Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The insurers have said that, whilst there cannot be a blanket commitment, they will look sympathetically to claims. They do say they will assess whether or not passengers were able to mitigate their loss and if they were able to get a flight quickly what losses they incurred. Because this is an unpredictable element they are going to be more sympathetic to claims than has traditionally perhaps been the case on other occasions.

Of course, this comes down to the question of unpredictability. This event was certainly unpredictable to the flying public. It was certainly unpredictable to the tourism industry. It was certainly unpredictable to the mining industry. It was certainly not notified to the government until Saturday afternoon. But of course that does beg the question: who did know? I sat through the 12 hours of hearings in the commission last Sunday and Monday morning. I did not run into any Liberals in the lift queue trying to sort the matter out.

I do know that Qantas said that easily from 20 October this was on the cards. Of course, there is one other set of actors who can explain whether it was unpredictable. We all know where I am going here, don't we? What did the opposition know? Did you know? Were you informed at any stage? Did some of your former staff members tell you what was going on? Shame! (Time expired)

Opposition members interjecting—

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