I met the new Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport yesterday at Parliament House. I will say right at the start I think he is going to be a very good Minister.
Yes, there is a problem. That is, most people who read this forum have had 10, 20 or 30 years involvement in the aviation catastrophe and non-reform in this country. Our new Minister, Michael McCormack, has now been involved with the Transport portfolio for just over 2 weeks.
The most important discussion we had was about changing the Act. I asked him if he would support the Barnaby Joyce decision to go ahead with the changes as amended by Anthony Albanese. It became clear that the Deputy Prime Minister was not going to proceed that fast. He rightly said that he wanted to come up to speed on the issue, but would be making a decision promptly. We can’t expect more than that.
We in the industry – especially the general aviation industry – will just have to wait and hope that these important legislative changes to the Act will go through. As other posters on this thread have stated, it is really the key to being able to move forward and get our aviation industry thriving again.
I’m more positive than I have been for a long time. We will see what happens.