Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am very pleased to be standing here today to speak to this matter of public importance about maintaining aviation jobs in Australia. What is not in the public's interest at the moment is the manner in which the Leader of the Opposition and the Greens have sought to play politics on this issue to the detriment of the aviation industry in this country and the thousands of Australians that it employs. What the aviation industry in this country needs right now is leadership. It needs the government to get out of its way. It needs to unshackle the legislative obstacles that prevent the industry from operating efficiently and competitively. It does not need political figures misleading the public with false statements and scaremongering for their own short-sighted political advantage and gain.

That is why the Abbott government is levelling the aviation playing field. We have a clear way forward, and that clear way is giving Qantas its freedom. We are making changes that will mean we have two very strong airlines that fly Australians and employ Australians—Virgin and Qantas.

The government will move to a single regulatory framework for all Australian international airlines. As soon as possible, legislation will be introduced to remove the foreign ownership restrictions and conditions that apply to Qantas, and particularly to their business operations contained in part 3 of the Qantas Sale Act 1992. Removing these conditions is the best way to ensure that Qantas can secure Australian jobs now and into the future by making it more competitive—and also by removing the carbon tax. If the opposition had bothered to do their job, and if they had done any homework on this issue they would know that over the last 20 years the passenger aviation industry has undergone some enormous structural changes all around the world. Germany and the UK are probably the most robust examples of where privately-run airlines have been successful and they have not received any government assistance whatsoever. It is time to undertake a complete structural review of the aviation and airline industry in Australia in line with what our needs are for the 21st century. This is the discussion that we need to have, and if the Labor Party and the Greens were serious about maintaining jobs in the aviation industry they would be part of this process and not be doing everything they possibly can to derail it.

Even the Leader of the Opposition has made the point that we should look to G20 nations as a benchmark for our continued protection of a national airline. Yet when we do, we see that since 1987 Japan, Canada, Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Mexico and South Korea have divested themselves of state-owned airlines. Of the G20 countries, only Russia, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Argentina and China maintain any majority holding in their airlines.

Twelve years ago Labor said that they were on the record as having an open mind about changing foreign ownership restrictions in the Qantas Sale Act. In 2014 it should be no different. So rather than misleading the Australian public through scaremongering and preying upon patriotic nostalgia, Labor and the Greens should tell Australians the truth. And the truth is that under the changes the government is proposing Qantas would still be subject to the Air Navigation Act which limits foreign ownership in Australian international airlines to 49 per cent. The Air Navigation Act applies to all other airlines, including Virgin and the Qantas subsidiary, Jetstar. This means that Qantas international would have to stay majority Australian owned. As for the domestic operations, those will be subject to review by the Foreign Investment Review Board.

The changes being proposed by the government are the best policy response to the difficulties that are being faced not just by Qantas but by the aviation industry in this country as a whole. We need to take an important step forward now. Now is the time to unshackle Qantas from the Qantas Sale Act. This opposition should move out of the way and help the government to make Qantas more competitive so that they can operate in a truly international market. This is the path of the future of aviation for Australia.

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