Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Along with extra resourcing, this direction will provide the ACCC with the necessary legislative powers to gather information and documents from relevant stakeholders within the industry and allow for more informed recommendations on competition and consumer issues within the domestic airline sector. It will ensure that airlines compete on their merits, bringing to light any inappropriate market conduct and providing continued transparency at a time when new and expanding airlines are establishing themselves.

Although a similar direction was initiated by the previous government, monitoring was scheduled to end in June 2023. So here we go: a similar direction was initiated by the previous government with monitoring scheduled to end in June 2023. Under the previous government, 12 reports were received from the ACCC, which painted a damning picture of declining customer service standards, higher prices, record cancellations and record delays. What did they do with that information? Zilch. Absolutely nothing. They did absolutely nothing.

For our part, as the responsible government of the day, we welcome the findings of these reports from the ACCC. We welcome both the challenges posed by the domestic aviation industry as well as the opportunity to make real progress in tackling the issues faced. For these reasons we've decided to restart the ACCC monitoring of domestic air passenger services. However, in stark contrast to the previous government, the Albanese government will use the information gathered through the ACCC monitoring to help inform the aviation white paper, which will set the policy direction for the sector out to 2050. This aviation white paper, due to be released in 2024, will be the first for the industry in over 10 years—