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

I'm pleased to speak on this urgency motion today because, as an accountant who measures things all the time, I know that what gets measured gets improved and that what gets watched and is transparent improves its performance. Yet here we have another example of the Albanese government failing to uphold the principles of transparency and accountability. Why on earth would you exempt a company like Qantas, which has a very large market share and dominates the market here in Australia, from ACCC monitoring? Why would you do that? The Prime Minister could step in if he wanted to and hold Qantas accountable—and, if any company needs to be held accountable at the moment, it is Qantas. There have been so many abuses of market share and market privilege by Qantas recently that it really needs to be called out for its intolerable behaviour, not the least of which is that it has been taking bookings for flights that have already been cancelled. That is just shocking.

Last week, we found out that they had to reverse the decision they'd made not to honour the $500 million in credits owed to people as a result of the COVID crisis, when people had to cancel their flights. Qantas decided to put an arbitrary deadline for when you had to use your own credits—I think it was the end of this year—or you would just lose them. This is Qantas, which got bailed out by the taxpayer, as many big corporations did. Yet again, the big end of town always milks these catastrophes, or so-called catastrophes, for their own gain. I thought the point of democracy was to stand up for the little guy against the big guy, but that's not the case anymore in this country. No, it's always the big guy who gets the free handouts. I thought the Labor Party used to stand up for the little guy—the battlers—but it's not interested in doing that. This Prime Minister is more interested in wining and dining with the big end of town than he is in protecting the little guy—the little guy who wants to fly to another state to see his grandmother or grandfather, or to go to his mate's wedding.

Why can't we have a system whereby we get a fair go in this country for the people who want to travel? It's a big country; we need genuine competition in airfares in this country and we're not getting it. What's the relationship between the Prime Minister and the former CEO—as of five o'clock today, an hour ago—Alan Joyce? Why did Alan Joyce give our Prime Minister's son access to the Chairman's Lounge? What was going on there? What was going on with the Emirates deal? Was that all done so that Qantas would then give free flights to all these people who want to fly around the country with the Voice? Is this something that we need to refer to ICAC, where the Prime Minister has actually done a deal with Mr Joyce in order to influence the outcome of the referendum? That is a question that needs to be asked.

The other issue that we need to highlight is their consistent pattern of failing to inform the Australian people properly. We need to shine a light on the functions of the Albanese government, because this isn't the only time that we have seen the Albanese government not wanting to come clean on how the country is being run. I know that my colleague here in the chamber Senator Cadell has tried to get an inquiry up about the impact of transmission lines on the environment, we have asked for details on aged care and we have asked for the minutes from National Cabinet. Prime Minister Albanese said that if he got into government he would release the minutes of National Cabinet and he hasn't done that.

He also said that he would lower electricity prices. We want the Productivity Commission report on electricity prices under standard benchmarking. Did he support that? No. That's another example of where he doesn't want to be transparent about the way this country is run. The other thing that he said was that he'd have a royal commission into COVID. Has he honoured that pledge? No. That's another example of the Prime Minister not being fully transparent and accountable to the Australian people. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.