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

by leave—I heard from workers from the Transport Workers Union recently, and it was a privilege to hear from these extraordinary people about how they are speaking up, even as the government is refusing to back them. It's not just that the government has refused to back Virgin. They also haven't supported the Dnata workers—workers who were a big part of the transport supply chain. If you caught a flight in Australia, odds are good that a Dnata worker has made that flight possible, by doing the cleaning that is so critical to keeping people safe, and providing the catering. They don't get the recognition or appreciation they deserve, but they make a crucial difference. The government has failed them.

There is a significant amount of work to be done in the aviation sector—way beyond what we are considering tonight—that this government is failing to do. This government is letting down Australian workers and Australians around the country. Aviation has been affected massively by this pandemic. The security screening we are talking about tonight—for those workers who are working there, it's going to be a long time before the same number of workers are back on the job as pre-pandemic.

I'm here in my office in Melbourne—not in Canberra, obviously—because of the pandemic. I haven't flown for over six months. And it is the same for so many other frequent flyers—business people, people not flying around the country for tourism or visiting loved ones. Even if we get a vaccine, aviation is not going to just snap back. The fact that we are here tonight with this technology—as good as I hope it is continuing to be—means that we are not all going to go back to flying at the drop of a hat. We will consider whether flying interstate for a meeting is actually the best way to meet. Would a remote meeting or a video link actually suffice? Critically, should we be flying when there are other options for meeting that don't have the carbon pollution that a flight has? In an environment when there is no carbon budget left, reducing flying makes an awful lot of sense.

So we desperately need a plan for aviation for Australia—way beyond considering security arrangements as we are considering tonight—that takes account of the impacts of this pandemic and the imperative to reduce our carbon pollution to zero. There is a future for aviation that navigates a path through these huge issues, but it needs to be explicitly identified and planned for. That's what a government should be doing, developing such a plan in collaboration with workers, with businesses, with NGOs and with communities, to ensure that workers are looked after, to ensure a future for aviation businesses, for airports and for the workers in security screening. We need a plan that takes account of the essential transport that aviation provides in this far-flung country of ours.

We Greens will keep banging the drum about this, because it's such a critical need. Having a plan for aviation would mean that we could see whether the actions we are taking now in response to the pandemic are the appropriate ones, whether they do line up as being part of a sensible, strategic, just and sustainable plan for the future of aviation.

In this context, let me now address some issues concerning the bill that we are debating tonight. The Greens support the steps the government is taking here to improve airport security. I would reiterate, however, a number of concerns that we raised in additional comments in the committee report. The explanatory memorandum specifies that security testing changes will enable the government to meet recommendations accepted from the Inspector of Transport Security and the International Civil Aviation Organization to expand the scope of system tests for a wider range or security measures but without providing any information on where these recommendations are from. When the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee examined this bill, this report had not been published.

An additional aspect in this bill is the fact that it will allow the secretary of the department to determine the training and qualification requirements for screening officers. In addition, the secretary can actually exempt a class of screening officers from one or more of the requirements determined if exceptional circumstances exist. We are glad to see the government is moving an amendment—acting on the scrutiny of bills considerations and recommendations—that information be published on the number of exemptions, but we believe there needs to be much more transparency and much more information about what is actually occurring for these exemptions to occur.

We will be supporting the government's amendment, but I also foreshadow that we will be moving our own amendment to provide more transparency and information on this point. Overall, however, as I have said, the Greens will be supporting this bill, but the coalition government needs to be doing more—much more—to support safe aviation and support the workers in the aviation sector. But we support this small step.