Leon Delaney:
Earlier this week, Qantas announced it will close down its crew base at Canberra Airport, along with similar bases at Hobart and Mildura in April next year. Since then, the CEO of Qantas has reportedly provided an assurance that services to Canberra will actually be increased. Joining me now the federal Member for Fenner and Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Dr Andrew Leigh – good afternoon.
Andrew Leigh:
Good afternoon Leon, great to be with you.
Delaney:
Well, thanks for joining us today. You have urged Qantas to reconsider its decision to close their base here in Canberra. What do you feel will be the adverse impact if they go ahead with the closure?
Leigh:
Well, the risk is that more pilots end up leaving the airline. 68 per cent of pilots who were surveyed by the 3 pilots unions said they’d look for alternative employment if the proposal went ahead. One in 5 of those pilots has already experienced a base closure and had to relocate. So, I don’t feel like Qantas is treating its pilots with the decency that you’d expect from a company that’s just made a $2.39 billion profit.
Delaney:
And of course it’s not just pilots, it’s also cabin crew I believe. About 30 individual jobs here in Canberra, but also another 40 odd when you add in those jobs in Mildura and Hobart. Those communities are also likely to be adversely affected aren’t they?
Leigh:
Yes, that’s right. Qantas is closing 3 bases with this announcement: Mildura, Hobart and Canberra. We believe that they shouldn’t be going ahead with those closures – that Qantas can be engaged and supportive of the local community at the same time as making a healthy profit. It shouldn’t be putting the bottom line first every time.
Delaney:
Indeed, and we’ve seen since a report that the CEO at Qantas, Vanessa Hudson, has given an assurance to the Chief Minister, Andrew Barr that the frequency of services in and out of Canberra is going to be increased. Do you believe that?
Leigh:
It will have to be the frequency of delivered services because we do know the Sydney to Canberra route has the highest cancellation rate of any route in Australia, and Qantas is responsible for most of those cancellations. I think the flying public in Canberra are pretty sick of the cancellation rates and of feeling as though they’re not being treated with the same decency that Qantas treats people in other capital cities. It is appropriate that Qantas looks after the national capital – that means frequent services that aren’t cancelled at fair prices, and we’ll continue to be pushing Qantas to get that.
Delaney:
All right. Obviously, you know, we’ve had a lot of discussions about Qantas in the past about the reliability, or lack thereof, of their services into Canberra. That’s an issue that really still needs to be addressed isn’t it?
Leigh:
It certainly is, yes. The reliability has been a serious problem. I mean, for a while I think the way they were working was every time they had a regional jet out of service, rather than cancelling the regional flight, they’d cancel a Sydney to Canberra flight and use a plane to fly the regional route. That’s not fair on Canberrans who are buying a ticket, which might be for something time sensitive like a meeting, or a birthday or a wedding.
People need the assurance that they can get the flights on‑time that they’ve paid for. And I think too many people are just saying, well it’s easier to drive or take the Murrays bus than it is to fly, and that’s on the airline for the way in which they’ve treated Canberrans over the years.
Delaney:
Indeed. Well, we know that people have expressed a level of dissatisfaction with the poor treatment that Qantas has delivered to the traveling public in Canberra. And I know that, well I don’t want to speak on their behalf or verbal them, but Canberra Airport has had their issues with Qantas as well over the years haven’t they?
Leigh:
They certainly have and they’ve been highlighting a number of issues, including recently pointing the finger at Qantas for what they say is having higher prices around parliamentary sittings which means obviously, the taxpayer ends up paying more for the inevitable cost of bringing parliamentarians in and out of Canberra. Qantas is the nation’s carrier and it carries a special reputation to be a good corporate citizen.
We’ve seen it though, fined in the federal court for illegally outsourcing its entire ground staff during the pandemic. And it needs to do better in its treatment of the workforce – it needs to do better in its treatment of its customers.
Delaney:
A moment ago you mentioned the $2.39 billion profit, or whatever the figure actually was, from my recollection – that’s just about the right amount to pay back all the support the airline received during COVID isn’t it?
Leigh:
Yeah, Australian taxpayers were good to Qantas during the pandemic – made sure that it was able to stay solvent. Qantas should return the favour by being a good corporate citizen to the rest of Australia, now that its profits are healthy again. What goes around comes around, and I think Qantas owes a lot to Australians for the way in which it was supported through the pandemic.
Delaney:
Now you’ve also spoken today about a government review looking into how Consumer Law in Australia protects consumers from potential adverse impacts of artificial intelligence. What exactly is the potential adverse impact of AI on consumers?
Leigh:
There’s lots of ways in which artificial intelligence could impact consumers. It could cause you to be misled. It could cause you to be pushed towards products that aren’t suitable. We needed to look through and make sure that the Consumer Law was up‑to‑scratch in the AI age. And I’m thankful to say that the review largely says that it is.
The Consumer Law is not written in a way that excludes artificial intelligence. And so just as you get consumer protections when you buy a toaster, so too your consumer protections apply when you’re using an artificial intelligence app.
Delaney:
Okay. Artificial intelligence, I know we’ve been told is going to revolutionise the economy but so far all I’ve seen is unreliable, you know, outcomes where the advice from AI is sometimes completely off the mark. You look at social media and you can see content that’s obviously been generated by AI because it’s so turgidly written. AI is being over‑hyped a bit isn’t it?
Leigh:
It’s certainly being extraordinarily heavily used. And you’re right, it’s got flaws. It sometimes hallucinates and sometimes wants too much to please the user rather than provide the right answer. But this AI we’re using today is the worst AI we’re ever going to use in our lifetimes, and the rate at which it’s accelerating in quality is pretty remarkable.
So, we’ve got to make sure the laws keep up‑to‑scratch. Our philosophy as a government is that we need to look at the existing laws, tweak them if necessary. And if we’ve got to make changes, then let’s do that on a technological and neutral way in order to make sure that the laws aren’t outpaced by the technology which is moving faster than any technology I’ve seen my lifetime.
Delaney:
Now, not exactly artificial intelligence but there was a story today about the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Ian Anderson finding that the Department of Home Affairs had breached the law using an automated process to decline a visa application. In fact, repeatedly.
And this use by a government agency of an automated system – that starts to ring all the bells of Robodebt doesn’t it? And of course, if you bring artificial intelligence into the picture, there’s always this temptation to leave the decision making to the machine. It seems we still need better protection against automated processes, doesn’t it?
Leigh:
We’re certainly taking a careful look at what happened in that those instances and making sure that we’ve got the processes absolutely right. We’ve got a very strong border control system and very careful human checks through the system, so we’ll be scrutinising it carefully.
It was of course Labor that first called out the Robodebt scandal, called for the Royal Commission and recognised that the Coalition had made a terrible mistake with Robodebt. We won’t be making those mistakes again.
Delaney:
Well, and yet somehow we have government departments that are still using automated systems without the appropriate human oversight and resulting in incorrect outcomes?
Leigh:
And the human oversight is exactly what we need, as you point out Leon. Putting the human back in the loop, getting rid of the artificial staffing cap which existed under the former government and ensuring there’s enough people in place to do that work has been a priority for our government.
We’ll get to the bottom of what’s happened in this particular case, but people should be in no doubt of our strong commitment to ensuring that humans are in the loop any time an important decision is being made.
Delaney:
Fantastic. Thanks very much for chatting today.
Leigh:
Thanks so much Leon.
Delaney:
Thank you. Dr Andrew Leigh, the federal Member for Fenner right here in the ACT, as well as Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury on 2CC.