Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Qantas advised the government on Saturday afternoon that they would be locking out all employees covered by the three enterprise agreements and represented by the three unions involved. They indicated that they would be doing that at 8 pm on Monday evening—that is, they were giving notice of the lockout and therefore meeting the conditions for protected industrial action that apply to employers under the act. So, in terms of the decision to take industrial action against their employees, and lock them out and prevent them from attending work, they gave notification of that.

But, in a secondary move, Qantas took the decision that they would not allow their planes to fly during the period between the notification of the lockout and the lockout coming into effect. They took the decision on grounds which they argued were related to safety and the potential actions of their employees—which, I must confess, I am not that clear about. But they argued that, as a result of their concerns in that regard, they were forced to take action immediately and therefore they would be closing down their operations at 5 pm on the Saturday. So in fact the lockout had not occurred when Qantas took the decision to close down the airline and start cancelling flights and grounding aircraft. So, Senator Brown, the answer probably hinges on some of these technical questions, but they were not able to lock out the employees until 8 pm, and they provided that notification. But they then took the decision to close the airline immediately and cause the sort of disruption that we saw. (Time expired)