Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to continue the remarks there of Senator Sterle. He was right in the conclusion of his take note speech, in that he started to point the finger in the right direction: the Qantas board. He mentioned a name that probably didn't get enough prominence, but I will bring that to attention, because I think it must be mentioned: Ms Barbara Ward AM. She just happened to be a senior ministerial adviser to—wait for it—former Prime Minister Paul Keating. I wonder if this is her 30 pieces of silver for privatising Qantas. That's the thing here, and I've been consistent about this. I talked in my maiden speech about how privatisation wasn't the right thing to do, so you can't call me hypocritical about this. The privatisation of Qantas was facilitated by superannuation and the industry funds who wanted to privatise everything so that Labor and the unions could get control of industry. Well, guess what? You've got your people on the boards now, and one of them just happens to have been a senior ministerial adviser to Paul Keating. I don't want to start getting into it, but, at the end of the day, Alan Joyce is there at the behest of the shareholders and of the board. I did have a look at the top 20 shareholders, and, unfortunately, they're all nominee holdings, which I'm working on, because it annoys me that I can't see who owns what. But, if you're keen on this, Senator Sterle, I'd be keen to find out who the biggest shareholders are in their real names, not in nominee accounts. But if you were to drill down into who the shareholders of Qantas are, I suspect that a large proportion of them would be industry super funds. I'm not having a go here but, seriously, if you want to do something about this in a constructive manner, I suggest that you find out which industry funds own Qantas shares—