Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

A sustainable and vibrant regional aviation industry is essential to move our people and our products from the regions to capital cities and the world. Senator Patrick, you've laid on the table a lot of the issues with the Australian regional aviation industry currently and historically. The Nationals have been champions of regional aviation for decades. We have held the ministry. We have built and developed this industry. We have opened up regional Australia so that people can head off to essential services and to visit family, and also so that our products can get to the markets of the world and the professional service industries can make their way into the regions. And, increasingly, we've been able to develop a very healthy regional tourism industry on the back of our regional aviation industry, and that has meant a lot of local jobs. It's not just our ministers who have driven that; it is our National Party senators in this place; it was the former chair of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee in this place, Senator O'Sullivan. He was a significant champion for the regional aviation industry, as was Senator Williams, from New South Wales, and as is the current chair and great champion for regional aviation Senator McDonald.

Ensuring the safety of the broader Australian community means that we do need to implement appropriate security measures at domestic airports right across the country, and that includes airports in regional communities. But make no mistake: as the Australian community is the beneficiary of that infrastructure, so too should the entire Australian domestic air travel industry pay for that infrastructure. The Nationals Senate team is not supporting the disallowance motion as we welcome moves by the government this week to ensure costs incurred by regional airports to implement improved security screening measures will not be passed on unfairly to regional travellers. The Nationals in the Senate negotiated a positive outcome with the government to ensure travellers do not face disproportionate cost increases, particularly at a time when regional aviation is reeling from the consequences of COVID-19.

I'd like to thank the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development—our own leader, Michael McCormack—for ensuring this happens. As Nationals, we won't take a backward step in standing up for our communities, because that is exactly why they sent each and every one of these senators here: to stand up and negotiate a positive outcome for our communities, which is what we've been able to achieve.

When travel restrictions are lifted we want people to visit the regions. We don't want costs to replace COVID as an impediment to those visits. We support security screening, but right now regional tourism is stagnant and we need to kickstart it again. Adding costs to regional air travel is the wrong thing to do in a post-COVID-19 environment.

This builds on our existing commitments. The Nationals applaud our government's commitment to regional aviation—particularly, in light of the pandemic, agreeing to operation costs for the foreseeable COVID pandemic period for those regional airports. Despite the pandemic, a minimum domestic network servicing—the most critical metropolitan and regional routes in Australia—continues to operate, and that's thanks to the investment by our government. Underwriting the cost of the network comes in addition to more than $1 billion of federal government support for our Australian aviation industry. The network includes all state and territory capital cities and major regional centres such as Albury, Alice Springs, Coffs Harbour, Dubbo, Kalgoorlie, Mildura, Port Lincoln, Rockhampton, Tamworth, Townsville and Wagga Wagga. Our support is delivering affordable access for passengers who must travel, including our essential workers such as frontline medical personnel and Defence personnel. Our action is also supporting essential freight such as critical medicine and personal protective equipment. And all this complements the actions the federal Liberal and National government has already taken to underwrite international flights to get Australians home during this very, very difficult time.

The Nationals in the Senate won't take a backward step in standing up for rural Australia. We look forward to the measures from our government that will ensure that Australians both are safe as they travel and can afford to head out to the regions for work or for fun. And I am very much looking forward to the contribution from a champion of our regional aviation industry and chair of our RRAT committee in this place, Senator McDonald, because she has been intimately involved in the hearings and this investigation since she's arrived.