Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last few weeks, we've seen some statistics and data about airports in Australia, particularly about flights being on time at airports. Many people in this place would know that Hobart Airport is located on the edge of my electorate and the member for Lyons' electorate, and we're pretty concerned. Thanks to the investments of the former state and federal Labor governments, we've had a significant increase in tourism in Tasmania. At the moment, we've got this wonderful festival on called Dark Mofo, and people are coming in their thousands from all over the country to celebrate the winter solstice in Hobart. But, unfortunately, so many flights coming in and out of Hobart Airport are not on time or are cancelled, and it's causing big problems. It's causing problems for those Tasmanians who are missing work, missing meetings, missing weddings and missing family get-togethers. Importantly, it is also causing problems for tourists who want to come to Tasmania and then need to get back to their work and family commitments. In April, 74.8 per cent of flights were on time, which shows that almost one in four of the flights out of Hobart are actually delayed regularly.

Last year, the government data showed that Hobart was the second in the nation in terms of worst performance in delays. Whilst we are, obviously, south of most of the other ports in Australia when it comes to airports, it's not good enough for the airlines to continue to allow this to happen. I call on those airlines that operate in and out of Tasmania—Jetstar, Virgin, Tiger, Qantas and QantasLink—to look at what they can do to support those Tasmanians and other Australians that want to continue to visit Hobart and Tasmania. As I've said, we've had a booming industry in tourism over the last decade or so. We've really invested in our products in Tasmania. We've got some great natural attractions and, of course, as I said, the great festivals. Tourism contributes significantly to the Tasmanian economy—around $2½ billion to gross state product, which is nearly 10 per cent of our gross state product. It's very significant. Indeed, it's the highest proportion of gross state product related to tourism in the country. Of course, tourism also supports a lot of jobs in our state, so we need these operators of the airlines to consider really seriously what they can do to ensure that flights in and out of Hobart for Tasmanians and for mainlanders that want to come down and visit are on time. They need to do more. It's not good enough to continually have these excuses. Money has been invested by Hobart Airport corp to get the airport up to scratch, because there are some significant issues. They underestimated the number of passengers coming through that airport. They're now planning further upgrades to try and deal with this, but, of course, the airlines also have a big role to play, and I call on them to try and fix this. It's not good enough for Tasmanians.