Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Talking about aviation safety, Dick Cuthbert got killed giving an endorsement on a Twin Comanche when the student pilot feathered one engine and turned the fuel off to the other.

I would like to clarify a couple of things about the disallowance motion by Senator Xenophon. This really is not about anyone saying we should not have the ultimate in security in airlines. That is not what this is about. This is about several issues, including the pilots. If anyone thinks that there is anything wrong with the security of Qantas or that Qantas is not a great airline, go and fly on American airlines. If you want to frighten yourself, go and fly on some of the other overseas airlines in their domestic situation—they are scary. This is not about lowering the safety standards. This is about not being obstinate. This is not about the old days when if you wanted to impress your girlfriend you took her up the front and put her in the jump seat, or about any passenger that was a bit starry eyed asking to go up and sit next to the pilot. This is about common sense. This is about assisting pilots who want to get home when there is no room in the back of the plane. This is about adding to security, not taking away from security.

The shadow minister, Warren Truss, did write to the minister and ask for a written commitment to extend the prescribed class of persons able to enter the aircraft to include off-duty crew or employees of the aircraft operator, not to someone who had taken a fancy to someone in the back of the plane. And if anyone thinks there is something wrong with the qualifications and the ability of airline pilots to be in command of the aircraft then they should not be flying in the aircraft. Our pilots are well qualified and well drilled in emergency procedures, and that has been demonstrated many times in recent days. Mr Truss also asked for a written commitment to be provided to remove the strict liability provisions. I will not go on about those because enough has been said. The pilots, in writing to the minister, simply set out a similar position. Obviously, the pilots who have been to see me were disappointed they were not consulted in the way they should have been. I have here the opinion of Bret Walker SC, which I have distributed and I would like to table in due course.

I do not doubt that Minister Anthony Albanese wants to maintain security at the highest level and I do not doubt that there has been a bureaucratic trail of indecision on this. That has been demonstrated this week. This could have been fixed up earlier in the week, as many people have said, and I think that it can be brought back in six months. As I understand it, if anyone thinks that prior to February this year there was not the security that there is now, they ought to think again. But in talking about airport security, I have full confidence in the pilot to make the right decisions and full confidence in our air security officials to make sure that security levels are high.

But there is a doubt level—not as to aircraft but as to airports. There is an ICAC inquiry underway in Sydney as to the qualifications of some of the so-called security guards who do other guard duties—not the internals of the aircraft though they are the last people to leave the aircraft after the cleaners. These people are subject to an inquiry. If the government wants to do something useful, instead of attacking the pilots, who are well-qualified, they could go and have a look at some of the airport security people who do dodgy tests where the answers are supplied to the questions before you get the questions. That has been demonstrated many times. The same companies that provide some of the labour to these security situations also provide it to the military installations. I will not name the companies to the point of embarrassment because the matter is the subject of an ICAC inquiry, but there are some dubious practices at other levels in security.

But one area where there are no dubious practices and where there is full focus on the safe flying of aircraft and the safety of the passengers and the provision of good service is in the cockpit. So this is not about airport security. I think that it has been a bureaucratic blunder and it ought to be sorted out.