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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-06-01 Daily Xml
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Giles Electorate

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:27): I rise today to talk about a number of issues in my electorate. The first of those issues is the intent by Rex to pull its airline service out of Whyalla. I would have to say that this has been something of an ongoing saga initiated by the federal government. It is the federal government's imposition of particular security arrangements on regional airports. Some of those regional airports might well be able to afford what is done. They might have passenger numbers that are such that a passenger head tax to pay for the very costly impost might not be of great impact, but in Whyalla it is of great impact.

The security that has been imposed looks like coming in at something like $1.2 million or $1.3 million a year. The previous federal government partly came to the party in assisting with some of the capital upgrade to the airport and the capital around the security. At the time, we lobbied for that to happen and I joined with others—the council and some Senate members—to see that happen. I have to say that the federal member, Rowan Ramsey, was supportive of that as well.

The important issue—and I had some discussions with the council about this—and the killer was going to be the recurrent costs associated with that. What the previous federal government did not do was put in place a framework beyond some interim funding to address this high cost impact on small regional airports.

I would have to say that the last budget by the current federal government was a great one in a whole range of ways, but one of its failures was the failure to address this impost on small regional airports. That is despite the fact that myself and a whole range of other people and organisations and councils have lobbied for a framework to be developed. So what has now happened in Whyalla is that the council were put in an invidious position: either they absorb the cost, which would have represented a 13 per cent increase in rates just for the security, or they do the right thing and impose the cost on the airline, which in turn imposes the cost on the passengers.

Whyalla is serviced by Qantas and Rex, and it is Qantas that triggered the need to upgrade the security arrangements, so you could argue that Rex were right to be peeved, in that the council attempted to spread the cost across both the airlines. As a result of that, Rex has said, 'Well, we're going to pull the pin.' So that is going to be fewer services for Whyalla, and it does not just impact Whyalla; Port Augusta does not have any commercial airlines, and obviously some of the smaller communities closer to Whyalla do not have any commercial airlines.

Whyalla plays an incredibly important role, and it plays an important role when it comes to a whole range of medical services and businesses that rely upon frequent and flexible services and pricing when it comes to airlines. The costs are often high anyway with both airlines, but I think it would be fair to say Qantas tends to be more expensive. What this is going to do, apart from reducing the number of services per day flying to and from Whyalla, is also remove competitive tension.

There is a solution to this and it will not cost the federal government anything: impose a federal framework, a passenger head tax federally, and it would cost less than a dollar. The estimate is 75¢ per passenger, given it is spread over millions of passengers, instead of imposing this onerous cost on small regional airports. When it comes to this issue, the federal government needs to pull its finger out and do the right thing by these small regional airports.

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