Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tomorrow is 12 September 2006. It is the fifth anniversary of the collapse of a great airline that we had in Australia. It has been five years since the biggest industrial relations disaster occurred in this country. For former Ansett employees, many of who lived in my electorate and who still live in the electorate of Hindmarsh, it has been five rocky and generally disappointing years consisting of hopes to receive entitlements being lifted then largely dashed. It has been five years of the government saying they were doing the right thing by the workers and subsequently spiriting away some $150 million out of the greater post-collapse Ansett ticket levy tax. It has been five years of former employees hoping against indications that they would end up with their entitlements, despite the federal government’s use of their circumstance to profit by siphoning off sympathy money from the Australian public, notionally for the ex-employees, but in real terms for the federal government’s consolidated account and regional pork-barrelling exercises.

There has been substantial disappointment among ex-Ansett employees, which is entirely reasonable after losing their jobs, their career and their mainstay for decades through no fault of their own. It is worthwhile reflecting on why people have felt betrayed by this government and why efforts over the past five years have done more to rub salt into the ex-employees’ wounds than provide some level of comfort in the wake of the worst corporate collapse in the nation’s history. The reason people feel slighted is the morphing of the government’s message in relation to the sourcing of moneys to help meet ex-employees’ entitlements. In a well-received announcement concerning the Ansett air passenger ticket levy on 28 September 2001, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services stated:

The Government has imposed the levy to pay for the entitlements of Ansett employees.

This was reported in a number of dailies, including the Sydney Morning Herald, which read:

The levy ... was imposed to guarantee the entitlements of Ansett workers ...

That was dated Saturday, 29 September 2001. I do not think anyone could seriously begrudge the ex-employees receiving the assistance from the federal government in the form that it was made at the time. I do think that it was unfortunate that, in the event of the levy raising more than what was owed to the government in repayment of the $330 million advance, any surplus was to have no connection with the plight of the ex-Ansett workers or their access to their entitlements. Instead of the Ansett ticket tax being used to guarantee the entitlements of ex-employees, as stated very clearly by the then minister for transport, the government decided to spirit any surplus away for use in  regional electorates.

That the government had lost control of its budget, causing a cash deficit in 2001-02 of $1.3 billion, and had decided to spirit any additional money away for its regional electorate strategy is disappointing, especially for the ex-Ansett employees, but the fact that $94 million of taxpayers’ money that was spirited away through the Ansett levy to notionally increase regional airport security has not even brought airport security up to scratch five years after September 11 simply adds insult to injury.

Even now, 3.9 million passengers a year—that is, 66,000 flights a year—continue to be put at risk through a lack of baggage screening at major regional airports such as those at Launceston, Townsville, Maroochydore and Alice Springs. After the then minister for transport stated in September 2001, ‘The government has imposed the levy to pay for the entitlements of Ansett employees,’ he said, perhaps to clarify, in November 2002:

They were never to see any of the ticket tax. It was used to fund, if you like, an overdraft facility.

The government states that it only intended to help ex-Ansett employees to the tune of eight weeks redundancy, and this it did. But there are literally thousands of ex-employees who committed many of their most productive years to their career with Ansett and were owed much more than the minimal eight weeks.

Of the 13,000-plus ex-employees, some 9,500 have been awaiting their entitlements over and above the minimal eight weeks redundancy the government limited its assistance to. Even over recent months, creditors of the Ansett Group companies and trusts have been deliberating on whether to pursue a strategy to make up for a further $75 million immediately available for future distribution to former employees. Of course, the Commonwealth’s $75 million would cover approximately 30 per cent of entitlements that continue to be outstanding. Five years after the collapse, five years after the government instituted the Ansett ticket levy, five years after being told categorically that the levy was to pay for the entitlements of Ansett employees, the government’s $150 million profit is gone, airports are still not secure and ex-employees continue— (Time expired)