Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was not my intention to speak in this debate on the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill 2009 and the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009, but I understand there is a message on its way with regard to another piece of legislation so I thought I would take the opportunity to make a couple of remarks following on from the comments of Senator Sterle, the excellent Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport. This legislation is remedying the unsuccessful experiment which the previous government initiated in removing a board from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority—given the previous membership of the board and its relationship with the previous head of CASA, Mr Toller, probably coloured the views of everyone, but particularly those of the previous government, about the desirability of having a board.

The experience of CASA’s operation under the previous chief executive, Mr Byron, has shown that the experiment was not successful and the examination of the operations of CASA and experiences arising from, amongst other things, the Lockhart River tragedy, lead me, and indeed I believe the government, to the view that (a) it was a failed experiment and (b) it was time to make a number of changes in relation to the civil aviation safety regime over which this government presides.

So we see the re-creation of a board of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and we see greater independence for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. I think both of those measures are long overdue. Anyone who saw the program Australian Story last Monday and saw the depiction of events around that tragedy and the views of Mr Shane Urquhart, the father of the young woman who died in that tragedy, would not have failed to have had concerns about the performance of CASA in relation to that tragedy. I asked a number of questions of CASA at Senate estimates arising from coronial comments about CASA’s aggressive defence of their position and aggressive pursuit of the ATSB in that coronial inquiry. I resile from no question or comment I made in those proceedings. It is clear to me that CASA was more about protecting CASA than ensuring that the coronial inquiry arrived at the truth and, indeed, I believe that in many respects CASA was leniently dealt with by the coroner in that case. The ATSB usually but not always gets it right, and it is appropriate for CASA to defend itself, but there is a proper way for an organisation with the authority of this parliament to perform in coronial inquiries, and in that case I think the coroner believed, and I believe, that they overstepped the mark.

From time to time we will continue to pursue the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and their successors because, ultimately, this parliament is the custodian of aviation safety. Those bodies are established by this parliament. They are given a charter by this parliament to protect the Australian travelling public. Ultimately, if there is a deficiency in their performance, the public expects this parliament to expose it, and that is a matter which I consider to be beyond politics. Everyone in this chamber has a vested interest because they regularly travel with chartered and regular public transport aviation services in the performance of their duties, and so do many staff.

One of the victims of the Lockhart River tragedy was an officer of AQIS, I believe, who on a number of occasions appeared before Senate inquiries giving evidence. He lost his life in that incident completely unfairly, simply in the performance of his duties because he was unfortunate enough to be in an aircraft which was being flown without proper regard to appropriate safety circumstances, without properly trained officers on board and by an airline now no longer operating but with a history of poor performance and practices in this country and elsewhere.

So we do have that responsibility and it is a responsibility that many from both sides of this chamber take seriously, and I would expect that that would continue. There have been royal commissions and commissions of inquiry into aviation disasters in the past. The Seaview inquiry, for example, was referred to in our most recent Senate inquiry into the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. The commission of inquiry made it very clear that there needed to be a separation between the interests of the safety watchdog, currently the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, and industry and that too close a connection between those bodies was not in the interest of aviation safety. That has also been the finding of a recent inquiry of the United States congress into their own regulator, the FAA. There was also an inquiry in the Canadian jurisdiction about their regulator in which similar findings were made.

It is clear that there have been trends towards inappropriate closeness between the regulator and aviation interests, and I hope that the lessons of the findings of our committee, the FAA and the commission in Canada are heeded and not dismissed, as I fear they may have been by the previous administration of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. I would recommend to the new board, when it is appointed, that it acquaint itself with some of those findings and look at decisions of the executive of that organisation—not that I make any reflection on the new executive—with an eye to the principles that have been espoused in royal commissions in this country, by the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, by the United States congress and others around the world about the danger of closeness between the regulator and those it administers.

Further independence by the ATSB is also a good thing, but I would expect that this parliament would take very seriously its responsibility to ensure that the ATSB also continues to perform the important service that it does in safety investigation and recommendations—in other words, that it be the one that keeps us all honest in relation to aviation safety in this country. But, ultimately, it is this parliament that is the final point of scrutiny, and I believe this parliament is up to the responsibility that it is charged with.

I believe we should support this legislation, and I understand that it will be supported. This legislation will allow aviation safety in this country to be improved and for a level of administration of Australian aviation to take a step into what will probably be an important phase, given all of the challenges. Whether fuel prices are high or fuel prices are low, it is said that there are challenges and that airlines are going to fall over. If airlines are going to fail for financial reasons, then that is the time when corners are likely to be cut and, when corners are likely to be cut, safety is at risk and we need to be ever more vigilant.