David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to add my support to calls for increased competition in Australia's aviation sector, leading to lower prices and better protections for consumers. More broadly, clearly, we have an issue with competition in Australia. This is not just in aviation; if we look at the banks or supermarkets, there is a need for both sides of politics to take this seriously and to deliver the kinds of reforms that will ensure that Australians across the country get better services at more competitive prices.

With international airfares currently 50 per cent more expensive than they were pre COVID, it's no surprise that Qantas posted a record $1.7 billion net profit. That is a huge amount of money. Here in the ACT, Qantas's slot-hoarding is a particular problem for Canberrans. Qantas cancelled 12 per cent of flights from Canberra to Sydney in July: 53 flights were cancelled out of Canberra Airport in the month of July, and cancellations have been hovering around that 50 mark. We have reports and ways to deal with this. We have the 2019 Productivity Commission inquiry which looked at slot-hoarding—the Harris review, which has been sitting on the desks of a number of ministers and still hasn't been implemented.

It is clear that the government needs to reinstate ACCC flight-monitoring urgently. That found, previously, that the lack of effective competition over the last decade has resulted in underwhelming outcomes for consumers in terms of airfares, reliability of services and customer service. Above all, we need more transparency around the decision-making process from this government.