Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'm extremely disappointed that, given the legitimate questions about this bill about watering down and undermining the role of CASA as a safety regulator, the bill didn't get sent to a committee. I think there are many unanswered questions that should have been sent to a committee. During the second reading debate, I heard Senator Fawcett and Senator Patrick talking about getting rid of unnecessarily bureaucratic requirements that CASA, they allege, was imposing upon aviation, which in fact didn't have anything to do with safety. I want to ask the minister: how can you assure me that in fact safety isn't being watered down? It may well be that the intent of these changes is to deal with bureaucratic, unnecessary requirements that add to the cost of aviation. But these changes allow for far more than that. These changes allow, basically, for safety to be undermined, traded off, reduced. Minister, can you give me some assurance that that in fact is not going to be the case?