Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to be able to stand here today and talk about the Airline Passenger Protections (Pay on Delay) Bill 2024, but it's really sad that we have to be here. You would have thought the corporate responsibility of Australia's two major airlines, particularly our national carrier, would have been sufficient for us not to need to have such a bill. But, sadly, we do, and that's why we're here.

I'm very pleased to be standing here in support the bill. In supporting this bill, we are supporting many, many Australians who use air services—not just those who use airlines to go on a holiday, which we all love and enjoy, but many Australians who have to use air services for everything that goes on in their everyday lives. There are so many examples of non-leisure travel that has been disproportionately impacted over the last few years by the shoddy behaviour and the lack of competition which is driving inefficiency in our airline system. We have seen a significant decline in airline efficiency and capability since COVID, and it's really quite inexcusable. Of course we all understood during COVID that there were going to be significant implications, and Australian aviation suffered during that time, as did many, many other businesses. Most of that is behind us now, yet the performance of our major airlines in Australia has remained at a dismally low level.

As I said, while airlines are often seen as things that people use because they're going on a holiday, which is absolutely great, there are a lot of other reasons people use airlines. For instance, if you live in rural, regional or remote Australia, often the only way that you're able to access specialist treatment is by using an airline. As another example, just about every one of us in this place, apart from those that are members for the Canberra district, arrive here on an aeroplane. For our work, we have to fly on a plane. Many other businesses around the country also rely on air travel to enable them to do their business, get to their meetings and make sure that they're serving their customers.

Our elite sporting teams also rely on airlines. These are the sporting teams that play around the country every weekend, and during the week, in some instances, that, hopefully, inspire young Australians to be active and healthy, because they're going out there and cheering on their favourite team. Think about a team like the North Queensland Cowboys, as an example, all the way up in Townsville. The implications of delayed and cancelled flights on a team like them, who are often so far away from where they're playing on a weekend, can be very, very significant. There are many, many people from many places that are impacted by the shoddy performance of our airline sector.

The reality is, if you purchase a ticket on a plane, you have every reason to expect that it's going to leave on time and arrive where you actually booked the ticket for—that the destination you booked for is the destination your plane lands at. You also should have a reasonable expectation that the luggage that you've checked in actually arrives at that destination on the same plane that you do. But so often that is not the case.

Over recent years, we have seen major frustration for and inconvenience to Australians because of the significantly lower service standards that we are seeing from our airlines. We managed, before COVID, to have a pretty efficient and effective system where, went you went to the airport, you usually didn't worry about whether your plane was going to be delayed or possibly cancelled. It happened on occasion. Of course, everybody understands that, in the interest of safety—if there's a technical issue or bad weather—there are reasons why a plane may have to be delayed, and we all understood that prior to COVID. But the number of delays and cancellations that have happened since COVID would suggest that we are certainly not in a position where we can blame every delay on the weather or a technical issue with the safety of the aircraft—there seem to be way too many for that.

If you look at the change in the percentage of flights that are cancelled, before COVID it was about 1.5 per cent. One would suggest that 1.5 per cent probably correlates with the issues in relation to weather and technical safety. In January 2024 that figure was 3.1 per cent. It's more than double. There has to be some sort of explanation as to why that is the case. Similarly on performance, in relation to delays, prior to COVID about 17. 8 per cent of flights were delayed. Post COVID, we're seeing that rate, in January this year, at 26.6 per cent, so that's a significant increase in the number of planes that are being delayed.

The poor performance of airlines—whilst we acknowledge the inconvenience to and frustration of the many passengers around Australia who are suffering as a result of this poor performance—also has a significant impact on the performance of our economy. As an example, previously, if you went to catch a plane for a business visit or meeting in another destination, you would usually factor in a certain amount of time for travel to get to that meeting. You can no longer do that with any sense of confidence. In fact, I know many people in the business community who now will fly the day before because they're worried about delays or cancellations of planes which can mean that, by the time they get to their destination, they may have missed the reason for them being there. So people are factoring into their day hours and hours of additional, totally non-productive time that they didn't previously have to factor in, simply because of the unreliability of our airline system, in order to ensure they do get to their destination on time and are able to meet the purpose of their business travel. This is so unproductive for the Australian economy.

It also exposes the inadequacy of the compensation that is provided to the people who are inconvenienced. We certainly know that millions and millions of dollars in flight credits are still owed to Australians. This just shouldn't have happened. It also brings into question the competitive nature of our aviation sector. Clearly it is not working, because the competitive tension that should be in place isn't, because we've seen both airlines doing the exact same thing. Equally concerning is that, despite this lower performance and despite the fact that their planes are all full—I certainly know personally that I haven't been on a plane recently that hasn't been full, so the airlines aren't flying around the skies with half empty planes—we are still being inconvenienced. Why on earth are our prices still as high as they are? The planes are full, so we should see prices being reduced.

We also mustn't forget that these companies are the ones that took billions of dollars of support from Australian taxpayers during the pandemic. Of course we understood the devastating impact that COVID had on the aviation sector, and it had to be maintained during that time. But the fact that we have not seen an aviation sector who have thought that it was urgent or important enough to actually get back to pre-COVID efficiency levels suggests to me there is something wrong in the psyche of the airlines, because they're clearly making a lot of money. Last year, the Senate aviation inquiry—an inquiry that was fiercely resisted by those opposite, a government that doesn't seem to have a plan to address this poor performance, I might say—found that there was so much need for better protections for consumers, who have been hurt by airlines over and over again in recent years.

This is not the first example of the coalition having to come into this parliament and actually take up the role of protecting, supporting or delivering outcomes for Australian consumers because the government just isn't doing its job. This is a government that doesn't seem to understand that the job of a government is to govern. The job of a government is to protect Australian citizens and, in this instance, people who are flying from a substandard performance by our airline sector, which is leaving Australians significantly out of pocket and creating great productivity declines for our nation.

I commend the coalition senators who have sponsored this bill to try and address this issue because the government wasn't prepared to do it. What will happen now is we'll see that consumers actually have some power back in the negotiation with airlines. I hope that those in this place will actually see the merit of this particular bill. It begs the question why anybody would want to vote against something that protects Australian consumers from the poor performance of very, very large businesses. We've got two corporate giants at the head of our aviation sector in Australia, and we're saying that consumers should have a little bit more power and a better balance in that negotiation than they currently have, which has absolutely been evidenced by the way that passengers and consumers have been treated over the last few years.

The bill puts in place a number of very sensible provisions that will make sure that our consumers are better protected. Protecting minors by making sure that their safety and their wellbeing when they're on aircraft is maximised is an eminently sensible thing for us to be requiring the airlines to do. We also need to make sure that there is a minimum standard required of airlines so people actually know what their rights are: minimum standards of treatment for people who were delayed and minimum standards for those that have their flights cancelled or have been denied boarding, whether that be the provision of food and drink or accommodation if they require an overnight stay. It seems pretty reasonable that you should be compensated if your bag goes missing or is significantly damaged. We need to make sure that airlines are held to account for ensuring not only that your baggage gets to your destination on the same plane as you do but also that it's not damaged in the process. We need to make sure that refunds for cancelled flights that aren't able to be taken are done in a timely fashion. We need to make sure when a plane is on the ground and there are delays that that information is provided to the passengers in a timely fashion so that they can make the necessary decisions about their own circumstances to deal with the inconvenience of the delay. We also need to address the loophole where, if you board a flight, you're not covered by the same conditions or rules as if the flight hadn't been boarded, and make sure that there's consistency whether you're on the plane or off the plane if you're delayed. We also need to make sure that the airlines are required to provide that information to consumers in an easy-to-understand format and in an appropriate and timely fashion. That also includes making sure that those consumers that are impacted know what recourse is available to them should it occur, because right now there is a lack of information that's being provided to consumers about what their rights are if their flight is cancelled or delayed.

By establishing an aviation code of conduct we can make sure that, via this mechanism, carriers have to provide pricing strategies that are transparent. It will hopefully avoid inconsistent fare types, ensure fair and proper treatment of passengers and make sure that passengers reach their intended destination as booked. The government—and we'd like to think that, given the importance of and the level of reliance on the aviation sector, particularly in a country the size of Australia, the government would take it seriously—needs to ensure that under the code we have transparency in pricing, consistent definitions around ticket of carriage and the prevention of hidden fees and charges.

Sadly, once again we've seen that it was another organisation that had to get the government—or Qantas in this instance—kicking and screaming, to address this issue. We know that 86,000 Qantas customers will now be compensated because of the ACCC's intervention on this issue, because the government wasn't prepared to do anything. They're going to cop a whopping $80 million fine, which would have been better used to make sure that Australians were getting fair treatment when it came to—