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

No, I'm very happy to say that, once again, there's another gratuitous point of order. On this side you can always tell when you've hit a nerve, because that's what happens from that side.

As I said, unlike the previous government, we recognise the urgent need to bring an end to the uncertainty facing the aviation sector. We absolutely understand the urgent need. It will enable and encourage long-term investment, particularly from new and emerging carriers, through the creation of a more level playing field while ensuring that we maintain and improve our internationally enviable safety record. It's a demonstration of this government's commitment not only to the aviation sector but to all communities and consumers affected by the aviation industry.

The government does not, however, support the passage of the bill proposed by the opposition. While we acknowledge the value of providing the ACCC with resources to monitor the aviation sector, the proposed bill merely duplicates the functions of the ACCC direction under section 95H of the Competition and Consumer Act already agreed to by government. If passed, it would require the ACCC to produce multiple reports to government on the same industry—an exercise in bureaucratic red tape if ever there was one. Not only that, in its current draft the bill will not provide the ACCC with the vital information-gathering powers it would need to obtain information and data from relevant suppliers. Without any power to compel relevant stakeholders to hand over documents or data, the ACCC role will essentially be confined to conducting desktop research only—all of which is of limited value in its aim of increasing competition within the sector.

Passage of this bill would also require an insertion of provisions into the Competition and Consumer Act, but for what purpose? It simply duplicates what is much more easily achieved through the directive process already announced by the government. On top of that, inevitably the bill would need to be removed through formal legislative amendment—a further waste of time and a further exercise in bureaucratic futility, and I suspect that the opposition know this too.

Why are they proposing this bill now, anyway? They could have introduced it at any time during their almost 10 years in government. All of a sudden, in opposition, they can become active. I suspect it's because they know that this is nothing more than a political stunt designed to deflect attention from their own lack of action over the past 10 years. And we shouldn't forget that competition within the aviation sector was allowed to decline to the state it is in today under their watch.

And while we're on the subject of the former government, we should take a look at the significant part they played in helping Qantas gain an unfair advantage in the aviation sector during the pandemic. What happened? Well, the previous government was happy to shell out a total of $2.7 billion in taxpayer funded payments to help the airline remain afloat during the pandemic—$2.7 billion. This included $900 million in JobKeeper payments and an additional $1.8 billion in other government assistance programs. While Labor agrees that efforts were necessary to sustain the airline industry during the pandemic, this no-strings-attached funding arrangement is yet another illustration of the incompetence of the former Morrison government. Despite posting a record profit of a whopping $2.5 billion for the last financial year, Qantas has no intention of repaying any of the taxpayer funding it received from the government, nor is it required to. That's right: the former government, in their infinite wisdom, designed the JobKeeper program with no requirements for companies to repay the Commonwealth, even when beneficiaries of the scheme were actually increasing their profits. Worse still, instead of using the money to protect the jobs and entitlements of their workers, Qantas were shamelessly outsourcing thousands of jobs in baggage handling, catering and even flight attendants.

The former government either didn't notice or, I think, simply didn't care. Not only were taxpayers being taken for a ride; the lives of thousands of loyal Qantas workers were being completely shattered. I've spoken in this place before about dnata workers who were stood down and who had to eat tinned food to get by, and I met with flight attendants who were trying to live on $750 a fortnight. Over 5,000 dnata workers had no access to JobKeeker payments, and 4,000 were stood down, forced to join the unemployment queues and fend for themselves, all while Qantas was making huge profits. The same happened to hundreds of flight attendants employed under labour hire agreements, including 28 in my home state of Tasmania. The previous government made no provisions whatsoever to require Qantas to protect the jobs of their workers in return for the billions in taxpayer dollars they were receiving. This is not the behaviour of a responsible government, and it's certainly not the way to create a more competitive aviation industry.

Unlike its predecessors, this government is serious when it comes to increasing competition within the sector. We do so by recognising that we need a much more level playing field not only for the established airlines but for new and emerging players as well. We welcome and encourage an increased market share from smaller airlines, such as Rex and Bonza, but recognise that price competitiveness is not the only barrier to achieving this. As highlighted in the June 2023 report from the ACCC, a major barrier to new and emerging players is access to airport landing and take-off slots, most notably at Sydney airport. The current system allows for capacity restraints, such as take-off and landing slots, to be gamed or engineered to favour established players, stifling competition and ensuring the duopoly remains deeply entrenched. If we are to truly transform and modernise our aviation industry, there are many areas that will need to be reformed, not least of which is urgently addressing consumers' and workers' rights.

Whilst monitoring airline prices, profits and passenger numbers gives us some very useful information, it will do little in itself to bring about meaningful reform or address the far wider issues facing our domestic aviation industry. But we will not go down the path of amending legislation simply for the sake of it, as the opposition is proposing. Instead the Albanese government is taking the far more responsible and pragmatic approach of using data from the ACCC direction to inform our aviation white paper to bring about the most comprehensive change to the industry in over a decade.

I'd just like to reiterate that, in the previous 10 years, there were many, many reports that were never acted upon by that side. So for them to come in with this bill before us and carry on—quite hysterically, I might say it sounded, especially with interjections—is once again just the other side not accepting that they did the wrong thing, trying to make it look as though we're not doing the right thing, when, of course, we certainly are. All I can say to that side is: Really, guys? You do yourselves no favours. If you had have taken a responsible and pragmatic approach in the 10 years you were in government, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today and we wouldn't have to continually clean up the mess that you guys left behind.