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

Senator Joyce is right to refer to the fact that there had been overtime bans in Qantas applied by the engineers union which had been taking a toll on Qantas's capacity to maintain its fleet. As a result of that overtime ban their maintenance had fallen behind and they took the decision to ground a number of aircraft and reduce the number of flights they were conducting each week. But Senator Joyce would also be aware that Qantas continued to say both publicly and privately that they sought to negotiate a settlement with the union and that they did not request government intervention and they did not encourage government intervention. They wanted to be able to negotiate settlements with the unions. They made that public and that was also their position in private. At no time did they ask the government to intervene, nor did the trade unions. Both parties maintained publicly that they could settle the dispute.

So it came as a surprise to all of us, I think, when Qantas took the decision to lock out their employees effective from Monday. They took the decision not only to lock out the engineers but to lock out the pilots and to lock out the TWU baggage handlers. This is despite the fact that the TWU had had I think a total of about six hours industrial action in stop work meetings and the pilots' industrial activity consisted of wearing red ties and making announcements as to the need to maintain Australian pilots.