Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the half of the Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications, I present the committee's report entitled Finding the right balance: Cabin crew ratios on Australian aircraft, incorporating a dissenting report together with the minutes of proceedings.

In accordance with standing order 39(f), the report was made a parliamentary paper.

I acknowledge my deputy chair in the chamber as we present the report. On 2 March 2011, the committee resolved to inquire into the ratio of cabin crew members on aircraft following a request from the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. In particular, we were asked to inquire into and report on: the current aviation safety regulatory system for aircraft operators in relation to the application of the cabin crew to passenger ratio, including current exemption provisions; the role of cabin crew in managing both passenger safety and security; the factors that determine the cabin crew to passenger ratio; domestic and international practice in respect of the cabin crew to passenger ratio; and finally measures to enhance aviation safety that may be considered in future requirements on aircraft operators for a safety risk management plan covering the cabin crew to passenger ratio.

Currently, the CASA regulations stipulate that Australian domestic aircraft carrying between 16 and 216 passengers must carry at least one cabin crew member for every 36 passengers or part thereof—that is known as the one-to-36 passenger ratio. Since 2006, CASA has issued directions to many Australian airlines that effectively exempt them from abiding by the one-to-36 passenger regulation, allowing them to operate certain aircraft at a one-to-50 passenger seat ratio subject to conditions. The first of these directions came into play shortly after the passage of the Civil Aviation Legislation Amendment (Mutual Recognition with New Zealand) Bill 2005. Four years later, in February 2010, CASA began a consultation process to formalise what was becoming accepted practice at one cabin crew member for every 50 passenger seats, including some other changes that were proposed. The committee heard the current proposal is not the first time CASA has considered changing Australia's cabin crew ratio to one to 50. There have been at least three prior reviews of the proposal stretching back to at least 1997. On each occasion it was decided to retain the existing one-to-36 ratio.

This particular inquiry of the committee invited submissions from both individuals and organisations. The inquiry was included in the fortnightly House of Representatives advertisement in the Australian on 9 March 2011. Details of the inquiry were made available on the committee's website. The committee received 17 written submissions, including four supplementary submissions, mainly from airlines and employee associations, although a small number of individual submissions were also received. The committee conducted three public hearings—one in Sydney and two in Canberra.

The conclusions in the report indicate several witnesses made the point that due to a lack of comparative studies there is no definitive proof that a one-to-36 passenger ratio is any more, or indeed less, safe than a one-to-50 seat ratio. It was therefore not clear whether introducing a one-to-50 seat ratio would have any significant effect on aircraft safety. This basic conclusion led to the range of recommendations the committee is putting forward in the report.

The committee recommends that CASA cease providing new exemptions to the one-to-36 passenger ratio, and that those exemptions currently in place not be renewed upon their expiry so that the rule-making process can be completed. The committee recommends that CASA more widely advertise proposed rule changes that directly affect passengers, using publications such as in-flight magazines that are read widely by the travelling public. The committee also recommends that CASA publish on its website the submissions received during its review to help improve the transparency of that rule-making process. Erring on the side of caution, the point was crucial to the committee's decision to make a final recommendation that there should not be a change to the current cabin crew ratio until it can be demonstrated that changing the ratio will not compromise safety and security on Australian airlines. We welcome CASA's willingness to cooperate with the inquiry and to consider its recommendations.

In conclusion I want to thank the members of the committee and the secretary, Julia Morris; our researchers, Shane Armstrong and James Nelson; and the admin staff of the committee, Tamara Palmer and Peter Pullen, for their assistance in our inquiries.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the chair of the committee in the matter of cabin crew ratios. A lot of us travel by aircraft in Australia and progressively more and more Australians are using aircraft. It is not surprising in a country as large as Australia, with the distances between ports and the necessity to carry out business in remote areas like mining areas and so on, that we are very dependent on aviation. It also follows that there are aspects to that aviation. There is timeliness, there is comfort and there is service, but more particularly on an aircraft there is safety and security. That is what we were asked to look at in respect of cabin crew ratios.

We took 17 submissions and four supplementary submissions for this inquiry. We had three hearings and we came up with seven recommendations. Amongst those was that we want CASA's mandate for safety extended so that there is no doubt that it includes security. We asked that CASA publish in future their internal inquiries and that, when they are calling for submissions outside the parliamentary process, they publish their submissions on the internet. We also want the travelling public to be aware of these inquiries; we want the inquiries to be advertised in things like flight magazines. We want CASA, as part of this, to also look into flight and duty times when looking at safety and security—in particular with reference to fatigue. We want CASA to cease providing exemptions under order 20.16.3, which is what has been happening, and we want the current ratios to stay in place until it can be demonstrated that there are no safety or security reductions as a result of that.

I find a couple of things in this inquiry disturbing. The first thing was that CASA, despite inquiries in the parliament over the last decade, has continued to grant exemptions. It is the opinion of most of the committee that CASA has allowed the one-in-36 rule to be moved to a one-in-50 rule virtually by stealth, so that nearly every airline in every circumstance has now been able to get away with that. Quite frankly, I do not find that acceptable. We were also given the story by some of the witnesses who wanted this ratio increased to one in 50 that it is world's best practice. We were not convinced of that. It might be world's most accepted practice but not necessarily world's best practice. The other thing I personally found disturbing was that there were supposed to be drills to demonstrate the safety aspects on aircraft but some of these were done under fairly limited conditions—not with elderly people, young people and people who might be disturbed at a particular time. They were just going through the motions, so to speak, of what might happen in a drill. In fact, people do not jump down the slides today in a drill exercise because they might hurt their legs and ankles—but maybe that is fair enough.

So there are quite a few aspects of this thing that need to be considered. I for one, coming from a country area, would not like to see a circumstance like what occurred in May 2003 on a flight from Melbourne to Launceston, where there was an attempted hijacking. I asked myself how, on a Dash 8 300 with 50 seats, one attendant could handle that in some sort of emergency—in fact, how they would handle their work generally with one in 50 in that circumstance. So on that basis I support the report.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the member for Cunningham wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on a later occasion?

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 39(d), the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.