Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much. I am going directly to the question of telephone calls. I know that the facts and the truth are inconvenient for the opposition, but these are the facts. Alan Joyce was asked, 'Is it true that you would not have grounded the fleet if the Prime Minister had taken your call during the CHOGM meeting and promised to intervene directly to end this dispute?' Alan Joyce, in response:

There is misquotes and misinformation on it. We had talked to three senior ministers. I had no expectation to talk to the Prime Minister. I knew that she was tied up in CHOGM. We had talked to the appropriate ministers …

Then Fran Kelly comes back again: 'So you weren't waiting on the Prime Minister's call?' 'No. Absolutely not. That is completely misaccurately reported.'

So misrepresentation No. 1 from the opposition is that somehow a discussion between me and Alan Joyce on Saturday afternoon would have changed Qantas's decision. That is not true, and every member of the opposition who says it is telling the Australian people something that is not true. Qantas determined to ground its fleet on Saturday morning. It determined to engage in a lockout and ground its fleet. We have been critical of that decision. The opposition have not uttered one word of criticism about that. The Qantas decision was the wrong decision: it was the wrong decision by members of the travelling public; it was the wrong decision by the Australian economy. The Leader of the Opposition utters not one word of criticism of Qantas and seeks to mislead the Australian people about the circumstances of this dispute. And then the opposition, yesterday and today, continue to mislead the Australian people about the provisions of the Fair Work Act, pretending that section 431 is something that can be instantaneously turned on without the minister engaging in a proper process and something that is not subject to legal review. In doing that they seek to mislead the Australian people.

Now, Mr Speaker, you would ask yourself: why are they seeking to mislead the Australian people about all of this? Why don't they utter a word of criticism about Qantas's decision to lock workers out and ground its fleet? I will leave that for the Leader of the Opposition to answer, but I would suggest to him that, for a man who has been calling for details and the full record of events, he would want to be more fulsome and more direct in his answers to media questions than has been on display today.

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