Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

An overhaul of Australia's aviation sector is long overdue. From flight delays and regular cancellations to the decline of low-cost carriers that provided important competition to the sector and opaque government decisions to deny greater access to overseas carriers, the system is not delivering to customers. My constituents consistently vent to me each time airlines are in the news that all they want is reasonably priced and reliable flights. But the system doesn't change, and instead they're continuously met with poor-quality services and limited options for recourse. I welcome the introduction of the Sydney Airport Demand Management Amendment Bill 2024. While this bill just relates to the operation and efficiency of Sydney airport, competition and efficiency for Australia's busiest airport has ripple effects throughout the entire system.

In 2023, national cancellations were at just 3.6 per cent; however, nearly one in 10 flights between Sydney and Melbourne—Australia's busiest route and the fifth-busiest route in the world—were cancelled. While I support this bill, celebration is a bit premature. This bill will make rather modest changes to the operations of Sydney airport, with only three of the eight reforms signalled in the Aviation white paper covered. The remaining five are expected to be delivered under reforms affecting the slot management system and demand management regulations. The government has not shared details of what these changes will be, and we cannot be sure if they will go appropriately far enough. I also note that we have not yet seen the government's response to the Senate inquiry into the impact and mitigation of aircraft noise and do not know how the government proposes to address community concerns about aircraft noise and questions about whether Sydney Airport's long-term operating plan is fit for purpose.

I want to briefly speak to that because certainly some of the residents in my community are concerned about Sydney Airport's long-term operating plan in terms of both whether it is adhered to currently and whether it is fit for purpose. In particular, there's a concern with the lack of adequate transparency in relation to what is actually happening in terms of aircraft movement. A lot of that data is available, but that data is quite opaquely available, and it is very difficult, as a member of the public just trying to understand what's going on, to be able to access that data very easily. I know that is not the subject of this bill, but I want to highlight that there are many in my community who are concerned about this, and I certainly support further engagement on this important issue and through the Sydney Airport Community Forum.

Let me return to the bill. The bill amends the Sydney Airport Demand Management Act 1997, following the Productivity Commission inquiry into the economic regulation of airports and the subsequent Harris review in 2021. Both inquiries found significant issues with efficiency, competition and governance at Sydney airport, and recommended changes. The biggest impacts this bill will have are through the introduction of recovery periods, reporting requirements on airlines and the slot manager about slot allocations and cancellations, and more stringent reporting and expanded civil penalties for slot misuse.

I welcome the introduction of a recovery period that will temporarily increase movements. This will allow the airport to return to regular operating capacity more quickly, following weather events. I welcome the penalties and stricter reporting obligations on airlines for cancellations and irregular slot movements. However, I question whether the penalties are a sufficiently strong deterrent to prevent slot hoarding and other forms of slot misuse that make it difficult for new entrants to compete. I welcome the decision to appoint the slot manager by a process of competitive tender, but I note that the bill is silent on the issue of airline ownership.

These changes are positive, but they are unlikely to significantly move the dial on competition in the aviation sector. I acknowledge that further changes have been slated under the foreshadowed changes to the slot management scheme, and I eagerly await this detail, but there are also some missed opportunities. Stakeholders in the aviation sector that I have spoken to are disappointed with the decision not to make changes to the 80-20 rule. This rule adopts a 'use it or lose it' approach to gate movements, requiring airlines to use the allocated slot for at least 80 per cent of the time. While the Harris review discussed but stopped short of shifting to a stronger test, such as 90-10, stakeholders I have consulted consider 80 per cent to be too low a threshold to genuinely open up competition and limit slot hoarding. Similarly, both the Productivity Commission and the Harris review found that the 15-minute rolling window in the movement cap had outlived its usefulness and that removing it would allow movements to happen more smoothly and reduce delays. It is unclear why this modest change was not adopted.

The changes that the bill proposes are positive, but they are late. The Productivity Commission review was conducted in 2019 and the Harris review was conducted in 2021. The issue with efficiency and competition in the airline sector has been a problem known to governments of both stripes for a long time, yet it took until last year to get a green paper and until August this year to get a white paper. That's a space of six years and four years between the respective reports and the release of an action plan, not to mention legislation. I note that this is not all to do with the current government—the previous government also delayed taking action on these issues—but it is something that concerns me.

This is reflective of a broader problem we have: governments commission reviews, reports and recommendations, but those reviews, reports and recommendations are sometimes not made public and are often just left to gather dust. Rarely is the government fully obliged to respond and provide clear guidance on whether it is going to go ahead with the recommendations. For instance, I look at the Productivity Commission's report. The productivity gap is one of the biggest issues facing our country at the moment, in terms of economic performance. We have the 5-year productivity inquiry: advancing prosperity report, released by the Productivity Commission, whose main job is to enhance productivity in this country. The report was released in 2021, and it still does not have a government response. We have two separate reports criticising the allocation of billions of dollars in federal infrastructure investment, and again we do not have formal government responses.

In New South Wales, where I'm from, tabled reports require a government response within six months. Our track record suggests that some sort of legislated discipline is what governments of all stripes need—including a legislated obligation to actually table commissioned reports, in full, for the benefit of the community who pay for the reports and the stakeholders who advocate for them, so that those reports have the consideration of the government of the day.

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