Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Another valuable contribution from the member for Paterson! When they talk about freedom in this House, it is not freedom for thousands of people to work at Qantas; it is the freedom of the unemployment queue, which is the only freedom that these people opposite have been inflicting on Australian jobs. It is a dishonest debate by the government to say that this is freedom for Qantas. It is the freedom for foreign governments to buy Australia's national carrier.

We hear this nonsense about a level playing field. What a load of rubbish. A level playing field for Qantas? It is a level playing field for Australia's national carrier to be purchased by either the government in China or governments in the Middle East. There is no level playing field in global aviation. And, if the members opposite knew anything about aviation in the world, they would understand that eight of the top 10 airlines in the world have foreign government shares in their businesses. The only plan that those opposite have for aviation is to sell it overseas, to get rid of the jobs and to shrug their shoulders and say: 'Running a government's too hard. Standing up for Australian governments is too hard.'

This has been a very poorly conceived debate by those in government. It is a poorly conceived debate because it fails the test of standing up for Australian jobs. It is a poorly conceived debate because the government's process to arrive at this rushed piece of legislation has been nothing short of shambolic and chaotic. Furthermore, it is a poorly conceived debate because the solution they are offering of changing the Qantas Sale Act is in fact no answer at all to the challenges that Qantas face in the next two years.

When I say it is a poorly conceived debate about jobs, my explanation is this. There are thousands of jobs at Qantas which, if the business is sold offshore, will be done offshore. Unlike those opposite, who did nothing when Ansett collapsed, I was there and I saw what happened. I can assure you that the idea that you break up a company into an international and a domestic arm will lead to a net reduction in jobs. We have got that sort of 'wombolic' Deputy Prime Minister stuttering around on the doors saying: 'There'll be no reduction. There'll be no reduction in terms of jobs in Australia.' What planet does that chap live on? It is not planet Earth and it is not the real world, where people are going to lose their jobs.

We see them talk about jobs and say: 'We need to set the place free. We need to set Qantas free.' Everyone knows, any observer of aviation knows, what will happen once you split Qantas into an international arm and a domestic arm. These very clever, card sharp personalities opposite say: 'Well, we'll just let foreign governments buy the domestic business because that's where the money is. And, of course, why wouldn't you let income be transferred overseas? Why didn't we think of that?' But then what they say is: 'The international arm? Oh, that will still be Australian.' Everyone knows except those opposite. I suspect they know but do not have the moral courage to say what they know. They know that if the international arm is on its own without the domestic arm it will struggle. We will be back here debating the demise of the international arm of Qantas if we let these circus acrobats opposite with their backflips and changes and churns on aviation policy have their way.

When we look at jobs, they have never fought for an Aussie job ever since they got into government. People in my electorate, airplane people, people who work at the airport, people who work at Qantas, good people, taxpayers, people who pay the school fees for their kids, people who have worked hard as professionals their whole lives cannot believe the betrayal of those people opposite. They say they just do not get it. But I say to these Qantas staff, of course, why would they get it? I said because they had no fight on Holden, they had no fight on Toyota and they have had no fight for the car components industry. We have not seen them near Alcoa and Point Henry. We have not seen them at Yennora rolling mill. We have not seen them that at Gove, with Rio Tinto and the decimation of that community. We did not see them contact anyone who worked at Forge. These people opposite are the cheese-eating, surrender monkeys of Australian jobs, to borrow from an American politician. Their only manufacturing policy is to buy a white flag made in another country and run it up the mast. Now they are committing acts of vandalism on Qantas.

They are not fit to be the government when you look at what they have done. But have a look at the process they have gone through. We have had smoke signals. Not smokin' Joe Hockey; we've had smoke signal Joe Hockey and the smoke signals contradict each other. Last November, last December, we got the Hockey waltz—maybe we will, like the old square dance where we put our foot in the middle and maybe we take the foot out. We may give them a debt guarantee; we may not—poor old Treasurer Hockey, rolled by his Prime Minister. You can just see Joe Hockey as a sort of latter-day B-grade Shakespearean character, 'Will I guarantee or won't I guarantee, what should I do?' In fact, what they have done is lead Qantas up the garden path, lead the Qantas workforce up the garden path. They had lead Australia up the garden path for three months. Now what they do is they say: 'Oh no, we won't do anything. We'll just invent this spurious nonsense that somehow shipping jobs overseas is going to save jobs in Australia.' If we want to talk about mixed signals, at least Joe Hockey was just confused. Then of course you have got the chief womble of the National Party, Warren Truss, and what he said—

Government members interjecting—

Wombles are nice.

Mr Keenan interjecting—

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