Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, given the Prime Minister's statement, I believe it would assist the House if I informed her that I first heard about the grounding of the fleet at 4.45 pm on Saturday afternoon.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.

Government members interjecting—

Order, those on my right!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: on the basis of the Leader of the Opposition's explanation, the Prime Minister should withdraw the imputation she made at the end of her answer.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. All that today has proved is that starting earlier, at 1.30, does not improve question time.

Honourable members interjecting—

If people would just settle down. I find it very hard to protect people's ability to rise to the dispatch box with points of order if they just wish to make this a debate. If you do not want question time, change the standing orders so you get rid of question time.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister has accused me of not telling the truth.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition, as a previous Leader of the House, should more than others have an understanding of the standing orders and the proceedings of this place. He has opportunities other than the way that he is trying to make his point. The member for Deakin has the call, and that is it.

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Would the minister update the House on the government's decisive action to minimise the impacts on the travelling public of Qantas's decision to lock out its staff and ground its fleet? When was the minister informed of this decision by Qantas?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Deakin for his question, and indeed it is a very good question. I have been very transparent about what the government knew and precisely when. I have indicated very clearly the process whereby my office was contacted by Mr Joyce prior to 2 pm, whereby I made three phone calls attempting to get on to Mr Joyce. Eventually Mr Joyce returned my call after 2 pm, at which point he informed me that he intended to lock out his workforce from 8 pm on Monday evening and that, as a consequence, he would shut down the airline domestically and internationally at 5 pm that day. I have indicated very clearly that that was the first time that Mr Joyce or anyone else from Qantas had ever raised with me the prospect of a lockout of the workforce and a consequential shutdown of the airline. There are some on the opposite side who have suggested that somehow I should have known that would have occurred. There was not a single person in Australia, in Qantas, an aviation reporter, an opinion writer, a politician—anyone at all in Australia—who had predicted that Qantas would take what in the words of Mr Joyce—

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Professor Andrew Stewart—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Mayo.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

at 5 pm was 'an unbelievable decision'—

Mr Briggs interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mayo will leave the chamber for one hour under standing order 94(a).

The member for Mayo then left the chamber.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not a single person in Australia thought that Mr Joyce and the Qantas board would make this decision to lock out its workforce and shut down the airline.

But it is the case that I have also indicated that, in the lead-up to Saturday, never did Qantas or any trade union call for government intervention into the dispute. Indeed, up until Friday, one day beforehand, the Leader of the Opposition was also not calling for government intervention into the dispute. What we saw on Friday was a front-page story in the Daily Telegraph, with letters from Premier Baillieu and Premier O'Farrell to the Prime Minister that were given to the Daily Telegraph about the same time or before the Prime Minister's office received those letters. That morning, the Leader of the Opposition called for the government to intervene in the dispute—one day before Qantas announced their action and on the day of the Qantas AGM, in which none of the shareholders of Qantas were informed of this plan, even though we know from the Fair Work Australia hearing that Qantas received a report on 20 October about the consequences for safety of a decision to lock out the workforce. But not a word did we hear.

Mr Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, was asked prior to question time, 'Did anyone from Qantas speak to you or your office prior to Saturday about the possibility of a grounding?' and he could not answer it. He was then asked, 'The question was whether your office was forewarned of the dispute; can you answer that?' and he could not do that either. We know that when they were in office they were a part of a conspiracy— (Time expired)

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister explain how she finds time to call Australian sports stars to congratulate them on their success but could not find five minutes on Saturday to call Qantas to try to avert 48 hours of chaos that stranded 70,000 passengers, hit our national economy and damaged our international reputation?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the question from the opposition I say: this continues the pattern of yesterday and it continues its pattern of seeking to mislead the Australian people over this dispute for its base political interests, because it is obviously softening up the ground to try to sell to the Australian people a reintroduction of Work Choices.

Given the fact that the member who asked the question is misleading and in a pattern of misleading, I refer him to something that happened yesterday morning. That is when Alan Joyce went on Radio National. The member who asked the question should have known about this interview—indeed, he probably did—but there is this pattern of misleading going on. There was the article in the Daily Telegraph yesterday morning that suggested that somehow Alan Joyce was waiting for a call from me. Alan Joyce was asked about this on Radio National yesterday. The question from the interviewer Fran Kelly was: 'Alan Joyce, is it true that the fleet would never have been grounded if the Prime Minister had taken your call'—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question was very short and specific. It was not about whether the Prime Minister returned Alan Joyce's call or took his call; it was why she did not pick up the phone to ring Qantas to try to avert this crisis.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister is answering the question, and I think that the people behind the member for Sturt showed what value they placed on the point of order. It would assist the House if people sat there quietly, engaged and listened—even to the people who asked the question so they could remember the whole question. The Prime Minister will be directly relevant to the question. I would appreciate less debate in responses, but I say to those asking the questions: they have been replete in argument. The Prime Minister has the call.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much. I am going directly to the question of telephone calls. I know that the facts and the truth are inconvenient for the opposition, but these are the facts. Alan Joyce was asked, 'Is it true that you would not have grounded the fleet if the Prime Minister had taken your call during the CHOGM meeting and promised to intervene directly to end this dispute?' Alan Joyce, in response:

There is misquotes and misinformation on it. We had talked to three senior ministers. I had no expectation to talk to the Prime Minister. I knew that she was tied up in CHOGM. We had talked to the appropriate ministers …

Then Fran Kelly comes back again: 'So you weren't waiting on the Prime Minister's call?' 'No. Absolutely not. That is completely misaccurately reported.'

So misrepresentation No. 1 from the opposition is that somehow a discussion between me and Alan Joyce on Saturday afternoon would have changed Qantas's decision. That is not true, and every member of the opposition who says it is telling the Australian people something that is not true. Qantas determined to ground its fleet on Saturday morning. It determined to engage in a lockout and ground its fleet. We have been critical of that decision. The opposition have not uttered one word of criticism about that. The Qantas decision was the wrong decision: it was the wrong decision by members of the travelling public; it was the wrong decision by the Australian economy. The Leader of the Opposition utters not one word of criticism of Qantas and seeks to mislead the Australian people about the circumstances of this dispute. And then the opposition, yesterday and today, continue to mislead the Australian people about the provisions of the Fair Work Act, pretending that section 431 is something that can be instantaneously turned on without the minister engaging in a proper process and something that is not subject to legal review. In doing that they seek to mislead the Australian people.

Now, Mr Speaker, you would ask yourself: why are they seeking to mislead the Australian people about all of this? Why don't they utter a word of criticism about Qantas's decision to lock workers out and ground its fleet? I will leave that for the Leader of the Opposition to answer, but I would suggest to him that, for a man who has been calling for details and the full record of events, he would want to be more fulsome and more direct in his answers to media questions than has been on display today.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. Given the answer she has just given, I invite her to rightly criticise union leaders such as Tony Sheldon and Steve Purvinas, who in Tony Sheldon's case has told the Australian public they should punish Qantas and in Steve Purvinas's case has advised the Australian public not to travel on Qantas. Is she prepared to say these people should not be vandalising an Australian national icon?

Mr Albanese interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I do not need the assistance of the Leader of the House but that was the point I was about to make: that was stretching the supplementary question very wide. The Prime Minister appeared to be eager to answer the question; on that basis I give the Prime Minister the call.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I thank the Leader of the Opposition for precisely proving my point for me. Let me say this to the Leader of the Opposition: if the pilots or the transport workers or the licensed aircraft engineers or any other pivotal part of Qantas's workforce had walked off the job at 2 pm on Saturday and grounded flights at 5 pm on Saturday I would have uttered every same word of criticism as I have uttered of Qantas, and I would have taken the matter to Fair Work Australia, and I would have sought to have the industrial action terminated.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If any union, if any working person, had engaged in conduct that destructive—

Honourable members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The House will come to order! If the Assistant Treasurer and the member for Fadden want to have a discussion they can have the discussion outside if they continue!

Mr Baldwin interjecting—

Can we interrupt the member for Paterson by continuing? The Prime Minister has the call. She should be heard in silence.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I would have been as critical of that action as I was of Qantas's action. I would have described them both as extreme decisions and I would have had the government respond in precisely the same way. That is because I believe in balancing the interests of employees and trade unions and employers in workplaces. That is what the Fair Work Act is all about. That is why Work Choices was so wrong, because there is a pendulum in industrial relations between the interests of employees and employers and it is the job of government to keep that pendulum in the centre. The Liberal Party thought its job in government was to grab that pendulum and put it all the way up for employers, so employers could have everything they wanted and working people got smashed time after time after time.

In relation to other industrial action, let me make it very clear in case the Leader of the Opposition has not heard these things from the government. The government were critical of statements that people should not fly on Qantas. We were critical of those statements. They were wrong and they should never have been made. Of course they were the wrong statements. We did say consistently, publicly and privately, to the industrial parties, and the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport has been clear about the role he played in this—

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert is warned!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

we did say to them that they needed to get this dispute fixed in the interests of the nation. Every step of the way we have shown the appropriate balance between the interests of working people and the interests of the employer. And, of course, when we moved on Saturday we were motivated by keeping balance in industrial relations, by making sure we were doing what we needed to do to protect the national economy and in the interests of members of the travelling public who were stranded miles and miles away from work or home, where they needed to get to.

Contrast that with the approach of the Leader of the Opposition. He is always on the radio full of words of criticism about militant unions, but we see an employer lock its workforce out, we see planes grounded around the country with basically no notice to members of the travelling public—we see an employer take that extreme action—and the Leader of the Opposition cannot bring himself to utter one word of criticism of Qantas. Well, we know why that is. It is Liberal Party philosophy, it is fused into their DNA, it is what built Work Choices—and that is, if they ever need to look at a situation in a workplace their only question is: 'How much can I do to help the boss, what can I do to hurt the workers?' That is all they ever have believed in and all they ever will believe in.