to feel confident that all that can be done is being done and that any actions or inactions of CASA will not be repeated in the future. To give some historical background, it was back in 2001 that CASA first knew about the ongoing compliance and structural problems of Transair but still did nothing about them. They were informed. CASA is supposed to be our safety regulator, an organisation entrusted with the safety of the flying public. Australia’s safety record is very good; I believe it is second to none. However, that is not to say that we cannot ever improve. Measures need to be taken to prevent such tragedies from happening because of the same structural regulatory problems. I think there is more that can be done.

Four years later, in May 2005, a Transair aircraft was involved in the tragic Lockhart River crash, in which 15 people were killed. This crash had many implications, not just for the ongoing conduct of CASA but also for the devastated families affected by this disaster. These families are still seeking answers as to why this happened in the first place. There is a perception amongst the families that this government is not interested in putting into place a full inquiry, which would give them confidence and a better understanding of what happened. It is beyond comprehension that this government could not understand the grief of the families and what they are going through. Its failure to understand the concerns of the flying public and to set up a full investigation, giving the power to the parliament to take on that investigation, is simply wrong.

These people feel they have been betrayed by the government, which has refused to do the decent thing about this very serious matter. The issue should be referred to a committee to be dealt with fully. I would like the members of the government to sit and think for a moment about what Shane Urquhart, the father of Sally Urquhart, one of the victims of this tragedy, had to say about this issue. Mr Urquhart told AAP that a decision to block this inquiry would ‘show the government has no compassion and no concern for its citizens getting justice, and lacks the guts to question anything CASA does’.

Questions about CASA and air safety are long running. The issues have been biting at the government for some time. For the life of me, I cannot understand why this government refuses to go down the obvious path—refuses to take action. I am not accusing the government of anything specific, but questions are raised in your own mind when you see that an obvious course of action needs to be taken and the government refuses to take it even though it has the power to do so. When you do not get sufficient answers from ministers or people responsible, you do start to question what it is that the government does not want to find out. Why is this government refusing to have a full inquiry? What is it that it does not want to know? Perhaps it is something it already knows. I do not know what that is, and I am not claiming to have some sort of great knowledge of what that might be, although I have some ideas. However, I wonder what it is that the government may already know but does not want recorded or fully investigated. That is the only possible, logical conclusion that members of this place, the public and the families affected by that tragedy can make.

This government has the power to do the right thing—to ensure that the Lockhart River tragedy does not happen again, that the problems are rectified. Until there is a full inquiry—until this place takes on its responsibility—and until the minister does what the minister is charged to do, many people will be left very unsatisfied.

There are no hidden agendas here. The families who have been torn apart are not seeking retribution or revenge; they are seeking closure. They are seeking some finalisation of this. They want to know what happened. They want to know why it happened. They want to know how it happened. They want to know that it will not happen to anybody else. That is what the families want to know. They want closure. That is an acceptable thing to demand of a government.

We want to see the same thing. We want to know what is going on. We want to know what is wrong with CASA. Why isn’t a full investigation being carried out? Those are the questions I have. I am sure the minister has a view; I would be happy to hear those views, and maybe a further explanation as to why the minister is not doing anything in this area worth talking about. We need to get the full details of the Lockhart River tragedy. I think the only way we can do that is through a full inquiry—and, most importantly, before we move ahead with this bill to have the functions and role of the airspace regulator handed over to CASA. We need to have a proper path to understand the roles and responsibilities of both these organisations and to ensure that there will be a renewed confidence in the roles of both Airservices Australia and CASA, so that we know we are safe in the skies, that the regulations in place are sound and that this government has done everything it possibly can, has not left any stone unturned and will not turn a blind eye to that tragedy or to anything that might happen in the future. We support the bill in principle, but we have grave concerns about any actions of CASA in relation to air safety, and most particularly we have concerns about the actions of this government in its refusal to have a full inquiry.

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