Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business Energy (Senator Cash) to a question without notice asked by Senator Sheldon today relating to Qantas.

Yesterday's national account figures are nothing to crow about. Our GDP is nowhere close to where it was a year ago. Investment is down, consumption is still down, wages are still stagnant, the labour share of income has fallen to record lows and there are still 2.4 million Australians either unemployed or underemployed. The Morrison government are out there congratulating themselves while millions of Australians are still hurting and the jobless queues are growing. Nothing has been done about the challenges of insecure work and underemployment. It is clear for many Australians that what looks like a recovery on paper will still look like a recession for them.

Just ask the 2,000 newly outsourced workers at Qantas; 2,000 Australian men and women, with families right across Australia, now without work because of the heartless decisions of the Qantas board under the government's watch and the government's subsidies. Only a few hours ago, I stood with Qantas workers like Sean. Sean works for Qantas as ground crew at Canberra Airport, and he has a wife and three young daughters. He said, 'How am I to tell my three girls that you can work hard but you can be replaced by a company that will pay people less?' This is happening on the government's watch and with Australian taxpayers' money—no accountability, no control and no responsibility of these companies and the actions that they are taking. You, the government, are abandoning hardworking Australians.

Is this the economy that we want in Australia? These are jobs that will go to the lowest common denominator, to companies that pay the lowest wages. Jobs will go to companies with lower conditions. The workers at Qantas will have to beg for their old jobs at lower rates and lower conditions. Why? Because of the CEO Alan Joyce's corporate bastardry. He doesn't care about the workers that made the company the 'spirit of Australia'. This is quite obviously not the Australian way.

If losing your job at an outsourced company isn't enough of a kick in the teeth, Alan Joyce and the board of Qantas have done this plan with the implicit backing of the government. Qantas has received more than $800 million in government support, tax relief and JobKeeper payments—all of it taxpayer money, much of it from the taxes of many thousands of Qantas workers—to keep the airline alive, to keep it flying and to keep these jobs secure. Instead, when Alan Joyce and the board chose to abandon these workers they did so taking Morrison's money and running for it. They did it with the Prime Minister not saying a word. The Prime Minister and the government have abandoned these workers to lower pay and lower conditions, all the while patting themselves on the back that we are technically out of a recession. The government is crowing about comeback. These Qantas workers want a comeback too. They want to come back to their jobs at the same rates and conditions they worked hard to earn.

The road to a better economy and to recovery is getting longer and longer every day that the Morrison government ignores the catastrophe in the aviation industry. First they let Virgin fail, leaving thousands of workers without jobs and the corporate raiders to pick through the scraps. Then they abandoned the workers at dnata, retrospectively denying them JobKeeper with the cruel stroke of a pen—a mistake that the Treasurer could fix this afternoon with just another stroke of that pen. And now the workers at Qantas, more than 2000 everyday, hardworking Australians, have been abandoned by this government. Only a few weeks ago, this chamber passed a motion calling on Alan Joyce and Qantas to stop this madness. Did they listen or did they care? No. Is this the future economy in Australia, one where businesses take from the public purse with one hand and, with the other, sign away thousands of jobs without a thought of the cost to their workforce and fellow Australians? And the government turns a blind eye to blatant acts of corporate bastardry.

Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps I can start with a tone that is a little bit different to what we often employ in this chamber in taking note of answers, which is often a time for theatrics, drama and witty slurs across the chamber. Speaking of slurs, Senator Sheldon's given us a fine example of precisely the kind of behaviour that isn't appropriate when we're talking about the families who are suffering the consequences of a commercial decision that Qantas has taken in relation to making staff redundant. I notice that Senator Sheldon is walking out of the room during a debate that he pretends—

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Stoker, may I remind you that during this time of remote participation the President did ask senators not to reference whether particular senators were in the room or not.

Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps I will frame it this way instead: while I was willing to give Senator Sheldon the respect of listening to his contribution, I hope he will listen as sincerely, and in the heartfelt fashion that this important issue deserves. I've got my doubts—nevertheless. Any job lost is a disaster. It's a disaster for the people involved and it's a disaster for us here in the coalition. It's part of the reason that the Morrison government has put so much effort and so much of the public's resources into trying to keep businesses strong so that they can keep their staff on. Whether we talk about the cashflow boost, about JobKeeper, about the instant asset write-off or about programs like HomeBuilder or JobMaker, we are trying to make it as easy as possible to keep working people in work. We know that when businesses are strong they can keep their staff on, and that gives the certainty families need to get through this time of uncertainty. I understand that anxiety; we all do. That's why our every effort is going into building that economic strength and resilience.

But the difficulty I have with the argument made by Senator Sheldon just a moment ago is that it takes a small piece of the puzzle and ignores all the other interconnected parts that go into whether or not a business is able to keep staff on. He's happy to talk about how we must at all times have rising wages, and he's happy to talk about how we must at all times have all people in secure work. These are all wonderful goals. But if we don't look at the context in which that occurs, it's actually pretty ignorant. Those opposite have fought tooth and nail for zero flexibility in the workplace. They have fought tooth and nail to deny businesses the chance they need to move people around or change the way they do things, or shift people into different skill sets to try to get through hard times and emerge stronger, more able to offer the kinds of high wages and security that is desirable. They've stood in the way of those important measures, every day that they have served in this parliament, going back decades. The issue of industrial relations is one that gets nothing but obstinacy from those opposite.

They need to confront a really uncomfortable truth, and that is that by their very obstinacy, their very refusal to countenance any kind of flexibility at any time, they end up with the very policies that tend to sign the redundancy papers of good people who deserve jobs. The fact is that businesses need to be able to adapt to difficult times, and this is one of those times. The failure to adapt, the failure to give a business that's struggling to cope with the situation the ability to shift gears in order to survive hard times, is what ends the opportunity for vulnerable people—like those who are in the gallery—to keep their jobs.

Instead of standing here and grandstanding, Senator Sheldon and his colleagues should apologise to the Qantas workers who've been let down by inflexible and unreasonable industrial relations attitudes from those opposite. I call upon those opposite to get in to a mental space where they confront the reality of the difficult market for aviation and the difficult market we all face during COVID and start to take a team Australia approach, because the prospects of business survival are actually compatible with the positive prospects of working people.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've heard some contributions in this joint, and that was one of the worst, and I'll tell you why, Senator Stoker. Before you start slurring this side of the chamber, I'll throw a challenge out to you—through you, Madam Deputy President, if I may. How many enterprise agreements have I negotiated over the years? How many negotiations have I entered into not only as a delegate, as a long-distance owner-driver, but also as a union organiser during 28 years on the job? How many grown men have you had in your office, Senator Stoker, on a Friday night, bursting into tears when they have found their job go down the road? How dare you use that language? How dare you try to mislead those who may be listening or reading, and the Qantas workers, that this side of the chamber needs to apologise for standing up for working men and women?

That was one of the worst contributions, and I will debate you in every city, every town, every yard, every shop floor in this nation, and you will not win—

Senator Stoker interjecting—

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Senator Stoker interjecting—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are so mischievous, the way you dare try to insinuate that the Qantas workers' wages were the reason they got the big A. They didn't even get a meeting or a letter. Do you know how they got the sack? Are you aware, Senator Stoker—because you're so well informed? No, you've got no idea.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle, I would just remind you to make your remarks to the chair, and I remind other senators that they shouldn't interject.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sure—through the chair: do you know? You have no idea. They got an SMS. Now, before we start talking about the disgraceful rates of pay that Qantas workers demand: they were negotiated over the years. They were negotiated by the workers on one side, represented by their unions, and by management on the other side. I know, because I've been in the room for a number of them: Qantas EBA mark III and Qantas EBA mark IV. There was no gun to their head; Qantas did it.

Senator Stoker, you need to understand: these jobs are still there. Your government has thrown taxpayers' dollars out like confetti to Qantas—$800 million for JobKeeper, over $1 billion all up—your government. That's your government. And do you know what Qantas are doing? They're giving you this—this is what they're saying to you: 'Thank you very much, because we're not only going to get rid of the workers; we want their jobs to come back with companies that will not even pay Australian standards.' They won't pay the superannuation guarantee charges that we are seeking. They will fight like hell. And you make it sound like Qantas are going broke. Guess what, Senator Stoker? I'm not allowed to say this—as she walks out of the chamber: you hypocrite. What hypocrisy. You couldn't wait to bag out other senators—

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle, it is not okay to take poetic licence.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I couldn't help that. I'm sorry. Rank hypocrisy—it really gives me a knot in the guts, and there's a classic example.

Qantas have actually said they're going to be in the black in two months. So what does it take to get through the heads of that side of the chamber that Qantas have used a pandemic for the opportunity to outsource jobs that are there and will be there? As the borders come down and we kick in, you should watch the flights come up on the screens next week. Watch all the flights come in for Christmas. Dare may I suggest: check how much it cost us to get here to Canberra, because we all probably came on Qantas, unless some drove. Check the prices that Qantas are charging us to go home. Make no mistake, they're having a ball. They can't help it. They're rubbing their greedy hands together—they won't have any skin left.

I've got to tell you, my disdain for Mr Joyce is not a secret in this place. I had many—and you were at one of them—inquiries when he shut down the airline. Remember that magnificent piece of bastardry not only for Australian travellers but for worldwide Aussies trying to get home? They say, 'Oh we forgot about that.' He has eight other accomplices. He is ably backed up. I'm calling for this mob to resign. Joyce must lead the charge and resign, because there's no guts on that side. The Prime Minister is lacking guts. He's too busy flicking money. He's hand in hand with Mr McCormack and their mates at Rex. I'll tell you what, what about Richard Goyder, the chairman? Why should he escape scrutiny while he is on his $584,000 of Qantas's money. It's Qantas's money; it's not earned by the greedy board. It's earned by the 30,000 workers. Madam Deputy President Lines, you used to represent Qantas workers. Your great union stood up for Qantas workers for many, many years. You know the negotiations we've had. It's $584,000, and yet Mr Goyder did not make Qantas great—the workers made Qantas great—but he couldn't wait to get his claws into the till, ably backed up by, as I said, Mr Joyce.

There's Maxine Brenner, with $364,000; Jacqueline Hey, with her $211,000; Belinda Hutchinson—she gets an AC; I don't know what for—with $283,000; Michael L'Estrange—another with a set of initials, AO, with $223,000. There's Todd Sampson. That's the last time I'll ever watch him on TV; what a state of hypocrisy that fellow showed. And there's Antony Tyler, Barbara Ward AM, and Paul Rayner. What a terrible situation for 2,000 families going into Christmas. (Time expired)

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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—

Opposition Senator:

An opposition senator interjecting—

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

I'm talking about jobs; I'm getting on to jobs. If you want to do this—and you guys now have control of industry through your industry super funds—you need to speak directly to the industry funds because we, as the government, no longer own Qantas. I spoke about this in my maiden speech: there is no accountability. Who is accountable if infrastructure is sold? It was the Labor Party that sold Qantas. To be fair, I've got a lot of time for you, Senator Sterle and Senator Gallagher, but it's a bit rich to come in here and have a go at us because we've been trying to help people get through the COVID crisis. We drew a line in the sand because we didn't want to subsidise foreign owned companies.

I've been actively trying to get Qantas to relocate to Queensland to lower costs, because it's cheaper to live in Queensland. The airline was started in Queensland; it's not the New South Wales and Northern Territory air service, it's the Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service. The first time I met Alan Joyce I said, 'When are you taking Qantas back home?' because that's where it belongs. Let me tell you, if it were back in Queensland it would be a lot cheaper to run. We should also bring home QBE. I totally empathise with the fact that this work has been outsourced. I hate outsourcing and, if you read chapter 12 of Machiavelli's The Prince, you'll see it says never outsource. It says never use mercenaries and never use auxiliaries, and I've always subscribed to that. In my own work experience, whenever we outsourced we always ended up in a terrible situation.

However, what I will rebut in this discussion is the idea that the government doesn't care about the welfare of working-class Australians. That is why today we stood up and were happy to push back on what Labor seemed to think—that we shouldn't count those carbon credits, which were earned, fair and square, by Australian workers, particularly those in the agricultural sector and particularly those in south-west Queensland. I mentioned yesterday that they are doing it tough because we're locking up mulga paddocks. I tell you what: your old mate Barry O'Sullivan would be choking on his soup if he knew about what we're doing in great towns like Charleville, Quilpie and Longreach—and I should add that Longreach is the home of Qantas. So before we engage in argy-bargy for the sake of argy-bargy, I would ask you to reflect on this: someone owns Qantas. Go to the shareholders—the people who control the company and control the board. I agree with you on Todd Sampson: I've got no idea what he's doing on the board; I don't know how this bloke got on there. And let's try to find a solution together.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I got the chance to meet with Qantas workers here in Parliament House, and I asked them what they usually do for Christmas. They are going to have a very different Christmas this year. Usually, on Christmas Day, they go to work. They go to work so that other people can get home to see their families and spend Christmas with their families. But this Christmas they are looking down the barrel of losing the jobs that they have had for decades. They found out that they would be losing their jobs through an SMS. A TV screen came up with an automated message that told them that a decision had been made—not to cut their jobs because the work didn't need to be done anymore, but to outsource their jobs to another company, to other workers. I asked them: was there someone there to take your questions, to listen to you, to talk about these concerns, to tell you why this decision had been made? There wasn't. Nobody at that company was willing to stand up and listen to the concerns of workers. They had left the room.

That's why we're here today talking about this decision. We're talking about it in reference to the decisions that the federal government has made with regard to the aviation sector. Nobody here is denying that the aviation sector has had a difficult time through this pandemic. Nobody is denying that. Labor senators have been calling since the start of this pandemic for support for our aviation sector from this government. What we are saying is: if you are going to deliver $800 million in taxpayer funding to Qantas then why would you give that money with no strings attached? Why would you hand over that amount of support—support that was greatly needed to make sure people could continue to travel and that jobs could be saved—and tell workers it would save their jobs when it hasn't? This company has taken all that support from the federal government with no strings attached.

What we know is that these jobs are being outsourced, not cut. The company made a decision to make these jobs less secure, to make sure these people can't unionise, don't have annual leave and probably won't even know what their shifts are. They've given 10 years of loyal service to the company—and, let's face it, to Australians, because they have been the ones getting you home when you needed to go home for Christmas, the ones making sure you could spend time with your family. They have been the ones getting you there safely, because these workers care about safety, but this outsourcing decision will make sure that the people who stand up for safe conditions in aviation won't have the same job security they had at Qantas.

So, yes, we are asking the government: Is that acceptable? Do you support that decision? They can't possibly say that they do, because if they do they will have to admit they gave this company $800 million in support without thinking to attach the condition that the company didn't outsource jobs. I want to make sure that those opposite—because they crow a lot about supporting regional jobs—know that this decision will result in 50 jobs being cut at Cairns Airport in regional Queensland. These are 50 jobs going from a community that has already suffered enough, where jobs have already become less secure. This comes after previous redundancies resulted in about 90 jobs lost at Cairns Airport.

As I said, no-one is denying that it has been a difficult time, but when these workers have come here or when they've rallied outside MPs' offices all they've had are denials that this government is prepared to do the tough, hard thing to stand up for their jobs. That's all they're asking you to do. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.