JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: Well, it is time to talk federal politics now and we are joined by the Federal Transport Minister, Catherine King. Minister, welcome to the program. 

CATHERINE KING: Good to be with you. 

JAMES GLENDAY: You’ve got an announcement which I want to get to in a moment, but can I get your reaction, you’re a Victorian, to this latest killing of two young men, 12 and 15-year-old boys in suburban Melbourne? 

CATHERINE KING: Well, look, this is just an absolute tragedy. You know, know, children should be free to go about, to get on a bus, to go with their friends somewhere and get home safely. You know, it’s why the Victorian government has banned machetes, but we know that there are obviously a lot still out in the community and we just implore people, this is just a life lost, two lives cut short and no one in any community wants to see these sorts of things occurring. We just really call out to people, really think, about what you’re doing. This is just a terrible tragedy for a family, a community. You know, a basketball club’s been affected and my heart’s just go out to the family members. It’s just a tragedy no-one should have to bear. 

JAMES GLENDAY: This morning, you are asking Australians for their views on airline travel, in particular what should happen if their flights are delayed, if their bags are lost. This has been an idea that has been around for a very, very long time. We’ve got essentially what is an airline duopoly in this country. Have Australians been forced to accept subpar service now? 

CATHERINE KING: Well, I think we’ve certainly seen post-COVID, it’s taken a while for airlines and airports to really get back up to speed and the customer experience, as we know, hasn’t been as good as it could be. This is now the last round of consultations before the Albanese government legislates a set of consumer protections for aviation. It’s the first of its kind in this country that really does say here is the minimum set of standards you as a passenger can expect in the event of a delay or baggage loss or something that has occurred that has affected significantly your passenger experience and here are the rights that you have and this is how you can go about ensuring that you get a remedy whether it is prompt rebooking on another flight, whether it’s a refund, whether it’s accommodation, food or transport assistance in the instance of where something has been, you know, a plane has been delayed and it’s really impacted on you. It’s underpinned by if you can’t get a direct remedy with the airline. I know a lot of people email me directly saying, look, we’ve been trying to get hold of someone, we can’t actually get a remedy here. It’s underpinned by an ombudsman that actually you can go to for complaints, and then there’s a regulator as well who makes sure that airlines and airports are held to account. So, this is really, we’re going out for consultation really to passengers to say, have your say on my department’s website, infrastructure.gov.au, have your say, to really say, you know, get this right before we start the legislative process through the parliament. 

JAMES GLENDAY: One thing you didn’t mention there was compensation. In Europe, it’s been the case for some time that airlines can be forced to pay compensation if planes are really delayed or cancelled. Qantas and Virgin reported pretty healthy profits a couple of months ago. Is compensation an idea that you’ll consider? 

CATHERINE KING: Look, we had a look at it, and I think this is really a balance. In a market that is pretty small, we had to weigh up, how do we, in the moment when people are experiencing a delay, a frustration about lost baggage, what’s happened to them, how do we get remedies to people quickly versus what happens with schemes where the costs potentially, if they’re large, can be passed on to the travelling public. Obviously, in Europe, there is a compensation scheme that is, of course, defrayed across millions of passengers and hundreds of airlines. We’ve got a much smaller market. So we think we’ve got the balance right here, making sure people get immediate remedies to rectify the situation that they’re in, rather than the European scheme. We haven’t ruled out doing that, but really what this is about is lifting the standards overall to make sure passengers get a much better experience when they’re travelling, because, really, at the end of the day, they are at the heart of what airlines and airports are doing, and we want to make sure that passenger experience is as best as it can be. 

JAMES GLENDAY: This seems like the bare minimum, though, of what you expect when you book a flight, that you’ll be compensated if it’s cancelled promptly. You might have some bipartisan support if you headed down the path of compensation. The Coalition had a pay-on-delay bill in the last term of Parliament. Have you had any conversations with them about this at all? 

CATHERINE KING: Well, we’ve certainly flagged very early on, this has been a long time in the making through our aviation white paper process, that this is what we intended to do. We will obviously introduce legislation into the Parliament once this consultation process is concluded, and I would hope for some bipartisan support on this. This really is about lifting the standards of passenger experience in Australia but in a way that doesn’t add substantially to airline ticket prices which we also know are a pressure point for people in the Australian market. 

JAMES GLENDAY: Alright, the Federal Transport Minister, Catherine King, thanks for your time this morning. 

CATHERINE KING: Really good to be with you, thanks.