Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to support the minister's statement and to follow Senator Sterle, who I know has a very keen interest in transport matters—not just as a transport unionist but, I am aware, from his work as chairman of various committees over the years. He has a serious and abiding interest in transport generally and aviation safety in particular.

I am pleased to read in the minister's statement:

Safety will always remain the Government’s highest priority in aviation policy. That will never change.

I also highlight another paragraph of the minister's statement:

I acknowledge the concerns being expressed by some sectors of the aviation industry, in particular general and regional aviation, about the costs of regulatory compliance and how outcomes of the current aviation safety regulatory reform programme compare with regulatory approaches in other countries.

I am particularly delighted to see the minister concentrating on that. As someone from a rural and regional area of Australia, I am very well aware of the cost of aviation generally in the more remote parts of the state.

One of the failures of the previous Labor government in dealing with these issues was the almost ridiculous situation of, for example, a security process at Horn Island airport, up in the Torres Strait. The cost of introducing that system was prohibitive, to almost bankrupting the local council which runs the airport. The government did provide some assistance after a lot of urging by myself and Mr Warren Entsch, the member for Leichhardt, but it was nowhere near enough.

Generally, as with many other aspects of life in Australia, what happens in the bush is out of sight, out of mind, and rules are made—perhaps quite rightly—for a majority. But very often in making rules for the majority those areas of our nation which are remote seem to miss out, so I am particularly delighted that the minister has this in mind when looking at the cost of regulatory compliance, particularly from a remote regional aviation point of view.

I might pause here to say that there have been a lot of good regional aviation operations over many years. I am particularly delighted at the relatively new service that operates now in Northern Australia, out of Darwin into very many other places in the north. Recently they introduced yet another service—a direct service from Darwin to Townsville—which from memory is operating three days a week, but it might even be more. So congratulations to Airnorth on the work they are doing to make travel in Northern Australia that much more affordable and possible.

This review arose out of a number of submissions that had been made to Mr Truss, as the coalition's opposition spokesman. One of the things that was raised regularly with me was the general aviation industry's concern at the administration of aviation safety. I repeat: nothing should ever lessen our concentration on safety, and all of us in this room, being regular users of airlines, would probably have a more precise interest in that than most others. There was a lot of concern about the administration of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. I attended one meeting in Brisbane that had a lot of follow-up meetings subsequently, of a group who were very concerned at the way CASA was operating. The complaints to me were many and varied but some of those that were more prominent than others were about the approach of certain officials in the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to general aviation.

I was told often that one particular inspector would call upon a general aviation outfit, usually in the country, and give a certain set of directions. Some time later a different officer would come in and give a completely different interpretation of the rules and regulations. There was also a very great concern about Australia apparently following a European model, if I can say that broadly, of civil aviation regulation and safety when perhaps we would have been better off following the New Zealand experience and regulations of recent times. I must confess I did not fully understand all of the elements of what is obviously a detailed area of learning and expertise of operations but it was clear to me that the administration of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority did need some looking at.

I am not saying for a moment that everything complained of to me was accurate. I am not saying that the director and his staff were not good, professional people. All I am saying is that there were sufficient concerns raised with me by many, many constituents that did require the government to look seriously at the administration of safety in our country. Unfortunately, the previous government did not bite the bullet as far as this was concerned but I am pleased to see that Mr Truss, the current minister, has implemented this very wide-ranging aviation safety regulation review that can only work to the benefit of all Australians who use the airways to move around. As a result of this review, and hopefully further action by government, we will get an even better system of aviation safety regulation in Australia.