Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate expresses its concern at the Albanese Labor Government's rank hypocrisy when it comes to its promises of being a more accountable and transparent government, as demonstrated by its failure to be honest with Australians about why it rejected the application by Qatar Airways to have more international flights, and its failure to be transparent about the use of Special Purpose Aircraft flights.

This motion is relating to the Albanese government. It's relating to how hopeless the Albanese government has been in providing an affordable, reliable and safe aviation industry for Australian travellers. Today is a win for the Australian travelling public. Australians want to be able to purchase a plane ticket to a destination of their choice. They want to make sure that their plane takes off on time and lands on time and that, when they get to their destinations, their bag actually arrives with them and they've got some money left in their pocket to have a good time. It is the job of the government, as the regulator, to ensure that that is achieved.

We are one of the most successful multicultural nations in the world, and right now there are a lot of Australians who can't see their families overseas simply because they cannot afford the exorbitant international plane ticket prices, which are 50 per cent higher than they were pre COVID. The government had a decision to make that would have put downward pressure on those prices, by allowing Qatar Airways another 28 flights into capital cities in this country—one a day in four capital cities. But they didn't want to do that. They don't want to tell us why they made that decision. The more the government refuse to answer basic questions, the more the public have reason to think they are hiding something.

If the public didn't think the government were trying to hide something because ministers refuse to answer questions on this topic in question time or from the media, they would think so after what we saw here in the Senate. I know we are a little cabal unto ourselves and not many people peek through the curtain of the mysteries of the Senate, but here we saw, day after day, this government seek to shut down a select committee into that decision and other matters surrounding the competitiveness of our domestic and international aviation sector. Day after day, they sought to shut it down, trying every parliamentary trick in the book till four o'clock this afternoon, a Thursday afternoon—quite incredible. But they did not succeed. I'm the proud chair of that committee. I'm committed to working with all senators in that committee to achieve recommendations that will be of benefit to Australian travellers and our nation as a whole. Submissions are due by the 18th. We'll be out for public hearings shortly.

As I said, the coalition wants to see an affordable, reliable and safe aviation industry where our airlines are profitable, because they do employ tens of thousands of Australians right across the country. But we don't want them ripping people off. There's a difference between being a profitable company that provides great, well-paid, safe jobs and ripping off your customers. What we've seen in evidence extracted from senior officials of some of these companies and through the good work of our competition watchdog is that something is definitely wrong in the state of Denmark, and it stinks. It looks like this stinky fish head is right at the top of the Albanese government. Is it the cosy personal relationship between the Prime Minister and the former CEO of Qantas, or is it the ideological bent of those on the far left who seek to renationalise Qantas?

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, order! Can I just caution you about personal reflections on the members in the other house? You have the call.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for that very pertinent and timely reminder, Mr Acting Deputy President. Is it other sections of the government who realise that this close political and personal relationship between Prime Minister Albanese and former CEO Alan Joyce and, indeed, Qantas more broadly is a dampener on their political and electoral success? That's because it isn't just the Australian public that's had enough of Qantas and the lack of competition in our aviation industry; it's a state Labor premier, Roger Cook; a state Labor deputy premier, Steven Miles; a state Labor president, former treasurer Wayne Swan; and others who are calling this out for the hoax it is. It's the reason why this government is running as fast as it can from providing an actual answer to the questions.

As she released a green paper which says we've got one of the least competitive aviation sectors, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has once again today directly contradicted the Prime Minister's public commentary about having the most competitive aviation sector in the world. Former ACCC chairman Rod Sims said, 'If there was a time to allow new entrants in, this is it.' The transport minister has claimed that the decision was made in the national interest. However, we now know that the Prime Minister wasn't aware of the decision and only yesterday discovered that the minister made the decision on 10 July. This raises a lot of questions. This was a decision that University of Sydney academics say is going to cost our country $1 billion. I have to tell you, you have to go to the Expenditure Review Committee if you're a cabinet minister wanting $100 million to spend on a program to benefit the Australian people. This minister made a decision that's going to cost our country $1 billion and apparently can't tell us who she consulted with. I would have hoped she'd have consulted with the Minister for Trade and Tourism to understand those implications—the opportunities or otherwise—of providing more freight capacity. I would have thought she'd have consulted with the Treasurer about the modelling that this additional capacity would bring—the benefits to our tourism industry and the productivity gains that would be made.

When we talk about having a zero in front of our productivity growth, what is the productivity of having cancellations and delays going in the wrong direction in this country? Businesses and travellers are building into their travel plans the fact that they will probably have to stay overnight. You'd better take enough cash in your pockets to buy some clean jocks, a toothbrush and a clean suit for tomorrow because—heaven knows!—your bag won't end up with you. That is all a drag on productivity. Fifty flights out of Canberra are cancelled each and every month. It just beggars belief. The Prime Minister didn't know when the decision was made, and the minister seems to be either misleading the parliament or being very remiss with her memory, to the point where she didn't think to consult either the Prime Minister or the former shadow minister on such a significant issue.

I thank the crossbench in particular for the setting up of the select committee today under absolute duress from the Labor Party over the last four days. They've been absolutely strongarming, but the crossbench held true to transparency and accountability to get to the bottom of this, to make sure we air all the issues and we can develop some great recommendations about not just this poor decision by the government but, indeed, by the aviation industry more broadly.

I've already gone to the various reasons given for this decision. I saw Catherine King fumbling this morning at Canberra Airport around the human rights aspect of her decision. I wonder if she consulted with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I wonder whether she told the Qatari government or Qatar Airways that she'd decided to cancel or reject their application before she'd told others. When you're running a government, you can't just make decisions in a silo, because you're representing all of us on the international stage. It has significant implications for our diplomatic relations if you get it wrong, which I suggest the government might have. It was human rights. She was going to decarbonise aviation by not allowing those extra 28 flights in. Wow! Well done with that, Minister. You're decarbonising aviation by not allowing 28 flights, at the same time that the government have been arguing they're welcoming more flights. They think these flights might have more carbon emissions than all the other flights from the Middle East. It's not in the national interest, but she can't tell you what is. She can't tell you the criteria she used.

Then we had our fabulous assistant minister for competition and our fabulous Assistant Minister Jones talking about the need to protect Qantas's profits in the same eye-watering week where Qantas announces excessive profits and a remuneration to their CEO which was eye-watering. What a cosy little set-up the former CEO had with the board about being able to roll forward his share options in the bad years and take them in the good years. Gee, wouldn't we all like that kind of bonus remuneration?

There are significant positive impacts of the Qatar Airways proposal, including an extra million seats a year to Europe and the Middle East. That would put immediate downward pressure on airfares. In excess of thousands of dollars would be saved by the travelling public through a million extra seats, and yet the government wanted to stand up and say, 'Well, no, that would not actually have been the result.' Blind Freddy knows that would be the result.

I come from a country community. When we only have one team in town, prices are through the roof. Add another and prices go down. If I get three carriers or, bonus, if I get four, prices drop to the floor and communities can actually travel not just for business or health specialists but to visit family and friends and to participate more fully in the economy. Thousands of primary producers, manufacturers and other businesses are supported by expanding freight capacity and therefore lowering the cost to shift the goods in a timely manner. This government should be doing everything possible to attract and retain more airlines and build their confidence that Australia is a reliable place to do business and that we have demand.

Australians are paying a high price as well as experiencing almost double the rate of flight cancellations and a 70 per cent increase in delayed flights compared to the long-term average. Things are not okay, and this government thinks they can push out the aviation white paper looking at competition in the aviation industry. Thank goodness for that backflip last week. 'We're not going to think about actually making decisions around slots into Sydney and that flexibility that was recommended in the Harris review. We're not going to make that decision until after the white paper is delivered.' That's after the next election. People are dealing with these problems right now. The solutions are right now on that minister's desk, and she seems incapable of or refusing to do her job. It's tough being a minister; I've been there. You've got to make decisions in the national interest and you've got to be able to explain them.

Labor made a mistake in the budget by not extending the direction to the ACCC to continue its monitoring of airlines in Australia. We call once again on the Treasurer to reinstate that monitoring so that we get timely data. I wrote to the Treasurer over two weeks ago requesting that direction, and I know my colleague Mr Smith, shadow minister for competition, has absolutely been calling for more oversight in that area.

Rex's deputy chairman, John Sharp—and thank you for flying into the regions like Qantas and Virgin do—has said about the imbalance of competition in domestic aviation:

Rex's relationship with a company like Qantas is a bit like an ant dancing with an elephant. You've only got to make one misstep, and you're squashed.

And isn't that the truth? We're talking about an aviation market where two players have more than 95 per cent of the market. Even with our supermarkets, for which we complain about Coles and Woolworths a lot, particularly in the National Party about the fair deal that they give or don't give our farmers, it's about 75 to 80 per cent. So this market is even more concentrated than the supermarkets, and yet I've seen minister after minister in the Senate stand up and say, 'It's not a problem; it's competitive.' It isn't, and the data says so.

That is why I'm so glad that the Senate and the public will have the opportunity to hear the evidence, hear the data through the select committee that we have fought to set up, that you have fought to silence. The actual evidence will be out there for everyone to see. This isn't actually about political pointscoring. I know the government's made a big deal of it. 'Oh, you guys had to make this decision. You did this. You did that.'

It is time now, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis with productivity at nearly zero and no plans from this government to improve it, with every single little decision they make sending things in the wrong direction not the right direction. The cumulative impact is significant. I believe that if we can get right the recommendations of this select committee and report back to the Senate on 9 October the government should do the right thing, adopt those recommendations and put downward pressure on airfares so that Australians get a fair go.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sure that when academics write stories about oppositions and how they deal with election losses somebody will grab hold of the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief. For the information of those not familiar with it, that framework says that a person goes through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then acceptance.

What is required in a system where, essentially, there are two parties of government to get an opposition party match fit, to be up to it? I think there are six stages—denial, overreach, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This week we are in the overreach stage. Long may it continue, because the longer it goes on, the longer it's going to take Mr Morrison's leftovers over there to get themselves into shape to deal with the real issues for Australian people. We are clearly, 16 months in, seeing an opposition that don't understand the decision that the Australian people made, that haven't reflected upon the gravity of the errors that they made in government, because they are reaching too early for the little things and trying to make them big things. That's what this week has been all about.

Now, the decision that Minister Catherine King took in relation to Qatar Airways was done in the normal course of events. In fact, it was a decision that one of her predecessors, Mr McCormack, had made in exactly the same way with no controversy at all, with no complaint. In fact, applications for alterations to bilateral arrangements for access to Australian airports by countries and airlines happen all the time. The truth is, as Minister Wong said here earlier this week, it is not a free-for-all. Competition is not a free-for-all. There are a wide sweep of issues that must be considered when balancing the competitive issues with the safety and security issues and with the other series of national interest questions. Minister King has made it completely clear that the decision she made was in the national interest, in the normal course of events, as Australians would expect.

I see that Senator McKenzie, while unwisely including a reference to special-purpose aircraft in her motion, wisely decided not to spend any time on it in her speech in this debate. I'll just say that, if you want to spend some time on that, it's going to be a pretty wild old ride if we spend time on special aircraft flights, coming from the party that formed government when the Morrison government refused to release any details of special-purpose aircraft flights taken in the last 16 months of that sorry period of government.

Their current leader, Mr Dutton, released absolutely no information about the use of special-purpose aircraft during his sorry tenure as the Minister for Defence. Unlike those opposite, we have restarted publishing information. We are publishing the information that we have been advised to publish and that reflects the very clear advice of our security agencies. That's not unimportant, and a disregard for that is another illustration of why those opposite are unfit to be making a claim on being the alternative government of Australia.

Senator McKenzie wanted to talk about productivity. It's like Idi Amin expressing a sudden interest in human rights! When the other side were in government, they had 10 years of the worst productivity growth on record—in Australian history. And 15 months later, they hope that everybody has forgotten. The business community hasn't forgotten. The trade union movement hasn't forgotten. None of the economic institutions have forgotten. It can't be washed away that easily by carrying on about it. She said that the decision that Minister King had made would apparently cause $1 billion of difference for our Gross Domestic Product. That is the most un-mathematical, silly claim. Why not say $1 trillion? What's after a trillion? Why not just make up numbers that make no sense? What you have to do—for those of you listening at home—is take the three airports, multiply them by seven days, multiply them by the number of the weeks and figure it out. How many dollars does she think that every flight—there you go, some of the team over they are doing it—impacts on the national accounts? It is the silliest proposition.

There was a declaration from Senator McKenzie that the Minister should reveal the contents of her discussions with a foreign power and outline all of the national interest reasons that she had engaged in, in order to make a set of decisions in the Australian national interest. This is coming from the outfit that in the last sorry term of government, when there was a disagreement with the government of France, the then prime minister of Australia released the text messages to a newspaper. I haven't seen anything in my short period here that has done more damage to the credibility of Australian political leadership on the international stage than that vainglorious, silly, shortsighted, self-interested piece of work from Mr Morrison. We're not going to take any lectures from this outfit on the appropriate conduct of international relations.

Then I come to the motion itself. It includes Senator McKenzie's name, it references transparency and accountability, and then it goes on to use phrase 'rank hypocrisy'. The gravitational force of those phrases all arriving into the same sentence would suck in solar systems. It is inconceivable that a person who had a moment's self-reflection could hop out, get into the office, write that in an e-mail and send it off. This is the same Senator McKenzie—or maybe I'm wrong—who was responsible for the sports rorts saga, isn't it? By all means, come in here and lecture people about transparency and accountability—that's leading with your chin. But then to say it's 'rank hypocrisy', it can't be allowed to stand. It is the wildest proposition, and it underscores how silly this whole week has been from the coalition parties, the apparent alternative parties of government. Senator McKenzie was out there before the general business notice of motion. What have I done, Senator Smith?

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Smith is on his feet. Senator Smith?

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Acting Deputy President, Senator Ayres has spoken a lot but not said very much about the substantive matter of Senator McKenzie's motion, which is aviation competition and the performance of the minister for transport, Catherine King, and I'm just wondering if you might bring him back to the substantive matter.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Smith. It is a wide-ranging debate, but I will remind Senator Ayres of the words of the motion, which he's well aware of.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I could almost hear 'wide-ranging debate' before you just said it, Acting Deputy President. I'm grateful for both your ruling and Senator Smith's injunction there. This is the same Senator McKenzie whose approach to transparency and accountability was providing colour coded spreadsheets to the Prime Minister's office and who lost her ministerial job when it was revealed that she was spending public money as if it were LNP money, awarding grants to marginal or target seats in the 2019 election campaign.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ayres, Senator Scarr is on his feet. Senator Scarr?

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President: reflections. I do note that in this particular case, as I understand it, Senator McKenzie resigned in relation to a disclosure about a membership of a sporting club, so I think Senator Ayres needs to be very careful in how he's presenting the historical record.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Scarr. I'll give the call back to Senator Ayres, but I will remind Senator Ayres of the wording of the motion, and perhaps he could—

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, it's Thursday afternoon. I want to point out that it is very hard to get to the policy substance, whatever it is, that sits in this incoherent, inchoate piece of general business that's been served up to us this afternoon. It could have been about the cost of living. It could have been about a whole range of serious national interest and strategic questions that sit in front of the government. But it's this. It's the silly stuff from an outfit whose Prime Minister swore himself into multiple ministries secretly and is still hanging around over there. But you want to talk about transparency, accountability and hypocrisy. We remember the approach to transparency and accountability by the previous Prime Minister and the current Leader of the Opposition, don't we? While we're on the subject of Mr Dutton, I remember his previous approach when he felt a bit challenged about some of the positions that our national airline took. When he didn't like what they said, he told them, in a phrase reeking of misogyny, to stick to their knitting. That's what he said to the leadership of our national airline.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ayres, Senator Scarr is on his feet. Senator Scarr?

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Relevance, Mr Acting Deputy President. If Senator Ayres could actually stick to the motion, we'd all appreciate that, I think.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Scarr. It has been a wide-ranging debate. I'll give the call back to Senator Ayres.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would just say, in the 50 seconds that remain to me, that the problem with the motion that's in front of us is that it invites us to talk about rank hypocrisy, and that's what I've been doing. I understand that I'm likely to get cut short as we hit the 5.30 hard marker, and you'll be denied, I think, a minute and 36 seconds of further outlining of how silly this is. But I understand why it is that Australians are disappointed in the performance of the national airline in terms of its relationship with its customers and employees. The airline needs to do much better over the coming weeks and months—

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Ayres. The debate is interrupted and you will be in continuation when the debate resumes.