Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

guerrilla tactics by trade union leaders—

Senator Sterle interjecting—

and now we hear from those across the chamber—determined to get more pay and better perks for their members, at a time when Qantas was trying to survive in a difficult business environment. Before the grounding in October, industrial action by the union bosses caused disruptions and delays to Qantas's flight schedules, which cost the airline an estimated $68 million. Senator Sterle: one of the union officials was reported in the press at the time as saying, 'We will bake them slowly'—unprecedented. The Transport Workers Union was determined to oppose any move by Qantas to launch a new airline in Asia. Its national secretary, Tony Sheldon, said he was not going to allow Qantas to become 'Asianised'; those were his words. What Qantas management was forced to do was ground the airline so it could regain control.

Senator Sterle interjecting—

I am not xenophobic, Senator Sterle. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said back in February that, in the months leading up to the grounding, flight timetables were being massively disrupted because of the unions' tactics. The dispute had to be brought to a head, otherwise Qantas would have died a slow economic death, suffocated by the union stranglehold. The head of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association—I referred earlier to his now infamous 'bake them slowly' quote—predicted the dispute would last for 'at least 12 months', flagging that the unions were prepared to undertake a 12-month strategy to debilitate the company. More menacingly, he promised to 'sort out' chief executive Alan Joyce and mused, in a reference to that great book, The Art of War:

If you live near a river, take a seat and eventually the dead bodies of your enemies will come floating by.

This Labor government was quite happy for militant union leaders to hold Qantas to ransom and did not intervene until Qantas grounded its entire fleet. But, eight months after the grounding came to an end, what has changed? Qantas is back in the air, the union bosses are no doubt planning their next assault on the airline's management under the pretext of looking after their members, and Labor senators are licking their lips over another opportunity to grill Alan Joyce.

This bill comes on top of the increase in airfares imposed by the Labor government in their budget delivered just this week. Labor are increasing the airport tax by $8 to $55 per passenger as of July. They tried to hide this away in the budget, but their panicked desperation to squeeze as much revenue as possible out of successful Australian businesses and the flying public has been exposed as nothing more than a cynical tax grab of more than $1.3 billion over four years. This bill and Labor's steep hike in airport taxes should of course be put in context: they will both impose a serious additional burden on those Australian companies, who are already trying to work out just how and why they must navigate the increased expenses associated with this Labor government's destructive and ultimately ineffective carbon tax. The coalition cannot support a proposed mechanism of making ideological industrial relations changes by stealth under the guise of aviation safety.