Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Hansard source

Eighty-six thousand passengers are going to receive remediation payments, Senator Bilyk, as a result of the ACCC's action. But those 86,000 passengers should not have had to wait for the ACCC action. This bill proposes a system to protect consumers, protect their rights, give them a pathway to compensation as easily and quickly as possible and ensure they don't have to wait for the regulator to step in and take action. It's so that the people across our great land who rely on airline travel not as a luxury but as a necessity are able to get compensation in circumstances where the supplier has not delivered to the consumer what the consumer has paid for.

In light of all that and the fact that consumers in the United States, the UK, Europe and Canada have these rights, give the people of Australia these rights and protections—these rights to compensation when their flights are cancelled and delayed and when they bear the costs of our airlines, including Qantas, not delivering what they say they are going to deliver.