Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Again, what we saw was those opposite driving down wages and conditions, wanting to remove Australian jobs and look after their mates, ensuring their mates' companies from Singapore were getting extra access to the main-city routes here in Australia. You'd think that every member of parliament would come into this place and stand up for Australian workers. You'd think they'd want to make sure that our people are employed, that they can pay their bills and feed their families. Instead, those opposite stood there saying, 'No, we shouldn't do that; we should look after those from other countries first.'

We know that those opposite spent four years knocking off the Qatar Airways application. The member for Riverina has admitted that. It took four years. That was part of the chaos and mess that we saw during the nine years of absolute destruction of the airline industry. How can we run a proper airline industry safety if we haven't got air traffic controllers? They're kind of important, the way they make sure planes land and take off properly and that there are no issues. But this is what they were doing. They were quite happy to get rid of Australian workers and put our airline industry at risk. They wanted to support Qatar Airways over Australian workers, over people who worked for Virgin, people who worked for Qantas and people who worked for dnata, who had to work shifts consisting of three hours on, three hours off and three hours on again. People were overworked and put in dangerous situations. As the member for Blair pointed out, the TWU were the first ones to stand up and say, 'Australian workers should be protected.' We need to make sure that we look after Australian workers and give them the opportunities that they deserve, not pull the rug out from under them so those opposite can look after a few of their mates from a Singapore based company. It's just wrong, and, on the day that we talk about fair work, closing loopholes and outlawing employment that is dangerous for Australian consumers and the Australian public, they bring this MPI in.

Really, they bring this MPI in for one reason only: they've got nothing. They have no policies. They have no answers. They have nothing. They want to defend their time in government. I would love to have been there to see what Senator McKenzie did when they talked about Qatar Airways. They would've had the three airlines there: Qantas, Virgin and Rex. They would have gone in and put a green line through Rex—we know they like their colour coded spreadsheets—tick, tick, tick; 300 million. Qantas would've got a yellow line: 'You'll get some, but don't worry if it's not impacting; your shareholders will still make their money.' For Virgin, they would've put a big red line through. Two and a half thousand people lost their jobs, and not one of those opposite has ever stood up for that.

See this speech in context