Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to wholly owned Qantas subsidiary Jetstar’s AWAs, with remuneration between $41,000 and $46,000 for cabin crew. I again refer the Prime Minister to the comment by Jetstar CEO Alan Joyce:

... most people would regard [that] as a phenomenal salary ...

Isn’t it the case that the phenomenal salary in Qantas or Jetstar is the salary of CEO Geoff Dixon, who under the terms of his new contract will be paid nearly $4 million a year? Why, under the government’s legislation, is there a wages race to the bottom for Jetstar and Qantas cabin crew but a race to the top for the CEO?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe that the only thing I can usefully add to the answer I gave to the member for Perth is to make what I hope is the reasonable observation that I am not aware that the industrial relations policy even of the Australian Labor Party in 2006 requires that everybody working for a company be paid precisely the same wage—which of course is implicit in the envy based question asked by the honourable member. The reality is that here we have 200 more jobs being created. We have a 30-year low in unemployment. We have the highest participation rate on record. And all the Labor Party can do is to begrudge another 200 Australians getting a decent job. I think the Labor Party ought to be ashamed of itself.