Topics: Qantas Sale Act & Senator the Hon Fiona Nash
E&OE…
Peter van Onselen
… joining me now are two key senators, crossing the political divide, the Coalition’s Scott Ryan and the Labor Party’s Doug Cameron. Gentlemen, thanks for joining me. Can I ask you just to start with, Senator Ryan, the Government, I have some sympathy for your view, about changing the Qantas Sale Act, but I wonder whether the public does? At the end of the day I get the impression that probably most voters probably wouldn’t mind the flying Kangaroo staying in Australia ownership. How do you overcome the populist position that the Opposition are sticking to?
Scott Ryan
Well I don’t think those two positions are inconsistent there, Peter. We want to change the Qantas Sale Act to give Qantas the opportunity to compete freely with Virgin.
Van Onselen
Yeah, but it’ll just mean that people from overseas buy into it, surely? That’s the whole reason for changing.
Ryan
Well that’s part of allowing Qantas to access capital and to give it the level playing field with Virgin. Whether its owners, the shareholders, choose to sell their shares to overseas investors, that will be a matter for the Foreign Investment Review Board; as every other foreign investment is subject to.
Van Onselen
But your point that there is every chance that the Treasurer, despite freeing up the sale act if you can get it through parliament, the Treasurer might turn around and reject any source of foreign takeover of the airline anyway a la Graincorp.
Ryan
Well every single foreign investment application is considered on its merits and whether it’s in the national interest.
Van Onselen
I’ve got to interrupt though, sorry. Isn’t that kind of the whole point of changing the Sale Act? So you can attract foreign investment? If there’s any suggestion that the Treasurer is going to reject that, that defeats the entire purpose of removing the Sale Act in the first place; something I agree with.
Ryan
As the Treasurer and the Prime Minister made clear, it’s about putting all airlines on the same playing field. Because, after all, a job at Virgin, a flight on Virgin is just as valuable as a job or flight on Qantas to Australians.
Van Onselen
Ok Doug Cameron, I’ve got to ask you. It’s cheap populism by the Labor Party, surely. Because at the end of the day, foreign ownership, they’re not going to change the flying Kangaroo insignia. That’s the PR that matters, not if it’s an investment company that owns shares or an international investment company that owns shares, surely.
Doug Cameron
(Inaudible) … heard you come out with, Peter. Obviously you’re trying to be a bit provocative, but you know it’s more complex than that. You know there are serious issues in relation to ownership and the fundamental issue, the issue I’m concerned about, the issue Labor is concerned about, is to maintain jobs in Australia.
Van Onselen
What about the idea though that if the airline is failing, in its current structure, then the jobs are going to be under threat anyway? They’ve made a multi-hundreds of millions dollars of loss in a half-yearly period. It’s only going to get worse isn’t it? Unless they can access capital from overseas to be able to compete with, as Senator Ryan says, other companies that access capital abroad?
Cameron
I don’t see that as fundamentally the structure. I see that there are a range of issues. That is the strength of the dollar, the competition; you know the cut-throat competition that’s in place. A whole range of other issues, the support that other governments give their airlines. We should be supporting our airlines, we should be supporting Qantas, we should be supporting jobs in Australia. Because if we don’t do it, it’s quite clear that Tony Abbott won’t do it. They’ve got a cavalier approach to jobs; under this government 63,000 jobs gone since they’ve come to government. It’s an absolute tragedy for 63,000 Australians.
Van Onselen
Senator Ryan…
Ryan
What Doug is saying there is that an employee at Qantas should be subsidised by the taxpayer. But an employee’s job at Virgin isn’t the same. That’s not fair.
Van Onselen
Ok, but be that as it may, the simple fact is that they are going to block it. I did something unusual today that I don’t think most Australians do, I listened to Senate question time rather than that in the House of Representatives. I was interested, the Defence Minister David Johnston was very, very clear I thought in some of his comments that there’s absolutely no way if the Sale Act goes down that new Government, the Coalition, would consider a debt guarantee or anything of the sort. Is it as strong as that Senator Ryan?
Ryan
Well I think the Prime Minister made that clear. I think the Treasurer has made that clear, and I think the Deputy Prime Minister made that clear the other day.
Van Onselen
(interjects – inaudible)
Ryan
We’ve got a plan.
Van Onselen
But not Senator Johnston today.
Ryan
Well, I think Senator Johnston made it clear too. We’ve got a plan on the table that’s in the national interest. That will ensure a viable Qantas, but it’s up to Qantas to compete. But it’s not fair and it’s not viable for the taxpayer to subsidise some companies at the expense of the others.
Van Onselen
How do you respond to that, Doug Cameron? It does seem that if you’re not going to support the Sale Act change, you’ve made that quite clear, the option of a debt guarantee has to be on the table. Labor has intimated that it might be open to that. That is taxpayers throwing money into an airline that is graded as junk.
Cameron
Well Qantas is a special case. We’ve known that Qantas is a special case for some time. In fact Joe Hockey himself and Warren Truss, only a few years ago, said it’s a special case and we should be looking after Qantas, we should be making sure jobs are here, and as you’re aware this decision was made by the Government on the basis that this was Plan A with no Plan B. And it’s clear every leader, and every newspaper, every headline in the newspapers after this decision was made basically said it was a Clayton’s decision. It couldn’t be implemented. Get real. That’s the message I’ve got for Tony Abbott, get real.
Van Onselen
Senator Cameron can I ask you on another matter, before we run out of time? Can I ask you about Senator Nash and the censure motion against her? What’s the essence of why you, in conjunction with the Greens, decided to censure this minister? And then I’ll get a response from Scott Ryan.
Cameron
Because she has consistently misled parliament, that’s the fundamental issue…
Van Onselen
Deliberately do you say or accidentally?
Cameron
Deliberately. She’s had plenty of opportunities to deal with this issue. There’s at least four occasions that John Faulkner went through in forensic detail. Today he outlined the problems that were there, what she needs to do to deal with this issue. But she is, people all think that she’ a nice person, but she’s not a good minister.
Van Onselen
And Senator Ryan I assume you won’t agree with that, obviously. What’s the Government’s response to that?
Ryan
Labor’s confected outrage on this is extraordinary. Senator Bob Carr, while he was a minister, maintained the shares in his company that he was not allowed to do under the then government’s act. Labor and the Greens voted against scrutiny of that being provided to the Senate and all that’s happened today is that Labor is trying to divert attention from their refusal to allow a vote on the carbon tax repeal bills. We had our second piece of legislation that was part of the Government’s programme voted on, since the election, only earlier this week because Labor is filibustering legislation the Government puts up.
Van Onselen
But that’s surely not the only reason that they’re doing this?
Cameron
We’re certainly not going to give in on carbon pricing until there’s a decent process in place to deal with carbon pollution, and it’s an absolute nonsense this Direct Action approach. It’s not gonna work and I have to say to you; we’re about jobs. That’s the focus we’re involved in, making sure there’s jobs for Australia when this Government basically treats jobs in a cavalier manner.
Van Onselen
Ok can I ask you Scott Ryan, we are almost out of time, but just back on the Fiona Nash thing. Ultimately, I know you don’t agree with the censure motion, but it’s a bad look for the Government that she isn’t coming a little bit more clean to some of the questions, that are, and I’ve heard them as well, that have been forensically put by Senator Faulkner.
Ryan
They’re just the same questions being asked over and over again.
Cameron
Well just give us an answer.
Van Onselen
Alright, Doug Cameron.
Cameron
She answered them but she hasn’t been truthful and she hasn’t been open, and this is the cloak of secrecy going over again from this government. We need ministers that are truthful, open and honest.
Ryan
Doug Cameron was one of the people here who voted against allowing the documents about Craig Thompson being shown publicly to the Senate.
Van Onselen
I was about to go there. I do have to ask, I know that the Coalition raised this, looking back in time to detract from Senator Nash. I accept that. But it is reasonable for me to ask you, isn’t it? You can understand voters that have recently elected this government sitting there, and maybe they don’t like Senator Nash or what’s happened with her, but they’re equally going to be cynical when they see the Labor Party calling for greater transparency given everything that happened with Craig Thompson over such a long period when he was a pivotal member of the Labor Party and an independent Labor individual backing the government in the last parliament.
Cameron
Well I’ll tell you what they will be cynical about. They’ll be cynical about the cavalier attitude this government has to workers’ jobs…
Ryan
Today’s talking point.
Cameron
They’ll be cynical about the position the Coalition have adopted on a range of issues which are completely at odds with what they said before the election and it’s clear that this is not the government people thought they were electing. They are a government that is uncaring on jobs, don’t worry what happens to communities, what happens to industries and what happens to individual firms.
Van Onselen
Alright, gentlemen we are right out of time. I’ve got to ask you, both of you, every time I have two people out of Parliament House on opposite sides, I come in in hope that I can bring you together and we can find some bipartisanship. It just never happens. But nonetheless…
Cameron
No chance.
Ryan
Doug Cameron and Senator Scott Ryan, thanks for your time.
(Ends)