Senator MARGETTS(10.58 a.m.) —When I was listening to Senator Bob Collins's contribution, I was thinking of parallel examples of boards. If you had a board whose role was to look at health or safety issues of nicotine and smoking, would it be sensible to suggest that that should only be made up of smokers? If you had a board looking at the impacts of alcohol abuse, would you suggest that it is appropriate that it should only be made up of drinkers? If you had a superannuation board, is there any suggestion that it is right or proper that it should only be made up of pensioners or superannuants?

The question follows: is it proper or are you likely to get a reasonable result if those who are to be regulated end up being the only ones who are directed towards being on the board? The answer quite clearly is no. If you do such a thing you are likely to get a skewed result right from the beginning.

Aviation safety is not just about pilots. Air safety is about the public—the public who fly, the public who are underneath air paths and the relatives of people in many different circumstances—and about the confidence people can have in an industry which is so vital to a country like Australia.

This bill unfortunately is yet another sad episode of the tragic tale of civil aviation in this country. The continuing tragedy has been played out in a political forum that seems to have little concern for the safety of the public who travel by air in this country, despite the rhetoric to the contrary.

There is also another example of the problems we will continue to face in Australia as we push for further deregulation and cost recovery, and lose further control of regulatory bodies. The message from the government and, to that extent, the opposition is clear: that we do not need enforceable regulation or regulation as we may have had it in the past; that competitive forces will force companies to maintain proper standards in areas such as safety. To my mind, this approach is naive in the extreme. It leaves the consumer open to massive risk in relation to safety and environmental standards, and so on.

The reality is that, in areas such as aviation, we do need to regulate to ensure that the highest levels of safety are maintained. This is where we need to have properly established and accountable regulatory bodies, such as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. The farcical situation that has arisen with CASA over recent months is a direct result of the politicisation of that body and the failure to have proper procedures and qualifications in place in relation to its board.

In that regard, I am pleased to see that Senator Murray has proposed some amendments that address some aspects of my concerns. I believe that his proposal in relation to such issues as the qualifications of the board, merit as a basis for appointment, a limit to the number of terms that a board member can serve and the independence of the board is laudable. The Greens will be supporting his amendment to that effect during the committee stage of the bill.

The CASA board should not have been placed in the position in which it has found itself in recent times. I believe that the reforms proposed by Senator Murray, which I believe are consistent with the Nolan commit tee report from the United Kingdom parliament, will go a long way towards avoiding this sort of debacle in the future.

It is extremely important that we deal with this issue without this level of politicisation. At the moment I have some concerns about the proposal for the second reading amendment, and those concerns relate to lobbying. Lobbying can be many different things. People can lobby for very good reasons in relation to civil aviation safety.

I do not know—perhaps Senator Collins could advise me—whether there is some precedent for this; I would be happy to hear about that when it comes up—whether the fact that someone has spoken up or tried to change things in the past in relation to aviation safety should immediately bar them from participation on the board. That perhaps might mean in the future that anyone who has kept their mouth shut becomes eligible for a board and that there will be some sort of witch-hunt in relation to whether or not anyone who has ever expressed an opinion has been classified as a lobbyist.

That is my reservation. It might be a `this means you, Dick Smith' amendment. But before I commit to whether or not we would be able to support it as a second reading amendment, I would like to see some more rationalisation for it when we come to the committee stage. But I shall leave that for further into the debate.