Mr McCLELLAND (Barton) (12.41 p.m.) —I congratulate the member for Burke on his contribution to this debate on the Aviation Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000, which is certainly well intentioned and made on the basis of his personal experience. I think the contribution of members from both sides in this debate has been well meaning. Aviation safety is a crucial issue to Australians. Of course, the distance between centres in our continent makes air travel very important, and air travel also connects us, very importantly, with the rest of the world. It is important that we get it right, and my contribution today will be focusing primarily on supporting the amendment moved by the shadow minister for transport, and in particular paragraph 3, which says essentially that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority should lift its game in terms of its role as a policer of aircraft and aviation safety rather than simply being an auditor of what takes place.
The focus of my contribution will be with respect to the findings of the then Bureau of Air Safety Investigation, now the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, in its report entitled The systematic investigation into factors underlying air safety occurrences in the Sydney terminal area airspace. That is of crucial interest to my constituents because my electorate of Barton abuts the southern and western rim of the airport and, if there is to be any accident, figures which I will go to in the course of this contribution show that most accidents—I think it is close to 80 per cent—occur within eight kilometres of an aerodrome. Residents living in my electorate very much have the potential to become victims in an air disaster, so I feel I have a responsibility to make my contribution to ensure that all government agencies and instrumentalities are doing their utmost in a completely objective and independent way to promote aviation safety.
Looking at the role of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, I note that the report found that it had four predominant roles. The first is to promulgate safety standards. The second is to review safety standards to ensure they continue to meet current needs. The third is to satisfy itself that service providers have the capability to meet the defined safety standards—aircraft safety as well as equipment and so forth. The fourth and final one, very importantly from my point of view, is to monitor the performance of service providers against both the safety standards and the service providers' own internal performance standards. [start page 24248]
The report noted that one of the objectives of CASA is reinforcing aviation safety by regular review of safety management arrangements employed by Airservices Australia in order to monitor its safety performance, identify key risk factors and promote improvement in the system. Why I focus on the involvement of Airservices Australia and the role of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in monitoring its conduct is because Airservices Australia developed the long-term operating plan for Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport. I recall John Sharp, minister for transport at the time, saying, when he was announcing the public consultation process to establish the plan, that the government was intending to introduce a long-term operating plan for reasons which were, and I think I can quote from memory, essentially political in nature—that is, that it wanted to shift the noise away from certain suburbs. It is common knowledge that the long-term operating plan has predominantly shifted aircraft noise away from the electorates of Bennelong and Bradfield. The significant thing is that in devising this long-term operating plan Airservices Australia—because of their involvement in it, I believe, and I think history has shown—cannot be objective in scrutinising what they are doing and certainly in scrutinising what they are doing from a safety point of view.
This is where the role of CASA appears to be so vitally important. As the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation report indicated:
There appears to be a degree of professional reluctance for CASA to provide clear guidance on what is expected of Airservices as an air service provider. This responsibility appears to largely devolve to Airservices to determine internally.
That is a crucially important finding because it is Airservices Australia that has a direct interest in or ownership of this long-term operating plan. So that reluctance of CASA to actually get in there and get amongst what Airservices Australia is doing is of real concern. I do not believe that the matters identified in the August 1998 report have been sufficiently addressed by any of the relevant agencies involved, or the government. I will go through some of these important findings to emphasise the safety consequences because the report stated:
Whilst the investigation gained a general sense that concerns were held by CASA about the safety implications of the rate and complexity of change—
this is changing all different modes of operation of the airport—
that the Sydney TCU controllers were being subject to, there also appeared to be a degree of reluctance to be more positive in bringing this concern to the attention of Airservices and in directing that quick and positive action be taken to redress the problem.
As I said, that is vitally important because unless and until the Civil Aviation Authority, with some boldness, is prepared to get in amongst what is happening at Sydney airport and the operation of the long-term operating plan, these problems will occur. For instance, the report that I have referred to focused on six instances where there had been a breakdown of separation between aircraft. In layman's terms, that means aircraft coming too close together and hence the risk of a collision.
In brief terms, the report found that an important and essential part of implementing the long-term operating plan was that, before each mode of operation of the plan was introduced, there needed to be a safety case as a precondition to the mode being implemented. That makes sense. But the investigation found that the preparation of the safety cases was flawed, that it was not done systematically and, moreover, that very few air traffic controllers understood the process of the safety cases. The report stated:
Three of [the] more senior controllers reported to the investigation team that the intent of the safety cases was compromised. One of these senior controllers put a similar view in writing to local Airservices Australia management. The controllers believed the LTOP safety case was flawed. They indicated that they were required to substantiate their perception of the risk of identified hazards in the safety case in response to pressure being applied by senior management for an early resolution that, in turn, was in response to the community noise lobby. [start page 24249]
That is a vitally important finding. What they are saying is that they wanted to make their contribution as to their safety concerns, the complexities of managing all these changes, and that those officers of Airservices Australia—and indeed their senior management, under pressure, I believe, from Airservices Australia—were effectively cross-examining them. They were saying, `What do you mean when you say there is a safety concern?' In other words, they were trying to browbeat them to get them to withdraw or minimise their expression of safety concerns. That is why you need a completely independent and objective safety agency such as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to step in and say, `Look, hold on, this should not be going on. This safety case should be conducted in an objective sense at arms-length.' In other words, I do not believe the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has implemented and undertaken their task without fear or favour.
Importantly, on this issue of what I believe is intimidation of air traffic controllers expressing their concerns, the investigation report continued:
They—
that is, the controllers—
considered that their arguments about the risks of identified hazards were substantially ignored. In addition, controllers claimed that some of those involved in the development and analysis of the LTOP—
the long-term operating plan—
including industry and community representatives, were not as familiar with air traffic control and aircraft flight principles and were therefore not as cognisant of the risks associated with the identified hazards.
There you have air traffic controllers involved on the ground implementing these dramatic changes in operations saying that their arguments were not being considered. In addition, what the report found was that these safety cases were being considered in respect of each proposed mode of operation, not of the combined effect of all these changed modes of operation. The other great concern with respect to the inadequacy of these safety cases—despite the long-term operating plan safety cases for both stages 1 and 2 of the implementation of the long-term operating plan—is that the report noted the potential hazard of the extent of change of procedures. The report recommended that an independent assessment be undertaken, including human factors, to determine capacity for further change. The report noted that no such study could be found to have been conducted for the stage 2 safety case. That is outrageous if the Civil Aviation Safety Authority had not ensured that the advice of an independent objective analysis be obtained and that it occur.
I have mentioned the effect of the safety cases before the implementation of the long-term operating plan at Sydney airport. The second aspect contained in the report was the effect of the frequency and number of changes to these various modes of operation. I think it is fair to say that the predominant purpose of the long-term operating plan is essentially to open up the east-west runway which cuts across two parallel runways. If you are putting in an intersection across a major highway with massive jets screaming down and being unable to stop, it goes without saying that you are going to be introducing complexity in the operation of not only pilots but of air traffic controllers. These are significant safety concerns. Aside from that particular mode of operation, the number of changes between the various modes was a significant concern. For instance, the report noted that in the period before 1995, before the current coalition government, there was an average of three mode changes per 17-hour period; in 1998, it was up to six mode changes per 17-hour period. I understand that those changes are now up to about nine per 17-hour period. The stress associated with these complexities and the frequency of mode changes was having a significant effect on morale. The report noted that once a mode change is accomplished, the ability for mental processing or the cognitive capability of a controller is reduced until such time as the new pattern of handling and directing traffic becomes familiar. These constant changes do impede the ability of air traffic controllers to function. They recognised that and, hence, morale was low. Ninety per cent of controllers interviewed said that. They specifically stated that the volume and complexity of the changes had caused poor morale. [start page 24250]
We have talked about the safety cases and the nature and frequency of the changes—all are the responsibility of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to supervise and have direct input into. They did not and they were flawed. The third area is in respect of the training of air traffic controllers. The report noted that training to prepare these controllers for the complexity of air space management, using the crossing runways and the more complex modes of the long-term operating plan, is considered to have been inadequate. Refresher training had not been carried out. I understand that that has now at least been partially addressed. Again, it was only addressed as a result of the intervention of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, not as a result of the actions of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
I can demonstrate, if you like, the lack of fortitude of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in respect of a major recommendation of the 1978 report. That recommendation was that a review be undertaken of the system that operated at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport where planes could land and take off in crosswinds of up to 25 knots and with a downwind component of five knots. It has been acknowledged that that exceeds the international standard of a 15 knots crosswind. It was reported that an incident had occurred at the Amsterdam airport, an accident involving a Boeing 757 veering off the runway whilst the flight crew was attempting to land in similar crosswind conditions of 25 knots. So it recommended that that situation be considered and further reviewed. What did we have in response to that recommendation of reviewing the crosswinds? In response to a question on notice on 17 February 2000, the minister reported to me that CASA undertook a review of the 25 knots crosswind criterion, which involved consultation with air services, the aviation industry and pilots associations. Following that review, CASA indicated that it considered that the practice of routinely operating runways with up to 25 knots of crosswinds before initiating a change of nominated runway does `not pose an unacceptable safety hazard'. That is outrageous. They are more concerned with facilitating the use of these crossing runway modes of operation than they are about achieving an international standard.
It is pleasing to see that the International Airline Pilots Association marked Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport with a red spot because of concerns with the long-term operating plan and in particular the effective compulsion to use it in crosswinds of 25 knots. As a consequence of that pressure—indeed, I asked other questions about where incidents involving crosswind accidents around the globe had been revealed—the minister, again with the input of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, eventually reduced that to 20 knots. I still believe that is inadequate—I still believe that it should be reduced to 15 knots—but I give the crosswind example to show how inadequate the view of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority is to vital safety matters. (Time expired)