Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

There is not a single part of this country that is untouched by the pandemic, but there are many Australians who have been left behind by this government. For millions of Australians, this is the first recession in their lifetime. Gone are our remarkable three decades of growth, and it's happened on this government's watch. Of course, we did not enter this crisis from a position of strength. Under this government, Australians were already living with the worst wages and productivity growth on record. That was and remains the record of this government. In its response to this crisis and the challenges that it poses, the government has left out countless hundreds—thousands—of Australian workers, leaving them behind. In my contribution, I will focus on aviation workers in particular.

Just yesterday, it was revealed through question time and through the media that the independent administrators of Virgin wrote to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance laying out very clearly how the government's inaction threatens the very future survival of Virgin Australia and the 16,000 workers who rely on it. Unless the Morrison government steps up to the plate, the administration process is in serious jeopardy, and I want to quote from that advice to government: 'We are concerned that any delay in obtaining clarity on these matters may jeopardise a successful conclusion to the sale process and risk liquidation of the airline, as occurred in the case of Ansett in 2001.' This is what the administrators are saying to the government, and it is not the first time that they have raised this in writing to the government. They have written almost every single week, and so far we've had very little response.

Australia's second major airline is in serious jeopardy because of the inaction of this government—because the Morrison government has absolutely no plan for our economy and no plan for the aviation industry in this country. Instead the government has taken its hands off the wheel, let this airline fall into administration and is now putting the future of 16,000 workers in jeopardy. Every single job lost and every single route in this country that is lost will be because of the inaction of this government. This is what they will wear, this is what they will own and this will be their legacy to the economy and to the aviation industry and to all of those workers who rely on it. If Australia emerges from this crisis with just one major airline, it will be because this government has made it so. When it comes to Virgin Australia, our priority has always been to protect the workers and to make sure that we continue to have two strong, competitive airlines in this country that help grow our economy and that those 16,000 workers who rely on Virgin are given the support that they need to get through this crisis.

Through this crisis, of course this government has repeatedly said that it will take a sector-wide view to aviation, when we know that is absolutely not the case, that that is not what they've done. They've also not supported all of our aviation workers. Today the Leader of the Opposition and I and many of my colleagues went out to the lawns of Parliament House to meet with dnata workers. These are workers who clean our planes, who prepare food services for our airlines, who make sure that our bags arrive, who make sure that there are customer service officers in our airports who are able to help people navigate through international terminals. These are workers who we often don't see but who we absolutely rely on every single day to get to our destinations. They're not rich workers. They don't get paid a lot. They live in communities right the way across this country. What they've asked for from this government is support so that they can keep their connection with their workforce, so that they can keep their connection with their employer and so that, out of this crisis, we will still have a strong aviation industry and aviation workforce to be able to restart this sector.

This government has taken an active decision. It has introduced rules—an active decision—to deliberately exclude 5½ thousand workers from JobKeeper. It has made this decision and it could change that with the stroke of a pen. Those workers deserve better. This government has failed them. It has let them down and continues to do so every single time the Prime Minister gets up to the despatch box and tries to pretend, somehow or another, that everything is absolutely perfect and everything the government has done with JobKeeper doesn't need any fixing at all. These workers do deserve the government's support and they deserve the support of this parliament. (Time expired)

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