Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will support this disallowance. Labor's position is that air safety is a paramount consideration in regulation and management of their operations and including maintenance. We appreciate the hard work undertaken by CASA in overseeing safety in civil aviation. Australia retains one of the safest air safety regimes in the world. Generally Labor believes that CASA regulations should be allowed by the parliament.

The issues surrounding this regulation are highly complex and technical. This includes concerns about matching with international standards set by International Civil Aviation Organization, legislation, regulations and guidance. As we understand the issue, this regulation adds to the list of specialist maintenance tasks in a way that potentially conflicts with ICAO standards, and potentially removes a level of checking on maintenance that forms part of a safety regime. We are concerned that the system of checks and the chain of qualification is at least confused by the regulatory change. Where there is a legitimate question raised about safety concerns, Labor favours a precautionary approach. Labor believes that a clearly understood system of checks and crosschecks is an important element of good safety practice, and that this regime should be clearly delineated and understood by all involved in the system. It is clear to us that if the system is indeed clear to CASA, it is not well appreciated or understood by those at the coalface. There are concerns about the legal effect of this change, as expressed in a legal opinion from Bret Walker SC.

We note that this regulation has been in place since October 2014. Since that time a new CEO has been appointed to CASA: the opposition has had the opportunity to meet Mr Skidmore, the Director of Aviation Safety, and we acknowledge his new approach centred on five key principles, including on safety, clear communication, reducing complexity, measuring regulatory impact, and consistency. At this point, the opposition believes that there are sufficient questions around the regulation of safety arising from this regulation to urge the parties to reconvene and clearly articulate a safety framework around these changes. The parliament needs to be assured that safety standards remain—and at least some are arguing that this is not the case. The opposition has taken considerable time and a number of meetings to listen closely to CASA's rationale and to the views of the workers at the coalface in the industry. Through that process, it is clear that the benefits to industry from these changes are on the low side, although uncosted at this point. Further, the consequences of disallowing are not characterised as major by CASA. For these reasons, Labor favours a precautionary approach on this occasion.