Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is important for me also to speak on the Civil Aviation Legislation Amendment (1999 Montreal Convention and Other Measures) Bill 2008 because, like the member for Brand, the constituent and the other family members lived in my electorate. The progress we have made is, I think, very important.

Airline travel has become fast and a preferred mode of travel for people across the globe, with thousands of traffic movements every day in diverse parts of the world. Airline partners are a common feature of international travel, introducing complexities that were not foreseen in the past. Airline travel is considered safe, but accidents do happen. In the 1920s the Warsaw convention was established to ensure a secure future for the airline industry. The convention is superseded by the Montreal convention of 1999, which is designed to modernise arrangements for the liability of international carriers with a uniform code for international air carrier liability.

There is no doubt that modern aviation has outgrown the old Warsaw convention, which had at its core the principle that carriers are not liable for the death or injury of a passenger, or for damage to air cargo, if they can prove that they took all necessary steps to avoid loss. In addition, it capped the liability rate, which was set in a currency no longer used in the modern world. Like so many of these conventions and legislative instruments, amendments flowed over the years, making the Warsaw convention clumsy and unworkable, with a confusing array of international arrangements.

The Montreal convention will overhaul the system of liability and damages that may flow and will eventually replace the Warsaw convention entirely. The Montreal convention is a two-tiered system of liability for death or injury. The first tier is for damages up to approximately A$190,000 based on no-fault liability and cannot be reduced except in the event of contributory negligence by the passenger. The second tier is for damages exceeding this threshold where the carrier is liable unless it can demonstrate that the damage was not due to its negligence or that of its agents. Effectively, this convention increases the compensation limits for victims of air accidents, sets the monetary unit of compensation as the special drawing rights of the International Monetary Fund rather than the long-abandoned gold standard and provides for the periodic review of compensation to take account of inflation. It will allow Australians to bring legal action in Australia rather than in the country where the accident occurred.

Most of the countries with which Australia shares major international air routes, including New Zealand, the United States, Europe and Japan, have already signed the Montreal convention. Qantas and Virgin airlines have both indicated their support for the legislation. The Howard government conducted appropriate rounds of consultations with relevant parties, and a uniformly positive response was received. It appears that Australian airline carriers will not face higher costs as they already subject themselves to a higher liability limit than those that currently exist under the Warsaw convention.

It is anticipated that the cargo and freight industry will benefit, though, from simplified documentation procedures. On that basis, the previous government had proposed that Australia should agree to the Montreal protocol, and the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties supported that decision in a report in 2005. In these times of fast global travel it is important that we have strong protocols dealing with adverse events. In the event of a serious air accident resulting in passenger deaths, grieving relatives and friends should not have to be dragged through protracted legal proceedings across a multitude of international boundaries.

Of course, that brings me to the issue confronting my constituent. It is very fresh in my mind, although this matter has gone on for several years. I have been assisting my constituent, Mr Sam Morton, who lost three family members in an air crash in Zambia. In the crash, Mr Morton and his wife lost their daughter, Justine; her husband, Matt; and Matt’s mother. The tragedy has had a devastating impact on the families. The trauma has been added to by long, protracted investigations. That process has been arduous indeed for Sam Morton, who, from the time of the crash, not only undertook to retrieve the bodies of his own family members but as well attended the arrangements for British and Canadian families who also had lost their loved ones in the crash.

Determined to leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of what caused the crash, Mr Morton has pursued the case relentlessly, seeking answers from not only our own authorities but also the Zambian and South African authorities, and has frequently travelled at his own expense to these countries to try to progress those investigations. Mindful of the grief of all the families as well as his own personal grief, as I said, Sam Morton has constantly liaised with the other families and travelled numerous times to the African continent to do all that he can to make sure that others do not have to suffer due to negligence.

The member for Brand has clearly detailed the crash investigations, and I do not therefore propose to prolong my contribution by going over the same ground. Needless to say, the report makes for sobering reading. However, I do want to acknowledge the contribution of the Australian high commission staff and the high commissioner to South Africa, Philip Green, who, when Mr Morton encountered many roadblocks, did everything possible to clear the way and assist Mr Morton to take his well-founded concerns to the South African authorities.

Travelling to South Africa as leader of the Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation in 2006, I had great assistance from the high commissioner, Mr Green, and his staff, as they facilitated meetings with members of the South African parliament for me and other members of our delegation as well as a phone hook-up for me to speak to the adviser to the South African transport minister. This gave me a chance to raise firsthand the issues on behalf of Mr Morton. Despite the crash taking place in 2004, Mr Morton and the other families still do not have closure on this matter. Discussions with the South African authorities continue, and we hope that for the families affected by this disaster a satisfactory conclusion is reached sooner rather than later.

This case has resulted in some procedural changes between DFAT and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is welcome, and I acknowledge the assistance and responsiveness of staff in both agencies. Through Mr Morton’s representations to me and to the member for Brand, the department has initiated an effective line of communication with the ATSB, and I thank both the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, the member for Mayo, and the current Minister for Foreign Affairs for facilitating those changes. This will result in far better communication in future with families faced with these kinds of circumstances. We can thank also Mr Morton for his determination to ensure that other families do not have their grief added to by unnecessary complexities. Given the fast pace of change and the growing global movement of people and freight, I am pleased to be supporting this bill. It is important that parliaments be responsive to the need for change and to ensure that compensation available to injured passengers is equitable.

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