George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Abetz) and Senators Ronaldson and Brandis today relating to the Qantas dispute.

If ever there was a parable of the incompetence, the inability to act swiftly and decisively, of this government it was seen last Saturday afternoon, and the Australian travelling public, some 80,000 of them in Australia and overseas, were the victims. What we know—and Senator Evans has confirmed this today in answers to questions from Senator Abetz, Senator Ronaldson and me—is that he was told early in the afternoon of last Saturday of the imminent announcement by Qantas that they were going to lock out the workforce and ground the fleet in response to the guerilla industrial action to which they had been subjected to for weeks by the Transport Workers Union and other Qantas unions. And what did they do? They did nothing. Like a deer caught in the headlights, they did nothing. As Senator Evans has told the Senate in the last hour, they then sought advice.

You would think, Mr Deputy President, given all of the indications from Mr Joyce and other senior executives of Qantas for weeks and months on end, that if the industrial dispute that had plagued Qantas were not brought to an end soon Qantas would have to take divisive action. The very least a competent government would have done would have been to have had a contingency plan for what steps it could take under the Fair Work Act to secure the wellbeing of the public. But, as Senator Evans has told the Senate, they did not even have a contingency plan. When the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, Mr Hubbard, the Minister for Tourism, Mr Ferguson, the minister for transport, Mr Albanese, and Senator Evans were rung by Qantas as a courtesy shortly after 2 pm last Saturday they then sought advice and later that evening, after the grounding of the Qantas fleet had already taken place, after 80,000 people had been inconvenienced, after the nation had been thrown into a transport chaos, late that night they then brought an application before Fair Work Australia under section 424 of the Fair Work Act.

The grounding never had to happen. The lockout could have been avoided and the grounding would have been avoided if the minister had had contingency plans in place, as he ought to have done, to make a declaration under section 431 of the Fair Work Act—his own piece of legislation, the Prime Minister's pride and joy. The minister could have made a declaration then and there—certainly it could have been done within the three hours between the government being informed of what was likely to be coming and Mr Joyce's press conference at 5 pm—prohibiting the industrial action. If that declaration had been made, if the government had acted swiftly and sure-footedly, that would have been it. The industrial action by the unions would have been prohibited, the imminent lockout by Qantas would have been prohibited and the grounding of the aircraft announced by Mr Joyce at 5 pm would not have occurred.

You would think, wouldn't you, Mr Deputy President, that faced with an imminent grave industrial dispute—as grave as any this nation has seen since the last period of Labor government—the government would have been prepared for that contingency. It would have had the section 431 declaration, which would under the terms of the act have taken effect immediately, ready to go. But it did not. As I said before, like a deer caught in the headlights, it then wondered to itself in its collective brain, 'What do we do now? Let's take advice.' If ever there was an industrial dispute that had been foreshadowed and anticipated for weeks if not months, it was this. But, rather than put itself in a position to take immediate action available to it and save the Australian public this pain, expense and inconvenience, the government did nothing.