Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be part of this debate today, because I think there has been the most extraordinary lack of insight on the part of the government in this matter. I recall September 2001, when Ansett collapsed nationally. This created chaos across the state of Western Australia not just because of the collapse of Ansett but also because along with it came the collapse of its wholly owned entity Skywest. This had a catastrophic impact on tourism across Western Australia, and not only on tourism—on all business in our regional areas. Outside the mining sector it created an enormous problem for people running their businesses. We came to understand that, because of the impact of this on the rest of the economy—not just that company and its employees—we had to take some extraordinary steps.

We took the step to regulate all of those routes that previously had been flown by Skywest, with the exception of the Pilbara. We actually created a contestable process where we would only allow one airline to operate into those routes. We needed to do that not because we were anticompetitive but because we understood we had to take exceptional measures to restore those airlines and restore those economies. I put it to you today that this is exactly what we need to do in this situation.

Qantas has made it very clear that, amendment or no amendment to the Qantas Sale Act, they will need an underwriting of their capital needs over the next few years, so the solution that is being proposed is not going to work. Indeed, if it worked, it would come at a very terrible cost: the cost of the loss of Australian ownership and those obligations to be based in Australia. It will see a loss of focus on Australia, particularly as it is most likely that, if we are going to go down this path, Qantas will not just be foreign owned but also be owned by foreign governments.

I was very surprised when the Prime Minister said yesterday that Labor was still living in the good old days of state owned airlines but he was not. I hate to say it to the Prime Minister, but the good old days of state ownership are very much with us in Australia. I do not know how we can just completely gloss over this. Virgin's parent holding company is 57 per cent owned by foreign governments, not just foreign owned. We have Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand owns around 20 per cent, and it is 53 per cent owned by the New Zealand government. We have Singapore Airlines, which has about 20 per cent, and that is 55 per cent owned by the Singaporean government. Etihad, which is the other foreign airline, is fully owned by the Abu Dhabi government.

We understand that the Air Navigation Act requires 51 per cent ownership, but we all understand how the Virgin restructuring has worked. There is no bashfulness about the motivation of those foreign governments for their investment. They have made it very clear that their investment in Virgin Australia is designed to use Virgin domestic to feed their respective airlines' international business. That is fine, but we all have to understand we do not want our entire national airline and all of the airline business in Western Australia, fundamentally, to have direction set by the needs of foreign governments. We need to intervene to protect our airlines in order to ensure that the rest of our economy that is supported by these airlines works.

There are in fact 138 airlines around the world that are owned by governments— (Time expired)

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