Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

No. In terms of our position, we unequivocally stand for Australian jobs. Qantas has the safest record of airlines around the world—it is known for it. Are we really saying that there is no relationship between that safety record and the skills of those Australians who maintain the aircraft and those engineers who work for Qantas, that there is no difference between where that work takes place?

Someone said to me yesterday that this is about sentiment; it is not. This is about cold, hard analysis of Australia's economic interests. But it is also about who we are as Australians. I make no apology for acknowledging the fact that the flying kangaroo is a source of national pride. It is a source of national pride which brings jobs to Australia, because every time people see the flying kangaroo, wherever in the world, it is an ad for Australian tourism. Qantas, of course, play a critical role in Australian tourism through programs like G'DAY USA, G'day China now—those programs that have received support. Qantas back our national teams—the Wallabies, the Australian cricket team. They do all of that because they are an Australian company. If you remove that, there is a difference between the flying kangaroo and replacing that with an emblem of another country. It is about Australian jobs; it is about the national interest. The government needs to rethink its position, get out of the trenches and actually start acting like a government that is prepared to govern rather than just act like an opposition.

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