Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in support of the Aviation Legislation Amendment (2008 Measures No. 2) Bill 2008. Forty-nine million passengers each year use Australian domestic airlines and the numbers continue to rise. Aviation travel has become an essential service for commuters and for Australia’s economy. Since 1943, when statistics began to be collated, there have been over 14,000 aircraft incidents recorded around the world. Of those, over 11,000 were accidents. Criminal offences, sabotage, terrorism and other occurrences accounted for around 3,000 incidents. As a proportion of the total number of flights that have taken place over that period of time, those figures represent a very small percentage, but in raw numbers the figures are substantial.

More concerning is that aircraft have all too often become targets for terrorists. I was interested to hear only this morning the member for Brisbane’s presentation of the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security. The matters that he raised certainly confirm that terrorist activities are still out there and that we ought to be on alert at all times because of that. I will come to that later in my submission today.

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