Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister for Employment, Senator Abetz. Can the minister update the Senate on the impact of the carbon tax impost on the aviation industry and on Qantas in particular? And can the minister advise what steps could be taken today to alleviate that situation?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Back for the question. Senator Back is a Western Australian senator who understands the need for affordable air services to cover the vast distances of our nation and indeed his home state. Senator Back is right to highlight the carbon tax. It cost just three players over $150 million last year: Rex, $2.4 million; Virgin, $48 million; and Qantas, $106 million.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just one year?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is just one year, Senator Cormann. So, what can be done? First of all, the Senate today could vote to remove this job-destroying carbon tax to help our struggling airline sector. That would be a great first. But another thing Labor could do is ensure that the opposition has command of the facts. Yesterday a very senior opposition frontbencher—Mr O'Connor, no less—claimed that the government is the majority shareholder in Qantas. And he did not say it once, he did not say it twice, he said it three times—and of course he was wrong on each and every occasion. Labor's cure is a recipe for a government owned airline, forgetting it was Labor itself that sold Qantas over 20 years ago under the Hawke-Keating government. It now appears that Labor, having abandoned economic responsibility and common sense, is abandoning its own history. This is ignorance writ large. This is incompetence writ large. And this is Labor writ large: no idea, no clue, no remedies and suggesting things that are palpably untrue. I ask rhetorically: who would you— (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister inform the Senate of any proposals for the government to provide financial support to Qantas, including through partial ownership of Qantas, and of any flaws in such proposals?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am aware that the ALP are seeking to rewind the clock well over two decades to when their forebears saw the need to sell Qantas. As Labor Minister Willis said at the time, this was 'to allow the airlines greater access to equity capital'. That was the reason that Labor undertook those reforms—and it seems now, a generation later, that the successors of the Hawke-Keating reforms have basically abandoned those reforms, denied their own history and are now pretending that government ownership would be better than that which their own forebears realised over two decades ago were so absolutely essential: the privatisation of Qantas and Australian Airlines. It seems as though the incarnation of the current Labor Party is nowhere near— (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Can the minister advise the Senate of the government's response to reports of possible industrial action at Qantas?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was sorry to hear last week that the first response to the news of job losses at Qantas by certain union bosses was the threat to take industrial action. This is a very difficult and anxious time for Qantas employees. The very last thing they need is for their airline to be attacked by rogue industrial action. This would simply make a bad situation so much worse.

Rather than threatening industrial action, these union bosses would be of greater benefit to their members, and their members' job security, by campaigning for legislative action in this place and by asking their senatorial branch office in the ALP to repeal the carbon tax. That is what we on this side invite them to consider. When Mr Borghetti of Virgin says 'the best assistance that can be provided is the removal of the carbon tax', I invite— (Time expired)