Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I met with local Qantas workers who, along with 2½ thousand of their co-workers, had recently been sacked by our national airline. Many of them had given over 20 years of loyal service. Many of them had families and are of an age where they can't start a new career. It's bad enough being sacked during a pandemic, but what makes it even worse is that Qantas has been receiving JobKeeper to subsidise these jobs. In the ultimate insult to these workers, these jobs will be contracted out to a foreign corporation, and workers will be brought in on lower wages and conditions to take their jobs. And also, in the ultimate insult, last week in the Federal Court, Qantas was found to have engaged in wage theft in respect of JobKeeper. It's corporate immorality.

Many of these workers that have lost their jobs at Qantas live in the Prime Minister's electorate. They're asking a simple question of the Prime Minister: Why won't you stand up for us? Why won't you stand up for workers at Qantas? They have been pleading with the Prime Minister to support them. So, on behalf of these workers, my question to the Prime Minister is: If you say that you're about jobs and if you say that you're about standing up for Australian workers, why won't you stand up for these workers at Qantas that have lost their jobs due to this corporate immorality? Why won't you stand up for Australian workers and stop companies like Qantas contracting out work during a pandemic and undercutting wages and conditions?