John Madigan (Victoria, Democratic Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will be supporting Senator Xenophon's bill, which addresses the unfair and dangerous conditions being imposed on cabin crews of international and domestic flights, predominantly by Jetstar, an airline controlled by the Qantas Group. The Air Navigation and Civil Aviation Amendment (Aircraft Crew) Bill 2011 is designed to protect the workplace conditions of foreign or overseas flight or cabin crews who are working on Australian owned airlines or their subsidiaries. My understanding is that overseas based crews from a number of countries such as Thailand and Turkey can be used on the domestic legs of international flights by Australian Airlines. In other words, an Australian airline may have a flight from Bali to Perth, then on to Sydney, before returning to Perth and back overseas. During the two international and two domestic legs of these flights the cabin crew can be used as an overseas based crew.

Most if not all of these overseas based crews are not employed directly by the Australian airline but are in fact employed under foreign contracts either by a third party or by the overseas subsidiary of the Australian airline in which they are used as cabin crew. Because they have been employed under foreign contract arrangements, they are paid well below the amount any Australian owned airline worker would accept and at a level that Australian unions would consider outrageous if offered to their members. Why is it we have continued in Australia in recent years to race to the bottom of the barrel? Why is it that we do not value our safety standards? Why is it that we do not value the fact that people fought for better conditions, better rates of pay and safety? What was it that put our Australian icon, Qantas, ahead of all the others? It was the attention to detail and the attention to safety.

When Australians get onto a Qantas plane—and, for that matter, on Jetstar, a subsidiary of Qantas—they expect a certain level of care, diligence and maintenance. How do we ensure Australians are getting value for money? Why is it Australians choose to fly Qantas? What is it that gives them confidence to fly Qantas and to fly Jetstar? It is because of safety and because we believe they offer a better product. Why we would trash that product is beyond me.

It has been reported that these crews will regularly have to work shifts as long as 20 hours, not just occasionally but regularly. We know—it is a fact—that when people suffer sleep deprivation they do not work safely or economically and you do not get the best out of your staff. Jetstar requires these crews to fly return shifts on lengthy flights without an overnight stay. What happens if there is an emergency on one of these flights? I hope to God I am not one of those flights but I hope it is no other person. I do not wish to see us standing in this chamber for a condolence motion when a plane drops out of the sky and people are killed. What price do we put on human life and what price do we say is too much to pay for safety?

All of us in the Senate fly regularly. I have never enjoyed flying but I do appreciate knowing that the Qantas flight crews and cabin crews are well trained. They are professional and capable of handling a difficult emergency situation, should it arise. However, I would not enjoy flying around Australia with a crew who are continuously battling fatigue and whose judgment, if not seriously impaired, would be considered well below that expected of a crew responsible for hundreds of lives in an emergency situation.

Think of the last flight you took to get here. I hope you noticed the crew. They are workers who, as a rule, do their jobs extremely well and make a flying experience as comfortable as possible. Did you watch the emergency procedures as demonstrated by the cabin crew? Are you aware that, should an emergency situation occur—we all hope that will never be the case—the cabin crew who serve you and make your flight a comfortable one will all of a sudden be responsible for ensuring you and the other 200-odd people around you on the flight are kept safe and that panic does not ensue. This is not something we would identify with a fatigued and underpaid workforce. How many of us would be happy in an emergency situation to find the hospital workers, emergency services workers or police on whom we rely have been working regular 20-hour shifts for wages we ourselves would refuse? I doubt you would want the care of your family, your friends or yourself left up to the judgment of people suffering fatigue when well rested alternative crews are available.

One-third of Jetstar staff are employed overseas. A company by the name of Tour East Thailand employs the Bangkok cabin crews for Jetstar. Under the contract I believe these crews are required to sign, they must agree to work shifts up to 20 hours long but, as the contract states, 'The planned limit of operational extensions may be extended by the employer'. In other words, 'You'll work the hours we say.' I would like to see them try to get that past the TWU. To force anyone to work those hours would be a disgrace. We do not expect Australian workers to accept such conditions, and to expect foreign workers to accept those conditions on our shores would be nothing less than a form of slavery.

As an Australian Democratic Labor Party senator, I cannot remain quiet when such an outrageous exploitation of workers, Australian based or foreign based, goes on under our very noses. How can anyone working in this country be expected to live on wages less than the average wage when I was an apprentice? How can anyone working in this country be expected to work under conditions less than those expected by our own factory workers before Federation? And how can we be expected to see the safety standards on Australian airlines reduced to a level never accepted in this country? Anyone who works in this country should enjoy the protection of Australian laws and Australian standards. Australians should always be protected by Australian laws and Australian standards. To use loopholes in the immigration laws, to have foreign based crews working under conditions we would never accept and to put lives at risk in doing so is unforgivable. Senator Xenophon has given us examples of the conditions these foreign based crews are working under. I am personally disgusted that any company that calls itself Australian can employ people under these conditions, although in fairness to the Qantas group they do not expect to be an Australian airline in anything but name shortly. Maybe that it is why they can do this to their cabin crews.

Just recently we have heard about the possible shipping of our heavy maintenance offshore. How can that possibly be in the national interest? How can we possibly expect that we are going to maintain the levels of safety and maintenance that we all expect when we get on a plane? Do we honestly think in this house that once we have lost the ability to maintain the heavy engineering side of airlines in this country that we can flick a switch—when everything goes to hell and it all falls in a heap—and automatically overnight we can rebuild these manufacturing maintenance facilities in this country? It will not happen. We are kidding ourselves if we think it will. We heard earlier about the high Australian dollar. It has been 110 years since Federation and our currency has had its ups and downs. This is not a new phenomenon. Over 110 years we have had booms and busts—we have had mining booms and busts—but nobody seems to be looking at that. It has continually been used as a crutch, an excuse.

We also hear attacks on the union movement. Why is it that in 2012 we continue with an adversarial relationship between bosses and unions, between companies and unions. The good unionists need to hold the bad unionists to account, and the good employers need to hold the bad employers to account. They are only a minority on both sides, but it is continually brought up to go on a union-bashing exercise. It is always one side's fault. There is never acceptance of the fact that this is a joint problem. We all own part of this problem and yet we do not address it.

How can we be expected to see the safety standards on Australian airlines reduced to a level that has never been accepted in this country? Even if I cannot get through to senators that the basic principles of decency, justice and fairness demand we stop this blatant exploitation of workers in pursuit of higher profits, I hope I can get through to senators on the basis of expected standards of safety for the Australian public. If this continues, it is inevitable that a situation will arise in which a crew cannot perform its duties in an emergency. Then we will all be up in arms. How was this allowed? Who is to blame for this? Why wasn't something done about it? It was allowed because we have allowed it. We are to blame for the situation so far and it is up to us to do something about it. Senator Xenophon has given us one of the tools necessary to stop this appalling and increasingly dangerous situation. If we do not take up the opportunity we are provided with in this bill, then we will all be culpable when, God forbid, a disaster does occur.