Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to put a scenario to the chamber. I want to provide a case study. Imagine that you live a 2½-hour drive away from your nearest airport. Imagine you get up very early in the morning. The sun's still not up; you beat the sun. You're on the way to the airport to meet your flight. You know you've got to check in half an hour before the flight, so you're on the road. And you get a ping on your phone about 100 kilometres down the road. Obviously, you can't pick up your phone, because you're driving, and that would be illegal, so you pull over and you check your phone, only to be notified that your flight has been delayed. You're already 100 kilometres away from home, and you've still got 150 kilometres left to go. But they're letting you know your flight's delayed. At least you don't have to speed!

You get to the airport. You're delayed. You sit around, twiddling your thumbs and waiting. Meanwhile, you've got a connecting flight. And, because you know the track record of some of our airlines, you've actually left maybe a good hour and a half between when your flight should have landed and when your connecting flight was going to take off. But this delay is closing that window rapidly, and you get another notification: your flight has been delayed again. Well, you can write off getting your connecting flight. So you have to get online, try and book another flight and potentially wear the penalties. And, because you're travelling from a regional area, you're travelling different airlines. The first flight is a different airline to the second flight. There's no recognition or compensation that your need to change flights has been caused by an airline's delay. So you've now written off a whole day because of a flight delay.

That would be the reality for me every time I want to come to parliament if I chose not to drive. But, because I cannot rely on airlines, because the standard operating procedure for many airlines nowadays is to just delay flights, because the percentage of flights being delayed by the airlines is increasing, I can't afford to risk using the airlines to get me to Canberra. So I drive. It is faster. It's more efficient for me to drive. But the impact for regional people of the practices of the airlines to delay or cancel flights is significant.

I know people who live in Broken Hill and who have to fly to Sydney for specialist treatment. They end up booking flights for the day before their appointments just to be sure they are going to be in Sydney for their appointments. That increases their costs because now they have to pay for an extra night's accommodation. They pay for the flights, which are horrendously expensive when we're talking about regional flights, they pay for an extra night's accommodation, they see the specialist and then they hope that they can get back home that day—otherwise, they are faced with the expense of another night's accommodation. That is the reality for people living in the regions right across this country. When we can't rely on our airlines to depart on time and when that leads to increased costs for regional Australians who just want to look after their own health. It is a very sad state of affairs. When you purchase a plane ticket, the plane is meant to leave on time and arrive on time and your baggage is meant to arrive with you. Is that too much to ask?

Let me be clear: we all know that sometimes there are circumstances which require delays, and that is fair and reasonable. If there are weather concerns, it's fair and reasonable. If there are safety concerns, it is fair and reasonable. But if it's just because the airline has decided they didn't get quite enough bookings for the first flight of the day so they're going to bump everybody to the second flight of the day, that is not fair and reasonable. If it is just inconvenient for the airlines or if, as my colleague Senator Canavan said, they're selling tickets to book up the slots but then they want to consolidate the ticket sales so they cancel the slots, causing havoc to competition in the airline industry, then that's not fair and reasonable. And if it is because Airservices Australia have not looked into the future and determined how many people they actually need to run our airport services and therefore they haven't recruited and trained enough people, that's not fair and reasonable either, because that's not the fault of the flying consumer.

The aviation industry has gone backwards. Prior to COVID, if you booked an airline ticket, there was only a 1.5 per cent chance that your flight would be delayed. That could be considered fair and reasonable. In January 2024, 3.1 per cent of flights were cancelled, and the long-term average rate of cancellations has blown out. That's not fair and reasonable. What is going on? Why have we gone backwards from the pre-COVID era? Why are our airlines and, indeed, the minister not taking action? How can it be that, once upon a time, Qantas was one of our most trusted brands and was considered the airline to book because you knew you would leave on time and arrive on time, and now people are avoiding Qantas like the plague? When did we take our eye off the consumers and start focusing on the market giants?

This bill isn't a silver bullet—I admit that—but this bill will require action to be taken. This bill will put the focus back on the consumers. It will prioritise the consumers. It will actually make the airlines accountable. They will have to justify what is a fair and reasonable delay or cancellation. Many people don't realise that there is no code of conduct in the aviation industry even though there have been ongoing concerns raised and a call by the ACCC and other consumer advocacy groups to develop a code of conduct for the aviation industry. We need a code of conduct so that we don't have inconsistent fare types, so the experiences of third-party purchases of airfares can be highlighted and to ensure fair and proper treatment of passengers so that passengers get to where they're going when they need to get there and with their baggage.

Just this week one of my colleagues arrived here in Canberra only to find that their baggage had been lost in transit. They came in in very amusing mismatched attire because their baggage had been lost. What was the response of the airline? 'Eh, we might find it. We'll let you know when we might find it. We don't know how many days you might have to walk around in the same socks and jocks, but we will find it eventually.' That's not good enough.

You arrive at the airport with your bag half an hour beforehand because that's what you are required to do. You check in your bag. It's tagged. You watch it go down into the belly of the airport and you expect it to get on the plane with you—the same plane that you're getting on. You've got your barcoded boarding pass and the barcoded ticket that went on your suitcase. You should be getting on the same plane. How is it then possible that, when you land, there's no sign of your baggage in this day and age, when you just should be able to point your little laser at the barcode and you should know where it goes? It is absolutely ridiculous that we are still losing baggage in this day and age. It is not fair, again, particularly to regional passengers that we can't be guaranteed that we're going to land on time with all our bags.

This bill will establish minimum standards. It's not too much to ask. They will be minimum standards for the treatment of passengers to experience delays, cancellation or sometimes a denial of boarding—minimum standards to ensure that passengers are provided with the essential amenities needed such as food, water and accommodation during such disruptions. That is what is required.