Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think both sides will cheer on this one, Mr Speaker! Attorney-General, surely the two Cs—COVID and China's bullying, intimidation and degradation—now make self-reliance a national imperative. Consequently, would you overrule Mr Joyce and Qantas's sacking of 2,000 baggage handlers and the offshoring of this high-security work to a Chinese corporation? With most of our mining reserves, sugar mills, major farms and 55 per cent of our electricity already gone, doesn't government need urgently to demonstrate a slowdown in the sell-off of Australia?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. It has two components, I guess, one with respect to the foreign ownership of assets and the first component with respect to the workplace relations issue of the outsourcing decision that Qantas has made. Perhaps I will deal with the second of those issues first. Obviously the government shares community concerns around the way in which Australian assets are owned or not owned by foreign governments. I think it's fair to say that, with the government having recognised those community concerns about the foreign ownership of certain Australian assets like mines, sugar mills and other matters that you raised, there has never been a stronger foreign investment review framework, in the history of this country, than the one instituted and operated by this government. So we recognise those issues, but I think it is fair to say that this side of the House, this government, has instituted the strongest possible framework around those very difficult decisions.

Dealing with your first issue, and touching on difficult decisions, it's obviously the case that every single member of this House is extremely sympathetic not merely to people who have lost their jobs or have fewer hours but to those people who have been the subject of commercial decisions like the one that you've raised, which must be intensely difficult also for the people who are making them. I know that the issue of Qantas's outsourcing has been the subject of questions from the opposition and, obviously, from you, Member. I think it was Richard Branson who said that the simplest way to become a millionaire is to start with $1 billion and buy an airline. The history of airlines continentally and transcontinentally, in America, Australia and Europe, is that they are intensely difficult organisations to run. Dare I say, there is probably a good reason, Member, that you're not running one or I'm not running one or the Leader of the Opposition isn't running one: we wouldn't do it very well. Qantas has made an intensely difficult decision—

Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Attorney-General will pause for a second. The member for Lyons will leave, under 94(a).

The member for Lyons then left the chamber.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Qantas has made an intensely difficult decision, but, if airlines are hard to run in the best of times, can we pause and imagine how difficult it has been to run an airline during the period of COVID? The government has invested $2.7 billion in saving thousands and thousands of jobs and keeping our airline industry afloat and reconnected. Obviously, the more that border restrictions can be relaxed, the better that industry will do, which is an absolute imperative. But there is not an ability of the minister to overturn that decision, and I think some caution should also attach to being either defensive of those decisions or overly critical of them. I have enormous sympathy for people who are finding their terms and conditions and their employment changed because of very difficult decisions like that, but I have to be clear: I have no power to overrule a decision like that of Qantas. One of the things that we can't slip to easily in this House is Monday morning quarterbacking and the idea that people here have better acumen, interest or ability to run businesses that are as complicated as those that were the subject of your question.