11.15am - 29 March 2001

 

Senator WOODLEY  (Queensland) (11.15 a.m.) --I thank Senator Crowley for that speech because I think it really does raise serious issues about occupational health and safety. It is interesting that I actually want to follow on about another occupational health and safety issue, an issue that is to do with aircraft. For the purpose of doing that, I want to make my speech against an item in the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2000-2001 and the Transport and Territories Legislation Amendment Bill 1999. This bill provides for the winding up of the Australian National Railway Commission. It underlines the policy vacuum that we have in this country in the area of transport, in the sense that we have no overall transport policy from any of the political parties. It is a vacuum and one that ought to be filled as quickly as possible. Neither this government nor this nation has an overall transport policy and that is a very serious lack indeed.

But there is also a vacuum in the delivery of transport safety and that is what I really want to address today--in this case, not simply safety in terms of railways but safety in terms of air transport. I note that the appropriation bill is about winding up the Australian National Railway Commission, something which the Democrats were always strongly opposed to. I note also that moves to build the railway from Alice Springs to Darwin are now foundering and clearly--without an overall national transport policy that involves road, rail, air and sea--we are going to have these one-off projects which do not fit into any kind of overall policy at all and of course we are going to have difficulty in getting support for building transport infrastructure which, in a sense, seems to go nowhere.

Let me return to what I believe is an even more pressing transport issue, the issue of air safety--in particular, the issue of cabin air quality on the BAe 146 aircraft. Most Australians would know by now, because of the media and the publicity given to the Senate inquiry into this, that these British Aerospace 70-seater jets--of which there about 30 in Australia and hundreds more overseas--have got a design flaw. This flaw is in the engines and the air-conditioning system and this flaw means that toxic oil fumes from the engines are leaking into the air-conditioning and being inhaled by flight crew and passengers.

The Democrats initiated--and were very well supported by the other parties in this place in conducting it--a two-year Senate inquiry into this issue which found that the contaminated air was causing short, medium and possibly long-term illness among flight crew, that there was also a safety issue due to crew being incapacitated and that the planes needed to be fixed. There was huge amount of disturbing evidence to the inquiry that several pilots had become incapacitated by the contaminated air while flying planes and that hundreds of flight crew were ill from inhaling the fumes. CASA, disturbingly, said there was no problem. British Aerospace and the two major airlines, predictably, said there was not a serious problem. So far, the minister for transport, alarmingly, has said nothing.

The Senate report, which had cross party support and unanimous recommendations, found that there was a major problem and made a range of recommendations to fix it. Just to recap, the committee recommended that CASA reassess its requirements for monitoring the operations and cabin and cockpit air quality of the BAe 146 aircraft operating in Australia and, where necessary, introduce regulations under the Civil Aviation Act 1988 specifying a number of things, including that there should be a specific national standard for checking and monitoring the engine seals and air quality in all passenger commercial jet aircraft and that they should put in place operational procedures for the BAe 146 which pay particular attention to the need to ensure aircraft are withdrawn from operational flying and serviced to ensure any operating faults resulting in oil leaks, fumes or smoke are immediately repaired. CASA was called on to review the registration of BAe 146 aircraft operating in Australia, and it was recommended that renewal of air operating certificates and registration of the BAe 146 be subject to completion of those recommended modifications as a condition for continued registration of the aircraft.

The committee also recommended that the minister for transport request the Strategic Research Development Committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council to set up and undertake an appropriate research program on the effect of exposure to aircraft cabin air on air crew and passengers. The committee noted that several flight crew lost employment due to ill health which they attribute to fumes exposure and that their employers have opposed and may have unnecessarily delayed the settlement of employees' compensation and insurance claims. It also recommended that the issue of cabin air quality be reviewed by the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission with a view to including aerotoxic syndrome in appropriate codes as a matter of reference for future workers compensation and other insurance cases. The minister for transport has had months to respond to this report but sadly, despite being assured that work was being done, the Australian flying public has heard nothing. The deadline for the government to respond to the Senate report came and went in February but still there is nothing.

This is not good enough. The Democrats understand that the government is working in good faith to implement the recommendations of the Senate inquiry, but we are now past any reasonable deadline. This is a matter of air safety and passenger and crew health and must be addressed urgently. While the government has been delaying its response to the report, incidents of fume contamination on the BAe 146 aircraft continue. Flight crew continue to be laid off due to ill health without workers compensation and passengers are being affected.

This is an appalling situation. The government has neglected its duty to protect air travellers. The airlines are neglecting their duty to protect crew and passengers. The manufacturer has neglected its duty to fix the problem. Most seriously, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has neglected its duty to fix this safety problem. I am informed by my contacts in the aviation industry that the aviation authorities of both the United Kingdom and Canada have issued official communiques to flight crew on the fumes problem in aircraft. The communique of the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK said:

There have been incidents where smoke or fumes have entered aircraft and pilots have been affected to the extent that their ability to operate the aircraft may have been impaired. The first action in the event of smoke or fumes in the flight deck should be for flight crew to don oxygen masks.

An interim air safety recommendation from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said:

In situations where odor/smoke from an unknown source occurs, the decision to initiate a diversion and a potential emergency landing must be made quickly.

On the other hand, what do we have from CASA here in Australia? We had denials that there was a problem. We do not have any warnings to crew or passengers. Shouldn't CASA be telling Australian aircrew to use oxygen in the event of fume contamination? And what about passengers? These questions must be answered.

In the meantime, I have been informed by flight crew that the incidents continue to occur. This year an Australian flight attendant was diagnosed with chemical burns to her lungs after being exposed to fumes in an aircraft cabin. I have also been informed by one medical practitioner that this doctor is treating 20 flight attendants and two pilots who are gravely ill as a result of their exposure to fumes but continue to work because they cannot get employment elsewhere. Some are too sick to work and are on leave without pay. And I have been informed that one regular passenger on these planes is also gravely ill but cannot get insurance because the problem of aerotoxic syndrome has not been recognised. I have also seen statements from the airlines that the Senate report was not directed at them, so therefore they will not be taking action.

The fact that the airlines and the aviation authorities have known about and covered up this problem for decades and continue to selectively use doctors and insurance companies to cover up the problem and deny compensation to flight crew is an outrage. This is an international problem, and Australia is being left behind in terms of fixing it up. We have a good air safety record in this country, but we must not put it in jeopardy by not addressing problems such as these. And that is not to mention the injustice suffered by hundreds of flight crew affected by these toxic fumes.

So I am here today to say to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, John Anderson, and to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and to the airlines, `Shame on you. Australian people are being injured while you deny the problem and dither around.' I call on all those responsible to take action now and to respond to the Senate report. It lays out what needs to be done. It should be done. I will continue to monitor this situation, and we will continue to publicly raise incidents of air contamination in aeroplanes. There is a higher public awareness of these issues now that the problem of deep vein thrombosis has been given so much publicity. You cannot bury your heads in the sand any longer. We need to face the problem and take action.