Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Abetz and the Senate would be well aware, our industrial relations system under the Fair Work Act—as it was under Work Choices—places primary responsibility for the conduct of industrial relations and enterprise bargaining with the parties. They are responsible for the process; they are responsible for their actions.

We have been concerned for some time that the dispute between three unions and Qantas was getting worse and that relations between the unions and Qantas were deteriorating. Minister Albanese and I were both engaged with all the parties, trying to encourage them to reach a negotiated settlement. All those parties—Qantas and the unions—indicated that that was their preferred option as well. They continued to believe that a negotiated settlement was possible in terms of the disputes that they were dealing with. They wanted to continue the negotiation process. They were appearing before Fair Work Australia regarding at least two of those matters, utilising the good offices of Fair Work Australia in those processes.

As people are aware, on Saturday Qantas took the decision to lock out its employees from eight o'clock on Monday evening and as a result of that decision indicated that it would close its operations from 5 pm on Saturday. That obviously caused enormous disruption in the Australian aviation industry. The government then acted swiftly to intervene in the dispute by seeking to get Fair Work Australia to issue orders to terminate the action of both Qantas and the unions. I am pleased to say that Fair Work Australia did do that. It did award the orders that the government sought. As a result, all action has been terminated.