Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to provide some free advice to the Liberal-National opposition: if you insist on opposing Labor's reforms to grow wages before you've even seen the bill and if you want to get the Australian people on your side, then don't enlist the help of the most loathed corporate thugs in the country. I was surprised this morning to open the Financial Review and see the Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, reading out of a Liberal Party messaging document. It read:

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce fears that the Albanese government's multiemployer bargaining will hamper innovation …

It's messaging straight out of the Liberal Party HQ. But the only thing Alan Joyce has ever innovated in new ways is to illegally sack workers and rob them of their entitlements.

This is the sort of company that the Liberal and National parties keep. We know that it is, because they gave Alan Joyce $2 billion during the pandemic and now he's using that money to pay himself fat bonuses and share buybacks. On one side we've got the Albanese government introducing groundbreaking reforms to grow wages for Australian workers and, opposing it, we've got the deliberate low-wage agenda of the Liberal-Nationals and Alan Joyce. It's never been clearer that the Liberals and Nationals are not on the side of Australian workers. The former government never, ever criticised Qantas for illegally sacking 2,000 workers and ripping off thousands more, and now, in opposition, the Liberals and Nationals are working with Alan Joyce to rip off everyone else.