Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to thank John Casey, Hotham resident and Qantas employee who made the journey to Canberra several weeks ago to talk about the real impact of changes to the Qantas Sale Act. John is a diligent and proud employee of the Qantas call centre in Camberwell. He is part of a very highly skilled customer service workforce, many of whom working in this call centre for more than a decade. There are 280 employees in Camberwell, 280 in Brisbane and 220 in Hobart.

The staff have been told that Qantas will 'review' call centre operations. We have all heard this before and we all know what it probably means—that right now Qantas management is weighing the pros and cons of off-shoring customer support. Employees like John offer a first-class service to Qantas flyers all around the world.

I raise this because I want Australians to be clear that off-shoring of Qantas jobs will affect services delivered to us as Qantas flyers. We can expect to see more of this as the Abbott government pushes ahead with changes to the Qantas Sales Act and these changes will affect all of us that love to travel with our national carrier. These employees—and John was very clear about this—love working for Qantas. They are so proud to work for an airline that plays such a significant role in the life of our nation, and our challenge as MPs is to represent our constituents by keeping it that way.