Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

This issue goes to the way global aviation operates, and I've said that in my time as minister there was one doubling of Qatar Airways eligibility into the gateway airports and one rejection of another application that Qatar put whilst I was the minister. But the specific agreement that was put into the Australia-Qatar government-to-government agreement was proposed by the then Deputy Prime Minister, Minister McCormack, prior to the second arrival, the sequel no-one asked for, Barnaby Joyce's election as Deputy Prime Minister a second time. That introduced a safeguards article for Australia, making sure there wasn't any abuse of market power put in there by any entity, and of course there's only one airline based in Qatar, which also operates the airport at Doha.

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