Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

Oh, there we go. I don't doubt that. I don't doubt the trickery. Senator Farrell says that we can go through to next year. I don't doubt that. That is a fact. That's not in dispute. But will you? I doubt you will.

This is my grand thinking. There will be a federal budget, the government will argue that the economic conditions are improving and we'll have a federal election later this year. And what does that mean for the government's aviation green paper and aviation white paper process? It becomes part of their second-term agenda. And guess who pays for that. With Australian families who want to travel to their loved ones and their extended families across this country, who pays for that? Australia's diaspora communities, who pay higher prices when they want to travel overseas to visit their families, and Australian businesses, who have to fly across this great, vast land of ours in order to do business.

Australians are paying a very high price for the government's inaction. Why do we know that the government is forcing higher prices and poorer outcomes on Australian aviation consumers? Why do we know that? It is because of the ACCC monitoring report released just last month, the first report in the second tranche, thanks to Senator McKenzie and my private senator's bill late last year and thanks to the support of people like David Pocock. Guess what it says. It says that Australian consumers are paying higher prices.

Let me read from the most recent ACCC monitoring report. The ACCC monitoring report is important because it uses the full armoury, the full resources of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to bring facts to the table about the extent to which this country does or doesn't enjoy competition in our airline industry. It brings facts to the table with regard to prices that Australian consumers are forced to pay. It's not a difficult document to read, and even the laziest of government senators need to read just two pages. Those are the first two pages in the monitoring report. I want to just highlight four or perhaps five comments in the first ACCC monitoring report in the second tranche of reports. The first point it makes is, I think, very, very revealing. It talks about the structural problems in Australia's aviation industry:

The trends observed over the past 12 months—

which are negative trends, I might add—

appear to be structural and unlikely to change in the short term.

That is a direct statement by the ACCC, making a judgement, I believe, that the government's reform agenda—if there is one—is not going to happen and is not going to deliver outcomes in the short term. It goes on to talk about the importance of economy airfares:

However, best discount economy airfares have not yet fallen to pre-pandemic levels. The general fall when adjusted for inflation may not reflect consumer experiences, who are still paying significantly more to fly in nominal terms than they did prior to the pandemic.

That's not Senator McKenzie's accusation, nor is it Senator Smith's accusation; that's a comment from the ACCC's monitoring report. It goes on to make this point, which is a critical point when we consider the matter of this bill which goes to consumer protections:

Despite evidence of falling airfares and stability in overall passenger volumes and capacity, service reliability remains a significant concern …

Factors contributing to poor service reliability and within airlines' control, include efforts to manage systemic issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, pilot shortages, pilot training bottlenecks and some supply chain disruptions.

That means that these matters are wholly within the domain of Australia's airline industry, and it is up to them. They have the capacity to fix them. But, because the government will not lead by bringing airlines and other stakeholders to the table to discuss and agree better consumer protections, Senator McKenzie and I have been forced to do so in this private senator's bill.

This private senator's bill is not a complicated piece of legislation. It says that the minister representing the government must consult within a specified time period to bring forward to this parliament a range of consumer protections that will substantially improve the experience of Australia's airline consumers. Interestingly, in Senator Sheldon's contribution, he did not say he was necessarily opposed to the bill. He did not. So there's no reason why Senator Sheldon can't add his energy and his very clear and obvious commitment to aviation issues to making sure that this bill passes so that it delivers consumer protections not in the never-never but in the immediate term. Australians are right to ask why, after two years, this government can make other issues—the Voice, for example—a priority but can't make it a priority to drive down prices, improve customer outcomes or deliver better service outcomes for Australian families who pay large sums of money to travel across this country to be reunited with their families or for leisure. Why can't the government make this a priority? Why can't the government fast-track its green paper and white paper process?

Senator Sheldon made another interesting comment. He said, 'All of these bits and pieces in the aviation reform process are interrelated, and they have to be addressed together.' That is just not true. Nowhere does the report say that airline consumer protections have to be dealt with at the same time as other aviation reform issues. Nowhere does it say that. In fact, when the ACCC made its submission to the aviation white paper process in March last year—its submission is now 12 months old—it made no comment about the interrelatedness of various aviation reform initiatives. In fact, pages 26 to 30 of that submission are a very valuable read, because the ACCC's submission acts as an endorsement of this private senators' bill that Senator McKenzie and I have introduced this morning. So whether or not Australians continue to pay higher prices for their airline tickets is completely within the control of the government, and the government's plan so far has been one of delay and procrastination.

And just think for a moment—higher airline prices are coming at a cost to Australian families and their household budgets at the same time they are adjusting to the cumulative effect of 12 interest rate rises, the cumulative effect on household budgets of energy price rises, the cumulative effect of increased prices on shopping centre shelves and the cumulative effect of declining real wages, and the government says, 'There's nothing to see here.' Well, let's give a gold medal to Senator McKenzie in her role as the shadow minister for transport, and therefore aviation issues, for bringing forward to this Senate chamber a real plan that would deliver better outcomes for Australian aviation consumers.