Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Sheldon, I could answer your question with one word—nothing—but I'll give you a slightly longer answer. If you were to only listen to the Liberal and National parties now that they are in opposition, you would be forgiven for thinking that they might actually have grown a backbone and stood up for workers. Luckily, for the benefit of the Australian public, we kept the receipts from their time in office. When Qantas sacked and outsourced thousands of its workforce, despite receiving $2.7 billion in taxpayer support, including $900 million for JobKeeper, one coalition minister at the time said it was:

… a commercial decision for Qantas, and Qantas are entitled to make those decisions.

Which coalition minister might that have been at the time? Senator Cash! You can always rely on Senator Cash to kick workers when they're down, and that's what she did when she was a minister in the former government. The then industrial relations minister, Christian Porter, said it was 'a good model' and the then transport minister, Michael McCormack, said, 'I know the decisions are in the best interests of their company, going forward.' (Time expired)