Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the former minister for infrastructure for the question. He would know well that these are bilateral agreements that are made between governments. As with all bilateral agreements that are made between governments, they are international agreements, and we only sign up to agreements that benefit our national interest, in all of its broad complexity. That includes ensuring that we have an aviation sector through the recovery that employs Australian workers.

In determining what our national interest is, we have to consider a broad range of factors, and it was not just one factor that led to this particular decision. The government has determined that agreeing to the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority's request for additional services is not in our national interest, and we will always consider the need to ensure that there are long-term well-paid secure jobs for Australians in the aviation sector when we are making this decision. And I am pretty sure that the minister, when he was in that position, had exactly the same view when faced with the same question.

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