Aviation Consumer Protection Bill 2026, Aviation Consumer Protection (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026, Aviation Consumer Protection Levy Bill 2026, Aviation Consumer Protection Levy (Collection) Bill 2026

Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (12:42): I rise to speak on the Aviation Consumer Protection Bill 2026. The coalition support stronger consumer protections for Australian aviation passengers; of course we do. However, Australians deserve better from the major domestic airlines under this government.

Regional Australians deserve a reliable transport service. That means on time and not cancelled. They deserve clear communication when things go wrong.

They deserve fair treatment when delays and cancellations impose real costs on their families, their businesses and—I absolutely underline this—their health care. But this bill does not deliver what Australians were promised. It creates yet more bureaucracy—surprise, surprise—and arguably less accountability.

It is unclear how the bill will reduce delays and cancellations, especially for regional Australians; for many of them, the protections in this bill actually won't apply. We are required to trust government that they will apply, but, after the shock recent $77 billion tax grab in the budget, how many Australians are having trust issues with the Albanese Labor government?

For many regional Australians, aviation is not a luxury; it is an essential service. Regional communities rely on aviation for health care, education, business, family connections and economic opportunity. That is certainly true in Mildura, my hometown and the largest and most remote city in my electorate of Mallee.

Mildura has Victoria's largest regional airport, which serves a large, productive and geographically isolated regional city and the wider Sunraysia and Mallee regions. Yet too often Mildura feels invisible to the rest of the state and the nation—invisible to airlines, invisible to bureaucrats and certainly invisible to the Labor government that talks about fairness and equity all too often, while regional communities are left with fewer services, higher fares and poorer reliability.

Mildura residents have expressed frustration at a lack of alternative transport options. They've noted that there is no train alternative and that the bus trip is long, difficult and unreliable, with the bus to Adelaide taking more than 11 hours and, can you believe, 14 hours 15 minutes from Mildura to Melbourne. Honestly, who would put themselves through that?

Can you imagine that, to see your doctor, you need to take more than a day on a very uncomfortable bus? Mildura residents noted return airfares to Melbourne can cost more than $1,300. In a recent Productivity Commission consultation, Mildura people spoke of the cost of needing to factor in cancellations, including extra accommodation and time away from home.

Most confronting of all, they spoke about medical travel. I am the local member but also the shadow minister for regional health, so this is why I'm doubly distressed about the inequities Mildura residents face—in fact, the entire Sunraysia region, including across the river in New South Wales. The commission reported that travel to Melbourne for medical reasons is a major issue, particularly for Mildura residents reliant on the age pension.

Patients may need to pay upfront and then wait up to eight weeks for reimbursement through the Victorian Patient Transport Assistance Scheme, or VPTAS. People spoke of having to choose between accessing cancer treatment and paying rent—paying rent! Further to this Productivity Commission consultation, the Victorian government has reduced the VPTAS, imposing strict new criteria that make it even harder for Sunraysia residents to catch a plane from Mildura to Melbourne.

The Victorian government has basically stated that you need to be on a ventilator before you can jump on a Qantas or a Rex plane from Mildura to Melbourne in order to access specialist treatment! Then you've got the alternative problem, where we have specialists who FIFO in and out of Mildura—thank you to the Victorian government's absolutely hopeless management of health—and they get stuck in Melbourne, like I frequently get stuck in Melbourne because there's fog in Mildura.

It happened again on Thursday. I got on a plane from Canberra at 6 am, a nice, bright, early start after the end of the parliamentary week, and ended up in Melbourne at about 7.30, with the next plane at eight o'clock to Mildura. This has happened twice in a few weeks—get on the plane, head up to Mildura, an hour and a half in the air, then begin doing the holding pattern and the holding pattern and the holding pattern till they're going to run out of fuel.

So they've got an obligation, of course, to take us back to Melbourne, and that's what happened. On Thursday, when that happened, eventually we got a second plane. That was great.

We went out to the runway—disaster light on, something wrong with the engine, plane's broken, back to the terminal. Most of us here have experienced this, I'm sure. I would hope that I'm not just doing this alone.

That happened again. It took me 13 hours to get home on Thursday. You put that into the context of people who are having healthcare issues, who have to go down to specialists—or of the specialists going to Mildura.

As I said, on the first flight, we had the plane full, with many specialists on board to see people in Mildura who are dealing with serious chronic health issues—urgent health issues. Those specialists got back off the plane at about 11 am in Melbourne and thought, 'There's no point trying to get on another plane to go up to Mildura.' So what happens to the people in Mildura?

They miss out again, again and again and again. I tell you what, I am sick and tired of it. Representing the people of the Sunraysia region—in fact, the whole of my electorate, whether it's Swan Hill, Horsham, Maryborough or all the towns in between—for them not to be able to get health care is the most unjust thing that I know occurs in this nation, and it has got a whole bunch worse under this government.

When we're talking about aviation and having reliable aviation, I'll tell you what—this government needs to hold these airlines to account to deliver better services to the regions. As I said, Mildura is the most remote large regional city in Victoria. It's six hours from Melbourne.

The hospital needs a lot of help. I'm not going to go there right now. What I am going to say is how important our aviation is and how incredibly supportive I am of the Mildura airport, which does an astonishing job in having flights in and out of Mildura all day—when they can land.

Under the coalition, we committed $2 million for an ILS, an instrument landing system. That was back in 2019. It eventually got finished.

It gives planes the ability to land, theoretically, in fog—but no. We have rules in Australia—they don't apply in other countries around the world, mind you; it might be something for CASA to rethink—that they can't land in fog, even though we have an instrument landing system that was $4 million to place and operationalise in Mildura. That was an amazing investment by the coalition government.

What has Labor done? Let me come back to you on that. I can tell you: absolutely nothing.

It is shameful that our regions are being left behind. I want to give a shout-out to both Rex and Qantas. They have a very difficult job to do; I get that.

QantasLink—we're grateful for the services. We're grateful for Rex. They have gone through a very difficult time.

There are all kinds of reasons behind that. It is up to this government to ensure that our aviation sector works fairly and equally for everyone. For people who travel from Mildura to Melbourne, a return airfare can cost $1,300.

I talked about age pensioners before. They can't afford that—newsflash to the Victorian government. There's no reimbursement.

If you drive in a car from Mildura to Melbourne on our horrible roads, you get 21c per kilometre for your troubles. If you're a public servant, you get 88c. Tell me what's fair about that.

There is nothing fair about it. People in the regions are sick to death of being treated as second-class citizens. I will continue to fight for my community, for a fair go.

Every regional MP in this place, including those opposite, has a responsibility to do exactly the same. We should not be accepting second-best because we live in the regions. I might remind the Prime Minister that 30 per cent of Australians live in the regions.

They do a hard day's work out in the fields and out providing services, whether they're healthcare services, aged-care services or every other small business trying to make a go of it. It is tough out there, I can assure you. This government should be doing more to support them.