Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to respond to the statement by the minister in relation to pilot training and other education issues within the aviation sector. It is an issue that has caused considerable concern in the aviation sector over recent times. The shortage of pilots is reflective of the shortage of labour in a whole range of areas in the busy and vibrant economy that our country has enjoyed over recent times.

Whilst this statement deals exclusively with pilots, I remind the minister and the government that issues also arise in other sectors of the aviation industry. There is a shortage of air traffic controllers in some places, and aircraft maintenance engineers are in demand. Indeed, a considerable amount of work is being sent offshore for a range of reasons, including the fact that there is a limited range of licensed aircraft maintenance engineers available in Australia.

The statement itself does not include any new announcements. It is one of these trios of ministerial statements we seem to be getting every day lately because the government has essentially run out of business to put before the parliament and it needs to occupy the space. What measures are included in this statement are substantially less than what the previous government had committed to. So this attempt at catch-up is a failure in that regard.

The first area covered by the minister in his statement was the arrangements to make it easier for workers to move between civilian and defence workforces—in particular, arrangements to help recognition of skills between the civil sector and the defence sector. That is sound policy. It brings to fruition work that has been underway for several years to try to bring the defence aviation sector closer to civil aviation. It is not the completion of the task. There are still some important things that need to be done. But there has been quite a bit of progress over the years. We have seen a melting down of the barriers between defence aviation and the civil sector. There has been a real willingness to talk, which I think has been appreciated by both sides, and it has led to significant improvements. Civil air traffic controllers are now doing a lot of work for the military, and the military also cooperates with the civil sector.

There is one major area yet that needs to be broken through, and that is airspace. There are still large areas of defence airspace where civil aircraft are not allowed to travel, and that can mean much-extended journeys for people because they have to fly around military airspace. I think it ought to be possible, in this day and age, with modern technology, to resolve those issues. There are important emission-reducing implications: if you can take a shorter route and get to the airport faster, you use less fuel. That is a cost saving for the airline but it is also means fewer emissions into our environment. So that is an area where I think more work needs to be done. I acknowledge that there are significant issues involved, but some of the tribal issues that were associated with it previously have tended to dissipate, and there ought to be, with goodwill, a capacity to make progress in that area.

The second element of the aviation training package is a national training scheme, with state and territory accredited courses and the CASA licensing system aligned under the national training system. Again I think that is a welcome step forward. It will not be revolutionary, but it is a logical step and it is good that the various states recognise one another’s training arrangements and that recognition of qualifications will be applied consistently across the country. There is also a reference to education and an announcement that the government will in fact list commercial pilot aeroplane licensees as a priority occupation. Again, that will help to provide some benefits and encourage people to undertake pilot training.

But it is a long way short of what the previous government had committed to. In the last election, our commitments included the establishment of a regional airline pilot scholarship scheme to help maintain regional airline services. The minister rightly recognised that there is a particular crisis in the availability of pilots to the regional airlines. That is probably because careers with the larger, intercontinental airlines and, indeed, with those who operate jet services around Australia are attractive to experienced pilots who have previously been flying Dash 8s or, particularly with Rex Airlines, the SAAB 340s. They have had the practical experience, got the hours up and when they see an opportunity for promotion available to them with one of the major jet carriers they take it. So it is has been airlines like Rex that have faced the pointy end of the shortage of pilots issue.

My own hometown is one of the many towns that no longer have air services or where air services have been suspended because Rex has been unable to obtain sufficient pilots to be able to maintain the services—for some months now. That has an enormous impact on a town—losing your air services. You have to travel miles—in my case, three-quarters of an hour—to get to another airport, and in many cases it can be hours and hours. There are also difficulties with skilled professionals coming in, visiting surgeons and the like, and so the whole community loses when there are no air services available. So getting an effective pilot training regime in place is important. Rex themselves, and, for that matter, Qantas and other airlines, recognise that they do need to do more and have therefore set up their own training institutions, and that is welcome.

The coalition promised to establish a regional airline pilot scholarship scheme, costing $9 million over two years, to help in the training of regional pilots. We also extended FEE-HELP to vocational education and training providers in the 2007-08 budget, which helped to provide support for young people who were undertaking pilot training. Our commitments at the last election also included establishing an aviation technical college to address the skills needs. I think it would have been a particularly meritorious development to have an institution that was a centre of excellence for aviation training. Of course, this government has got rid of all the technical colleges, and the promise of an aviation technical college will not be fulfilled. We also committed to providing funding to the royal aero clubs around Australia to run cadet pilot certificate courses to encourage high school students to pursue a career in general aviation—to attract young people to this profession and so help to ease the skills shortages apparent in this industry.

As the minister said in his statement, Australia is a popular place for training pilots. Airlines from around the world are setting up their own training facilities in Australia. Some of them have been active for a long time. We are supplying a significant proportion of the pilots in international aviation. This is a good place to learn to fly because our skies are safe, we provide a wide range of experience and, obviously, a pleasant environment in which foreign students are able to gain some of these skills. So I think aviation educational services have been one of the real success stories of the service sector in the Australian economy. We need to support the training of those pilots not only through the measures announced in this particular statement but also by going further and recognising the enormous opportunities that Australia has to be an aviation trainer for the world. (Time expired)

See this speech in context