MOTIONS

Ms BRISKEY (Maribyrnong) (16:04): The Aviation Consumer Protection Bill 2026, the Aviation Consumer Protection (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026, the Aviation Consumer Protection Levy Bill 2026 and the Aviation Consumer Protection Levy (Collection) Bill 2026, are quite personal to my community. Our connection with aviation is like very few others in this country.

Essendon airport sits in the heart of my electorate. It's a vital hub of freight, emergency services, charter flights, regional connectivity and, of course, employment. Just across the boundary is one of the country's biggest airports and major employers, the Melbourne Airport at Tullamarine, so the importance of aviation to my community is undeniable.

Thousands of my constituents wake up every morning and head to one of these airports for work. They're the baggage handlers, the check-in staff, the engineers on the tarmac at five in the morning and the retail workers keeping the terminal buzzing. These are people who quite literally keep our community and our country moving every single day, and I am enormously proud to represent them in this place.

Those same people are also passengers, and, like passengers right across the country, far too many of them have had the experience of a cancelled flight. They've been handed a travel voucher when what they should have received was a cash refund, and they've spent hours on hold with nothing to show for it. These are experiences we've all had, and they are simply not good enough.

Today that starts to change. The suite of legislation we are debating today came from listening. Our government's BETA preparing for take-off study is one of the most thorough pieces of passenger research ever conducted in this country.

What it found was an aviation sector treating its consumers with contempt. More than half of all Australians who flew in the last 12 months experienced a flight disruption. Of those passengers, 82 per cent received no support at all—no accommodation, no alternative arrangements—with 81 per cent never even told what their rights were.

Let's think about that for the moment. The majority of Australians who fly have had their travel disrupted, and the overwhelming majority of them were then left to figure it out entirely on their own. It doesn't end there.

Of those who tried to make a complaint, only 17 per cent—fewer than one in five—were satisfied with the process. A staggering 79 per cent of Australians say they know little or nothing about their rights as an air passenger. So, in one of the most regulated industries in the world, the people this industry depends on are almost entirely in the dark.

I want to be clear that our government does not think every airline and every airport is deliberately setting out to do the wrong thing by their customers. Many of the people working in this industry genuinely care about the people they serve, but the system around them hasn't supported good outcomes, and that's not their fault. There's been no charter of rights, no independent umpire and no consistent minimum standard that passengers could rely on.

They've been navigating an uneven playing field without even knowing the rules of the game. This legislation levels that playing field. The four bills before the House work together to create something Australia has never had before, a comprehensive, enforceable consumer protection framework for aviation.

At the heart of the package is the Aviation Consumer Protections Charter, a document that will spell out in plain and accessible terms what every passenger can expect when they fly. We're moving on from the days of fine print and airlines interpreting their own obligations. Instead, there would be a clear, publicly accessible set of minimum standards backed by law that passengers can point to and say, 'That is what I'm owed.' The charter will be brought to life by the Aviation Consumer Protection Authority, which will monitor compliance across the sector and take enforcement action where those standards aren't being met.

For the first time, there will be a body whose specific job is to hold this industry to account on behalf of the travelling public. For passengers with an individual dispute they can't resolve directly with an airline, the Aviation Consumer Ombudsperson will provide an independent, not-for-profit avenue for resolution, a genuine umpire with no vested interests.

For my community specifically, there's one more part of this package I'm particularly pleased about, the Aircraft Noise Ombudsperson. My electorate has lived alongside aviation for generations. (Quorum formed) As I said, my electorate has lived alongside aviation for generations—two airports, the flight paths that come with them and a community that has built their lives around them.

But, for some, aircraft noise can be disruptive. What those residents have asked for is simple. When they raise a genuine concern, they want to know that it's actually being heard.

For too long, that hasn't been the case. Residents have told me they have followed every process with Airservices Australia and attended every consultation only to be met with silence. The Aircraft Noise Ombudsman changes that.

Independent of both Airservices Australia and the Department of Defence, it will hold complaints processes to account and make sure people's concerns are properly examined. People in my community just want to be heard. They just want to be treated fairly.

I'm proud that this Labor government is delivering an independent body that will hear them out. The Albanese Labor government remains focused on delivering cost-of-living relief. This is our No. 1 priority.

Consumer protection is a cost-of-living issue. It belongs in the same conversation as the other measures this government is delivering. When I talk to people in my electorate about the cost of living, they talk about rent, mortgage, the cost of groceries and the cost of everyday living.

Australian households are stretched right now, which is exactly why the last thing any Australian needs after saving for a well-earned holiday or rushing to book a last-minute flight interstate because a loved one is unwell is cancellation—a cancelled flight that somehow leaves them out of pocket because the airline won't cover the hotel or hand back their money.

For families I meet every week, that's a genuine financial hit. Under this legislation, cancelled flights will result in cash refunds, not credits. If the cancellation costs you a hotel, meal or transport, the airline will now need to cover it.

It's that simple. I also want to speak directly to the people in my electorate who work in aviation because I've heard some of the conversations happening in the industry about what these reforms mean for them and their employers. This framework has been designed with careful attention to industry impacts.

Costs will be kept as low as practicable, and small airports handling fewer than a million passengers a year, including most council owned facilities in regional and remote communities, are intended to be exempt. The framework applies to the 14 largest airports across the country, covering 93 per cent of all passenger movements. These are major, well-resourced commercial operations with the capacity to meet a sensible minimum standard of passenger treatment, and the airlines and airports are already doing right by their customers.

The charter simply formalises what they're already doing. What this reform ultimately does is create the conditions for a sector that competes on quality and service, where treating passengers well isn't just right; it's expected. That's a better industry for everyone working in it.

I want to also reflect in my contribution to the debate in this House on a story about a woman in my electorate. Her name is Maria, and she is one of many. Maria flew interstate last year to be with her mum, who was unwell.

Her return flight was cancelled, and the airline offered her a travel credit, but Maria didn't want a travel credit. She had no plans to fly again any time soon. She just needed the money.

She spent hours on the phone and got nowhere. She contacted my office months later, still so frustrated not just at the airline but at the sense that there was simply nothing she could do. Under this legislation, Maria's story ends differently.

She would have a right to a cash refund. She would have had an independent ombudsman to contact. She would have known from a clear and accessible charter exactly what she was entitled to.

For Maria, and for hundreds of thousands of Australians just like her, that is a genuinely different experience of what it means to be a passenger in this country. I look forward to going back to my community and telling them that the next time they travel after saving for that well-earned holiday or to care for a sick parent a disruption or a cancellation will mean compensation, not frustration.

That's one less thing they'll need to worry about when weighing up their budget. This legislation will mean fewer Marias sitting at an airport gate frustrated, fewer families absorbing costs that should have been the airline's and fewer residents feeling like their concerns about aircraft noise have vanished into a bureaucratic void. It will mean Australia finally has an aviation consumer protection framework that reflects our modern, fair-minded country—one that stands with every passenger and brings real accountability to a crucial industry.

I'm proud to be part of a government delivering it, because my community relies on the success of our aviation industry, and that industry relies on my community and on the many others who pass through it every day. I commend the bills to the House.