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

It was not my intention to speak in this debate, but a couple of the matters raised by Senator Macdonald provoked my intervention. Firstly, there was a suggestion that somehow it was wrong for the government to think that its view should prevail over the view of an airline seems to me to fly in the face of the proposition that we should have a government backed regulator telling the airlines what to do in the interests of safety. The suggestion advanced by Senator Macdonald has no weight at all. It is, frankly, ridiculous to say that government is not the responsible entity to enforce the safety regime for the airline industry. It is in this country. It has been for many years. It is in the rest of the world, effectively. I am not sure what provoked the senator to make the quite ridiculous suggestion that he made.

The other matter that he raised was the suggestion that Mr Truss was very keen to be involved in negotiations and consultation about this regulation and that somehow the government had failed to consult with Mr Truss about this regulation. My advice is that there have been significant consultations with Mr Truss and his staff and that of the Leader of the Opposition. Indeed, I understand that there was an understanding reached earlier this week that, on the basis of undertakings which the government was prepared to give about returning to some aspects of these regulations that are complained of, the opposition would support the passage of the regulations and not support this particular disallowance motion. For it to be suggested that somehow we have not dealt with the opposition in good faith in any way on this is preposterous and is not true. The minister, I can tell you, is quite outraged at the suggestion that there has not been proper consultation about this. And we believed that there was an agreement to pass this legislation, because some of the critical issues we were quite happy to return to.

But in the interests of aviation safety, if there are matters that can be addressed following the promulgation of this regulation, then that is the way it should be done. This should not be left in a void whilst the matters are resolved. This matter is being dealt with today because it is the last day for it to be dealt with and that has put some time pressure on things. Frankly, it would be better in the government’s opinion if the regulation were to be not disallowed and we quickly got on with dealing with some of the issues that, whilst important, are less important than the issue that underlies the whole regulation. Given that it is not something that can be resolved in a five-minute exercise, I think that would be a better outcome. It sounds as though that will not happen and the regulation will be disallowed. We think that that is a very bad thing. It really is made worse by the fact that we thought that the opposition was going to be much more responsible and reasonable on this matter.