Mr LLOYD (Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads) (10:18 AM) —I would like to firstly thank the members for Oxley, Wakefield, Batman, Tangney and Shortland and the member for Blaxland, who, through your generous interpretation of relevance, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, was able to complete his speech. I thank him for his support on the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill 2005.

I am pleased that the opposition have supported this bill. It is an important bill and it will empower the Governor-General to make regulations that are inconsistent with the Disability Discrimination Act 1984 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1992 in relation to medical standards, where necessary, for the safety of air navigation. It will allow past actions and decisions taken under the existing regulations to stand, validate future actions and decisions taken under existing regulations, create a requirement in the act that the holders of an air operators certificate—an AOC—must continue to satisfy CASA that they meet the conditions in their AOC, and standardise references in the act to aircraft which are registered in countries other than Australia.

The bill also inserts a reference note into the DDA and the SDA to inform members of the public of the operations of the amendments to the Governor-General’s regulation-making powers that this bill is introducing. These amendments will address the current uncertainty in the Civil Aviation Act about whether certain aviation safety regulations or actions carried out in accordance with these regulations are inconsistent with either the sex discrimination or the disability discrimination legislation. The amendments proposed under the bill are required as the exemptions granted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission are for a limited period of five years and are not wide enough to ensure that aviation safety requirements are not unreasonably constrained by sex discrimination and disability discrimination legislation.

The existing regulations affected by this bill, largely medical standards for flight crew and provisions relating to the seating of a disabled passenger in an aircraft, have been in place for many years. I must emphasise that any new regulations that will be inconsistent with the sex discrimination or the disability discrimination legislation will be subject to clearance by the Human Rights Branch of the Attorney-General’s Department. As with all the regulations developed by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, CASA, such regulations would undergo some of the most comprehensive consultation procedures used by any Commonwealth agency and naturally are subject to parliamentary scrutiny. The effect of the retrospective provisions in the bill is to validate past actions taken or rulings made by CASA that are potentially inconsistent with the sex discrimination and disability discrimination acts.

No-one will find themselves in a worse position than they were in under the laws as previously administered and understood. The parliament and the public need have no fear that this amendment will enable the making of unreasonable discriminatory regulations. The bill limits the extent of the inconsistency to situations where it is necessary for the safety of air navigation. This will provide a safeguard to protect individuals from conditions that are unnecessarily restrictive. By clarifying the Governor-General’s regulation-making powers, the bill will make Australia’s civil aviation regulatory framework simpler and easier to understand and use. This bill is necessary to maintain the high standards of aviation safety that Australia enjoys. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.