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

Ms BOELE (Bradfield) (15:35): I rise today to speak on the Aviation Consumer Protection Bill 2026 and associated bills, a package designed to address well-documented failures in how airline passengers are treated and protected and to ensure complaints from communities impacted by aircraft noise, such as Bradfield, are properly managed. For too long, Australia's aviation market has had weak, fragmented and poorly enforced consumer protections, leaving passengers with unclear rights, limited resources and inconsistent service quality.

These bills set out to change that through the establishment of an aviation consumer protection framework that seeks to bring together existing passenger rights—currently sitting across various individual airline terms and conditions, general consumer law and voluntary industry standards—into statutory, enforceable obligations. Importantly, the bill establishes the Aviation Consumer Protection Authority, which will monitor industry behaviour, investigate systemic issues, enforce obligations and hold airlines and airports accountable.

At the outset, I should say that moving towards increased consumer protection is welcome. It's a good thing. The 2024 national Aviation white paper highlighted the need for stronger consumer protections and strict oversight alongside clearer expectations of industry.

These bills make a positive start. Service quality and accountability in the aviation sector have been declining, with falling on-time performance and increasing passenger dissatisfaction. Within the context of a highly concentrated and structurally uncompetitive market, it's right for the government to step in and ensure that consumers are protected.

Let's face it; many of us have been on the wrong end of a cancelled flight and been left with that sinking feeling that we may not even get to our destination that day. Knowing that there is clear recourse, including access to a new independent aviation consumer ombudsperson, will be a comfort for many. But I also note that there are many reservations about these bills—about the lack of detail in the legislation itself, about the complexity of the framework, about the potential for duplication of and inconsistency with other regulations and, ultimately, about whether it will deliver meaningful redress for consumers.

Important questions remain regarding how these initiatives are to be funded and the ability of airlines and airports to simply pass the cost of compliance on to consumers. I'm not convinced that the changes to aircraft noise management, under the new framework, strike at the core of this important issue, which affects parts of my community of Bradfield. The history of aircraft noise management in Sydney is long and complex, and, in my short time as a representative on the Sydney Airport Community Forum, I've learnt that the long-term operating plan that dictates how Airservices Australia spread aircraft movements across various departure and arrival modes to ensure aircraft noise and emissions are shared across the Sydney basin has an established target of a 17 per cent load for the north.

I've also learnt that, in practice, this load is more than double what it should be. The reason for that is unclear—whether Airservices Australia is either incapable of implementing, or unwilling to implement, the long-term operating plan in the way that it was originally conceived—despite this plan being subject to a ministerial direction. Either way, the result has been that communities to the north of Sydney airport are continually subject to more aircraft noise than they should be.

With Airservices Australia operating its own noise complaints service, it's not surprising that the experience of my community has been that any complaints about aircraft noise have fallen—pun intended—on deaf ears. The establishment of an aircraft noise ombudsperson that is separate from Airservices Australia is therefore welcome. This should give the community some greater confidence in both complaints handling and reporting, as well as relevant community consultation processes.

However, while acknowledging that the scope of the ombudsperson includes review of the agency's management of aircraft noise, it is apparent that the role is primarily concerned with how complaints are handled and the presentation of aircraft noise information rather than with actually addressing the cause of the problem. It would make perfect sense for the Aircraft Noise Ombudsperson's remit to include a specific responsibility for ensuring Airservices' compliance with its obligation to minimise the impact of aircraft noise on the community through stricter adherence to the long-term operating plan.

What's the point of having a world-class complaints-handling process that does not actually address the cause of the complaint? For communities like mine in Bradfield, aircraft noise is a daily reality, particularly for the communities in South Turramurra and West Pymble. They are impacted by this every single day.

This package is an important and overdue step towards stronger aviation consumer protections. It creates real pressure and opportunity for the department and Airservices Australia to work more closely together to deliver better outcomes. It's just unfortunate that this set of bills, with so many positives, leaves unanswered questions about whether it will deliver a reduced and fairer share of aircraft noise for the people of Bradfield.