Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Maybe the opposition has not quite figured it out, but Qantas is still 60 per cent Australian owned and, yet, unfortunately, it has had to announce that 5,000 people will no longer be required to operate its services within Australia. So here it is, a majority Australian owned airline announcing 5,000 redundancies. The reality is, whether an airline is foreign owned or Australian owned, it is going to require a large number of employees to operate its services and provide its facilities in this country. It is not practical to fly those people in and out every day so that they can run a service from Melbourne to Adelaide. Whether the airline is 100 per cent owned by Australians or 100 per cent owned by people from other parts of the world, they are still going to need Australian jobs to provide these kinds of services. Frankly, my assessment would be that a foreign owned airline would require the same number of people to run a service in Australia as an Australia owned airline would.

I hope that in the future Qantas will continue to grow and expand and provide more services across this nation. If it does, then it is going to employ more Australians. If we pass the legislation that is currently before the parliament, that will give Qantas the best possible opportunity to grow and expand its services and to provide more Australian jobs, more opportunities for young Australians to work in the industry and more opportunities for Australia to enjoy the quality services that Qantas provides at the present time.

Virgin provides jobs, even though Virgin is part foreign owned. Qantas provides jobs. It has some level of foreign ownership. Rex provides jobs in this country, even though it has a high level of foreign ownership. The ownership of the company does not in any way change the absolutely fundamental fact that to run air services in Australia you need to employ Australians—and many thousands of them.

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