Coddington Deborah: Civil Aviation Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Civil Aviation Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party. We support the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill and have supported it all the way through. Like one of my colleagues before me I commend the Hon Harry Duynhoven for the amount of work he put into keeping all members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee well informed as to what the bill was proposing and what it would do. The bill repeals the Carriage by Air Act 1967 and it also amends the Civil Aviation Act 1990. 
Three main issues are dealt with in this bill. The first issue that of mutual recognition has taken a while to get here. For several years we have had some of the most open skies in the world but airlines have been unable to take full advantage of that situation because of the duplication of commitments they had to make in both New Zealand and Australia which involved high cost and complexity in obtaining and maintaining separate safety certifications from each country. So that set up a barrier and this bill is now going to break down that barrier. One hopes that the reduction in compliance costs on which I congratulate this Government will be passed on to consumers in terms of cheaper air fares and more accessible travel for all. I will not speak for very long on this bill because we support it. 
The second issue is that of unruly passengers. In earlier debates on this bill I made some suggestions which some people considered were a little over the top. But I do think we should consider that in a world that is not as safe as it used to be the more we disarm those charged with taking care of us the more power we give to our enemies. If we consider some airlines we see that the Israeli airline with armed marshals on its flights has one of the safest records yet it is probably one of the airlines that hundreds of thousands of people in the world want to blow out of the skies. 
Like Mr Gosche I commend the members of the union who came before the select committee and explained to us a lot of the things they have to put up with concerning unruly passengers. Those people are not there just to hand out tea and coffee and demonstrate safety procedures; they have to take care of everybody’s safety on flights. When they do not have the power to deal with people who are behaving in a way that can bring down a whole airline—for instance using a cellphone or not complying with simple instructions during take-off and landing—it makes their job so much harder. When things do go wrong all passengers rely on them and look to them for guidance. Therefore it is good we have increased the fines so that there is more of a deterrent for those who think it is OK to get on an aircraft and behave as badly as they behave in restaurants. As someone who has worked as a waitress for many years I wish there was legislation that could perhaps persuade people to behave in restaurants as well. 
One final thing I would like to talk about and what really concerns me is the issue that although we pass good legislation like this which is empowered with making people safer the Civil Aviation Authority came before the select committee this morning in a public hearing with some interesting answers from its director to questions; we heard from that organisation which is charged with keeping our airlines safe the general consensus that people would rather take the train. That is something that really needs to be looked at. However I am pleased to support this bill.