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

Aviation has a special place in the national psyche of Australians. It's the Royal Flying Doctor Service touching down on a red dirt airstrip. It's the iconic flying kangaroo adorning the world's safest airline. Our unique remoteness to our regional communities, between our major cities and to the rest of the world means that aviation is embodied in our national character. Yet aviation was one of the industries hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent months I served on the Senate inquiry into the future of aviation in Australia. We heard hours of harrowing evidence on the toll this pandemic has taken on the health of workers behind this iconic sector and the toll it has taken on their families and their futures.

Not only have they faced a global pandemic but they have also been confronted with a government that has abandoned them in their time of greatest need. Flight attendants are existing on a diet of instant noodles so that they can pay their rent. Ground handlers have been hospitalised after suffering massive panic attacks. Workers have been forced to draw down their super to pay the bills. Workers feel that they will never financially or emotionally recover. Through the hopelessness, the anxiety, the depression and the loneliness, most striking is the pride that people in aviation take in their work and their genuine passion for aviation.

They aren't, as the government suggests, looking for a handout. These are skilled, experienced, proud aviation workers who want to get back on the tools—workers like Damien Pollard, who has worked as a Qantas baggage handler for 12 years. His wife is a hardworking nurse, and he has two sons. He has spent the last year fighting against Qantas as it tried to outsource his job and the jobs of dozens of his workmates, in the middle of this pandemic. Despite all that, here is what he had to say: 'I'm really proud of my family, and I'm really, really proud that I work for a company like Qantas. I was going to stay with Qantas. That was the plan. I've worked seven out of nine Christmases, but I've spent them with my work family. That is what Qantas was.' Damien has every reason to be resentful, but what he demonstrated at the public hearing was pride in his work and concern for how the loss of skilled workers with decades of experience could result in a safety catastrophe.

This pandemic has hit the aviation sector harder over the last year, and there is still a very long way to go. But what is driving the real long-term damage to this sector is the indifference of the Morrison government and the greed of executives like Alan Joyce, Australia's highest-paid CEO. The aviation sector has historically offered its skilled and experienced workers secure work and fair pay. This is the reason we have the safest aviation sector in the world. But the Prime Minister and Alan Joyce have a clear vision for the future of aviation: outsourced work, less pay, less security and worse conditions. And when the Prime Minister cuts the parachute for aviation workers when JobKeeper ends in 12 days, he is finishing the job that Alan Joyce started. Workers with decades of experience will be lost to this sector forever. In their place will be the churn-and-burn workforce that the government is spreading like wildfire across all sectors of the economy. You lose their skills, you lose their experience and you lose that safety record. It's that simple.

So, I want to remind the Prime Minister that Qantas is not Alan Joyce. Our aviation sector is not the CEO's. Nor do the banks and fund managers own it. It belongs to the pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers, engineers, cleaners, catering staff and thousands of other workers who have dedicated their careers to aviation in Australia. It will be a sad day for us all when the government abandons these workers, their families and their communities on 28 March.