Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I get into my remarks, I'd like to preface them by saying that as a proud Transport Workers Union member and former union official I shed no tears seeing Alan Joyce's time as Qantas CEO end tomorrow. I'd echo sentiments similar to those in a media release issued by the Prime Minister back in 2015, when he commented on the announced retirement of the then chairman of the Sydney Airport Corporation—one word: 'Good'. I wish the incoming CEO, Vanessa Hudson, the best of luck at the helm, but only time will tell how smoothly she will fly through the turbulence left in Alan Joyce's wake—though, if you were to ask the Qatar Airways CEO, Akbar Al Baker, what his thoughts were on the matter, his comments at the International Air Transport Association meeting in 2018 might be indicative. He said an airline 'has to be led by a man because it is a very challenging position'. I'm sure he regrets saying that now.

The motion we have in front of us, moved by the member for Riverina, is about the state of Australia's airports and aviation industry. It is always interesting when a former minister moves a motion on something they were directly responsible for once upon a time. But the member for Riverina has always had a straight bat, so it's worth examining the coalition's form in this space. I'm sure we will find no surprises here.

With this in mind, it's worth returning our focus to Qantas, an airline that received billions of taxpayer dollars, provided to the company as a blank cheque, in fact—all of that money for no equity. The member for Riverina wouldn't get a guest spot on Dragons'Den, that's for sure. When Virgin collapsed, however, they didn't even bother to offer any assistance, leaving it up to foreign private equity to step in. By that time, were the cupboards bare? Was it about picking winners or losers? Or was it an indication that the former government, in their own perverse way, saw the national significance of Qantas, and the bailout was their way of saying they were acting in the national interest? If that was the case, their advocacy for Qatar Airways is a departure from that initial stance. How much of a departure? The member for Riverina should feel a bit of deja vu in the current situation because, after all, as the minister responsible back in 2018 when the ask was put on him by Qatar Airways for more air rights, he said—in the member for Riverina's own words:

… you can't have an airline coming in from overseas and just undercutting to the point where Australian jobs are at risk and Australian airlines are placed at a disadvantage.

We can't have an airline with very deep pockets undercut, undercut, undercut and … (then) people go to them as opposed to an airline that may be majority Australian-owned and unable to compete with this unfair undercutting of prices.

They were your words. With that in mind, the member for Riverina as the minister put the request on hold. Why would he do that? He claims it was because he was new. He had his training wheels on. Yet, when it was approved four years later, it was approved with multiple safeguards in place to prevent the abuse of market power—a unique set of safeguards, I might add.

In the present day, however, the commentary by other airlines such as Virgin and the comments made by Flight Centre are based solely on commercial considerations and not on what is best for Australia, what is in Australia's national interest, and, frankly, I can't fault them for that at all. But it is something governments must have at the forefront of their decision-making. In that same sense, Qatar Airways are fully entitled to act in their own commercial interests, despite the fact that they also act in a national interest.

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