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

Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (17:20): I rise also to speak in support of the Aviation Consumer Protection Bill. This suite of legislation represents the most significant reform to aviation consumer rights in our nation's history. Reliable air services give local businesses the confidence to grow.

They attract visitors and improve access to education, health care and employment opportunities. In my electorate of Richmond on the beautiful North Coast of New South Wales, we're very fortunate to be serviced by both the Gold Coast Airport and the Ballina Byron Gateway Airport, essential economic assets that support the prosperity of our local communities. Gold Coast Airport serves as a major international and domestic gateway on our northern border, the border with Queensland.

It is the country's sixth busiest airport, welcoming more than 6.2 million passengers a year and contributing $514 million to the local economy. I'm advised that the economic contribution of the airport is expected to reach more than $965 million by 2044. The Ballina Byron Gateway Airport is the third largest airport in New South Wales and provides critical regional connectivity for the Northern Rivers.

More than 550,000 passengers travel through the airport each year to our region. These airports' continued success supports local businesses, tourism and local jobs and attracts investment and helps ensure our region remains a vibrant place to live, work and visit. Together, these four bills that we've put forward provide a comprehensive framework that will fundamentally transform the relationship between Australian travellers and the airline industry.

Millions of Australians rely on aviation every year for work, family, education and health care. We have one of the world's busiest domestic aviation markets and are amongst the world's most frequent air travellers on a per capita basis. For Australians, aviation is essential infrastructure that binds our communities together right across the continent.

Whilst our aviation safety standards are amongst the best in the world, our consumer protections have failed to keep pace with community expectations and international best practice. Travellers experience flight cancellations, sometimes with little explanation; prolonged delays without adequate assistance; difficulties obtaining refunds; confusing fare conditions; and complaints processes that are often too slow, fragmented and ineffective.

Travellers need certainty, and nowhere is this more important than in regional and remote Australia. Communities across rural Australia depend on reliable air services for health care, employment, tourism and economic development. When flights are disrupted or cancelled, the consequences extend far beyond inconvenience.

Missed medical appointments, disrupted supply chains, lost tourism revenue and reduced economic activity all impose real costs on communities. Recent events have underscored how international conflicts can very quickly affect Australians at home. The situation in the Middle East has disrupted aviation, causing flight cancellations, delays and uncertainty for travellers.

Many people have been left asking what their rights are when the travel plans fall through. Throughout this period, Australia's airlines have been operating under extraordinarily challenging conditions and on many occasions helping Australians to travel and return home safely. But these disruptions also reinforce the need for stronger consumer protections and clearer rights for every Australian traveller.

These bills seek to restore confidence to travellers. They're the result of significant consultation with and feedback from the aviation sector, consumers, advocacy groups and regulators. At the centre of the legislative package is the Aviation Consumer Protection Bill 2026, which enables the creation of an aviation consumer protections charter.

The charter will be developed through regulation and will contain minimum standards in relation to booking information and assistance, communication with consumers and complaint handling. Compliance with and enforcement of standards in the charter will be the responsibility of a new aviation consumer protection authority, a regulatory body that will be established within the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts.

The bill also, very importantly, creates an external dispute-resolution scheme through an independent aviation consumer ombudsperson scheme. Currently what we have is an industry-led airline customer advocate, but we know from the Aviation white paper and through feedback from consumers and regulators that this has not delivered an effective complaint-resolution service—and I know that, too, from hearing from my constituents who've had issues.

Because current consumer protections rely really heavily on voluntary industry arrangements and quite fragmented complaint mechanisms, they result in inconsistent outcomes for passengers and very limited enforceability of rights. That's why this bill replaces the current voluntary industry-led arrangements with the Aviation Consumer Ombuds Scheme, or ACO, operated by an independent company.

Airlines and airports will be required to join the scheme, and the company will be governed by a board of directors with equal representation from industry and consumers and an independent chair. Where a traveller believes that an airline or airport has failed to meet its obligations under the aviation consumer rights charter and they have not been able to resolve the matter directly, they'll be able to take that complaint to the ACO.

It's very important for consumers to be able to do that. The ACO will have strong powers to investigate complaints, require information from airlines and airports, recommend remedies and facilitate dispute resolution where appropriate. Where necessary, the ACO will also be able to make binding determinations requiring an airline or airport to resolve a complaint in a specified way.

If judicial processes are necessary to enforce ACO determinations, it will be the responsibility of the regulator to carry out these enforcement activities. So this really is a huge change in terms of responding to consumer concerns. Separately, an aircraft noise ombudsperson will be established as a function within the department and will review the management of aircraft noise complaints by Airservices Australia and the Department of Defence.

The Aircraft Noise Ombudsperson will provide a dedicated review pathway for complaints relating to aircraft noise management, ensuring independent scrutiny of how these complaints are handled by responsible agencies. This also is a massive improvement—having that specific Aircraft Noise Ombudsperson in place to address issues that people have in relation to noise.

I know, again, that in my electorate that has been an issue over many years. This bill creates a comprehensive oversight framework with clear and complementary roles for regulation, consumer redress and community advocacy. It combines a regulator within the department, an independent aviation consumer ombudsperson and an independent aircraft noise ombudsperson to strengthen accountability right across the aviation sector.

Do not underestimate how big a change this is in terms of the regulation and, in particular, the protection of consumers when it comes to travel. The bill also introduces new transparency measures by requiring airlines to report the reasons for delays, cancellations and other disruptions—information that, at the moment, can often be quite difficult to acquire.

This information will be provided to the department regulator and published for consumers, helping the regulator and the Aviation Consumer Ombudsperson determine whether a disruption was within the airline's control and whether consumers are entitled to support under the charter itself. The fact is that greater transparency benefits and assists everyone in every sector—particularly now.

When it comes to airlines and airports, it'll make a huge difference. Consumers gain better information when making travel decisions, governments gain better visibility over systemic issues, and industry benefits from increased public confidence. By strengthening accountability and improving consumer confidence, these reforms support not only passengers but also the long-term sustainability of Australia's aviation sector.

As part of this suite of bills, the Aviation Consumer Protection Levy Bill and Aviation Consumer Protection Levy (Collection) Bill will enable the administration costs of the new consumer protection functions to be covered by the imposition and collection of levies from industry. The levy ensures that the costs of maintaining a fair and transparent aviation consumer protection framework are shared appropriately across the industry that benefits from increased consumer confidence.

And, as the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has explained, the government is mindful of the way the conflict in the Middle East has impacted the industry and will be cognisant of these realities in any cost recovery efforts. We also have the Aviation Consumer Protection (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill.

It will manage the transitional provisions for the bills, including, importantly, clarifying that an airline that breaches a standard will not have their licence cancelled. It will also manage the transition of the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman from Airservices to the department. Again, don't underestimate what a huge move this will be, as people will have one particular place they can go to for noise complaints.

As I said, this has been an issue in my electorate, and I do acknowledge that we have had, for many years, very good community based representatives who have been listening to those complaints and forwarding them on. I acknowledge the people who have been involved with that for many years. In conclusion, these reforms also represent a shift in the regulation of consumer protections in aviation.

It's a huge shift. Instead of fragmented complaint handling and voluntary compliance, we're establishing an integrated national framework based on enforceable rights, independent oversight and transparent, system-wide reporting. This aligns aviation consumer protections more closely with modern regulatory approaches used in other essential service sectors where baseline protections are available regardless of the provider of those services.

This legislative package has been carefully designed to balance consumer rights with commercial realities. We have to balance both of those—the commercial realities of what the airlines and the airports face and the increased demand, rightly so, for consumer rights. We look around the world and see that there are places with consumer rights when it comes to airlines.

We've had to balance those to get the most effective outcome. These bills also establish really clear obligations whilst recognising the operational complexities faced by airlines. They also promote accountability without imposing disproportionate administrative burdens and create certainty for both industry and consumers.

That's certainly, I think, what everyone was looking for—just having that certainty and that clarity. As I said at the beginning, this is probably the most major reform that we've seen in our nation when it comes to our aviation sector. It will be of benefit to all travellers, particularly those in regional and remote areas, who need that certainty and that clarity.

I certainly commend these bills to the House.