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

I rise to speak about a virus that has destroyed the lives and livelihoods of decent, hardworking Australians. That virus is, of course, Alan Joyce, the CEO of Qantas, and his executive leadership. Yesterday, SafeWork NSW filed criminal charges against Qantas over the sacking of Theo Seremetidis. Let me tell you about Theo. Theo was an aircraft cleaner who had worked for Qantas. Theo was a trained, qualified and experienced health and safety representative for his team. Theo had worked in Qantas for almost seven years when COVID-19 began to spread around the world. In early 2020, before our borders closed to China, planes continued to arrive at Australia's airports from COVID-19 hotspots, including Wuhan. Theo and his team were responsible for cleaning those planes. I will quote Theo directly on what happened next:

At the start of the pandemic, we were directed to clean planes with just water—no sanitiser for the trays or anything. PPE was not mandated despite managers wearing hazmat suits. We were not even provided with masks or disinfectant. I made numerous approaches to management to ask for further PPE or for the risk assessments they had done. After everything was declined, I directed a group of workers to cease unsafe work, which is one of the health and safety representative powers … At the same time, I and other workers received threats of disciplinary action. That day I was stood down was my last day at Qantas.

This is truly a national scandal. Alan Joyce was forcing his own employees to clean planes arriving from Wuhan without PPE, without disinfectant and with nothing more than spray bottles of water. The Qantas management was so concerned that they were wearing hazmat suits, but they didn't provide any PPE to the exposed cleaning team. Theo stood up not just to protect himself and not just to protect his team but to protect every Australian who was unknowingly boarding a Qantas plane that had not been safely disinfected. For his trouble, Alan Joyce stood him down immediately. Theo has never gone back to work.

A few months later, Theo was one of the 2,000 Qantas workers who woke up to learn their jobs had been outsourced, in the middle of a pandemic, at the same time that Qantas was receiving $2 billion in public money to keep the workforce intact. Alan Joyce outsourced those jobs to cut costs, to cut wages and to cut conditions for his employees. Some of these workers had been working for Qantas for many, many decades.

Of course, many of the companies he outsourced those jobs to are notorious for their poor labour standards. One, Swissport, was subject to an expose by the ABC which revealed its workers are living in makeshift camps in Sydney airport between split shifts. That's how low their wages are, and those are their conditions. Swissport workers were sleeping on sheets on the concrete floor and on dirty mattresses beneath baggage carousels. Last week, Qantas appeared before the job security inquiry. I asked whether Qantas even knows whether the outsourced workers it uses are receiving a living wage. The response I received was telling: Qantas's chief counsel responded, 'What's a living wage?'

This illegal outsourcing is another national scandal. The Federal Court agrees, which is why it has ruled that this outsourcing decision was illegal. It wasn't simply a right, as has been claimed by those opposite—in particular by Senator Stoker, who made criticisms of these workers because they had failed to keep their jobs with Qantas. She criticised those workers because they had decent wages and conditions that had been negotiated, many without any action, directly with the company. That company signed off willingly and then turned around, double-crossed the workers and did such deals as it did.

I can tell you this, Senator Stoker: I would suggest you go back through Hansard, because I certainly will. The Federal Court agrees, which is why it has ruled the outsourcing decision was illegal, Senator Stoker.

There aren't enough hours in the day to go through the long list of crimes that Alan Joyce has committed against his employees. I'm thinking now about Peter Seymour, and I ask those opposite to consider this story. Peter had worked at Qantas for 31 years when he was diagnosed with stage 5 prostate cancer in late 2019. Peter continued working as long as he could before, in early 2020, he was eventually forced onto sick leave. At this point, Peter was getting radiotherapy treatment almost every day. When the pandemic reached Australia, Alan Joyce booted Peter off the sick leave he had accrued over 31 years at Qantas. He was stood down and, when he tried to recover that sick leave, Qantas fought Peter, a cancer victim, in the Federal Court. Peter said that he had been forced to borrow money from family members to pay his medical bills.

What Alan Joyce has done to Peter, Theo and those 2,000 workers who saw their jobs illegally outsourced is un-Australian. The ACCC should be investigating Qantas for false advertising over its use of the tagline 'Spirit of Australia'. Alan Joyce said he needed to sack those 2,000 people to save Qantas. Well, I say we only need to sack one, and that is Alan Joyce. Instead, he continues to pocket millions of dollars year after year, regardless of the performance of the company. Of course, we've seen subsidies squeezed out of taxpayers and the Qantas workforce as part of his strategy of bonuses. When are the Morrison government going to utter a single word in defence of workers like Peter and Theo? I won't hold my breath.

What's quite clear is that the prosecution is the first of its kind anywhere in Australia under the uniform WH&S laws. TWU NSW state secretary Richard Olsen said that the regulator's decision to prosecute Qantas was 'a landmark moment for health and safety across Australia'. He said:

SafeWork's prosecution of Qantas for these offences is the first of its kind and is a massive step forward for work health and safety in NSW and across the nation … Qantas stood Theo down simply for trying to protect himself and his colleagues from COVID, and now the company is rightly facing criminal charges for doing so.

He said this was the same company that had been found, as I said, to have illegally dismissed those 2,000 workers, and he said:

We hope the Court throws the book at Qantas for their outrageous decision to stand down a worker who was simply trying to keep himself and his colleagues safe at work.

While the number of charges laid is unknown, each offence attracts a maximum penalty of $594,000.21, meaning that Qantas could face fines running into the millions, not including any compensation potentially awarded to Mr Seremetidis. The case is listed for its first hearing in the New South Wales District Court on 6 December.

In addition to SafeWork prosecution, Qantas is also facing an adverse action case in the Federal Court brought by the TWU relating to Theo's being stood down, as well as the separate ongoing Federal Court case about Qantas's illegal decision to outsource 2,000 workers. A SafeWork NSW spokesperson says the charges relate to QGS standing down a worker who raised concerns about a potential exposure of workers to COVID-19 while cleaning aircraft in early 2020. The TWU have put forward that they believe that the prosecution is the first of its kind anywhere in the country. They went on to talk about the importance of making sure that this adverse action is properly dealt with in the courts. This company could turn over a new leaf. It could actually do what predecessors to Alan Joyce did and engage with the workforce, have a relationship with the workforce, a workforce that took standdowns without pay on many occasions during crises, but not at the point of a gun. (Time expired)