Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Today in question time we received repeated assurances from this government that it had done all it could to prevent the Qantas strike, that it had done all it could to prevent the grounding of Qantas aircraft and that it had acted decisively in response to the warnings it received that this grounding was about to happen. What is now absolutely clear is that the government could have acted to prevent the lockout and prevent the grounding. They could have done so and they had plenty of time to do so.

In an interview just half an hour or so ago, Qantas confirmed that, had the government intervened, they would not have grounded the airline. In a simple statement, they have undermined everything that the government said to us in question time today and all of their lame defence over the last two or three days. The clear fact is that the government could have prevented those 48 hours of chaos and that they could have done it easily. I quote directly from that report:

Asked if the fleet would have been grounded if the government had used section 431 of the act, a Qantas spokesman said: "No."

He said no. It goes on:

"If a declaration had been made under section 431 of the Fair Work Act, Qantas would have been prevented from issuing a lockout notice to these employees covered by the three unions," the spokesman told AAP.

Not only would Qantas have acted in a decent and responsible way and not grounded its fleet but, had the government actually taken the action available to it under section 431 of its own act, Qantas also would have been prevented from locking out its employees. It would have been a simple matter for this government to prevent those 48 hours of crisis. It was simple for them to do it, but they did absolutely nothing. This is another example in the conga line of this government's failures—its inability to deal with issues, its inability to be decisive and its inability to deliver stability for our country.

The government say that it is all about job security, that they are looking after the job security of Qantas workers. But there they are only worried about one job—only one job is insecure—and that is the job of the Prime Minister. She was interested in her own job security in this particular matter. When you look around and see that there are 32 former union bosses in her caucus, it is pretty obvious what delivers her job security. On top of that, we have the Transport Workers Union frontrunner for the ALP presidency, Tony Sheldon, the man who is in fact running this dispute for Qantas. In fact, he boasts in his campaign video to the delegates going to the ALP conference that, among his attributes for the job, he was 'running the Qantas dispute'. So who is making these decisions? Who is guaranteeing the job security of the Prime Minister? It is the union bosses. It is Tony Sheldon, the man who is running the Qantas dispute.

So the government, to try to cover up their own inability to take the decisive action that our country needed at that time, have spent the last two days vilifying Qantas—they are blaming Qantas for their own failure to act. Qantas had given them plenty of warning. Qantas had told them time and again that their airline was in trouble, that it was bleeding to death as a result of union action. But the government took no notice. Then, at 2 pm on Saturday, when Alan Joyce, in an appeal for help, rang several government figures to tell them that they would be grounding the airline, the government simply spurned his entreaties. Here was an airline in trouble, pleading for the government to help. The government could have acted immediately to resolve this issue, but in fact they did nothing—and all they have tried to do subsequently is to demonise Qantas to cover up and mask their own failings.

We know that there was disagreement amongst the various ministers. To give credit to the minister for transport, it is pretty obvious that he wanted the government to intervene but others did not.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

The minister is saying he did not want the government to intervene. That means he is just as guilty as the Prime Minister. The 100,000 passengers who were held up and whose travel was disrupted as a result of this dispute can blame the minister for transport just as much as they can blame the Prime Minister, because the government could have acted.

The government did not need to have all of the measures required under section 431 of the act in place by five o'clock; all they had to do was to tell Alan Joyce that the government would act, and Qantas would have withdrawn the grounding of its fleet. The lockout was only going to occur two days later—

Ms Rishworth interjecting —

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