David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I commence the response of the opposition to these amendments by commending Senator Xenophon on his very thoughtful and considered amendments. It is a very important issue, and the opposition has, in seeking to balance the very vital and important issues of safety in aviation and employee and pilot privacy, come down on the side of safety. I seek to adopt the quite comprehensive and, may I say, very proper response of the minister in this matter.

We are very respectful of the need for pilots to feel secure in their workplace. It is a unique workplace. As I say, we are very respectful of their wishes. We cannot, unfortunately, in this instance accede to the matters that Senator Xenophon has put forward as we see the overriding, overarching imperative being one of safety. As a background to these remarks, as we all know, the act does a number of things, including the enabling of the department of transport to collect more information on aviation industry participants, to permit the secretary of the department to delegate certain powers and to give the Australian Transport Safety Bureau more time to bring prosecutions. This is the important aspect of the legislation that relates to these amendments: it also facilitates the testing and maintenance of cockpit voice recorders, and that is the context of the amendment. The bill clarifies the confidentiality provisions before the cockpit voice recorder may be copied and disclosed for legitimate maintenance and testing purposes. Currently there is doubt that any copying or disclosure of cockpit voice recorder data for such purposes is legal. Indeed, I might say that I do not think that situation could go on much longer and I congratulate the government for bringing these amendments.

The bill seeks to rectify this anomaly by including necessary changes to the act. These changes stipulate that the person checking the equipment is authorised so to do under relevant regulations and must believe that the material does not relate to a reportable matter, as defined, and that the crew members have been advised in writing beforehand of the intention to copy or disclose the information. According to the government, these changes are necessary, and the opposition accepts that statement. Following the findings of the very serious and unfortunate Lockhart River aviation accident on 7 May 2005, the ATSB discovered that the data on the cockpit voice recorder of the crashed aircraft was not recoverable and that any problems with that recorder were not detected during maintenance. I think that is the background and indeed the safety imperative that the opposition seeks to underline in balancing these two very important issues.

The opposition accepts that any legal ambiguity that arises from copying the data in the voice recorder for legitimate maintenance purposes needs to be dealt with. We also accept that privacy issues need to be managed and, like the government, we will be supporting the third of Senator Xenophon’s amendments. We believe the government amendment goes a long way to addressing these very important matters.