Doorstop interview - Sydney

Subjects: Flight Attendants Association of Australia and Qantas agreement on pay rise for cabin crew; workers' rights; Closing Loopholes; Max Chandler-Mather at CFMEU rally; right to work from home; Census.

E&OE Transcript

TERI O’TOOLE, FEDERAL SECRETARY OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA: Hi everyone, and thank you for coming today. We’re here to announce an incredible deal that we’ve been able to make with Qantas for our international and our domestic cabin crew. After a fairly tumultuous after-Covid aviation industry, we saw cabin crew conditions attacked. But today we’re here to say that, thanks to the Albanese Government, thanks to the Closing the Loophole legislation, we’ve been able to sit down for our international crew and actually negotiate an incredible deal. Today we can announce that overall there’ll be an average of a 30 percent pay increase. There’ll be conditions that will be attached to the A350 aircraft that will keep jobs in Australia and allow the Australian crew to do the Project Sunrise flying. We’ve been able to get some really good changes for our rostering system and how people are rostered work.
 
I think what today highlights is even though legislation is on paper, very often you don’t see the outcomes of this, and today we’re seeing the outcomes of it. We’ve been able to get Qantas to the table. We’ve been able to negotiate a fair and reasonable outcome that actually allows for Qantas to grow. It allows for our international business to grow, and without the legislation changes we would never have got here.
 
So we want to thank, again, the Albanese Government, the Minister for Industrial Relations. We also want to thank Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock who both voted for this legislation and are a part of this great success as everyone else.
 
We’re very happy to have the Minister here today, and hopefully I can hand over.
 
MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Well, thanks very much, Teri. And thanks to all of the flight attendants and the members of the Flight Attendants Association of Australia who are here today to celebrate a really important victory for workers in Australia.
 
Ever since the Albanese Government was elected a bit over two years ago, we’ve promised to get wages moving again in this country. It’s starting to happen across a whole wide range of industries, and we’ve seen for three consecutive quarters in a row in Australia we’ve had real wages rising on an annual basis above inflation. So that’s really good news for workers across a range of industries, and today it’s great news for workers in the aviation industry. As a federal politician I fly a lot around the country, and when I get on a Qantas aircraft I can’t tell whether the flight attendants are direct employees of Qantas or are engaged through a labour hire firm. But the people who can tell the difference are those labour hire employees, because up until now they’ve been being paid much lower rates of pay by Qantas than the direct employees they work alongside. So these are people who wear exactly the same uniform, do exactly the same work, on exactly the same rosters but have been treated as second-class citizens and been paid less than the employees they work alongside. And from today that ends. So it’s terrific news that Qantas and the FAAA have reached an in-principle agreement which will see those labour hire employees paid significantly higher and much more in line with the direct employees that they work alongside.
 
Teri was gracious enough to recognise that these changes would not have been possible without the Albanese Government’s changes to Australia’s workplace laws. And that is absolutely true. We made a significant change to our workplace laws a few months ago under what was known as the Same Job, Same Pay laws. And the way those laws operate now is that employers aren’t able to engage labour hire employees on lower wages when they do exactly the same work as those direct employees they work alongside.
 
So the fact that Qantas and the FAAA have been able to reach in-principle agreements is a vindication of those laws and showed exactly why they were needed. So we’re really excited about the fact that across the economy we’re getting wages moving again. It matters so much for Australian workers at a time of cost of living pressure, that they’re getting fair wages, and now as a result of this agreement Qantas flight attendants will be getting the fair pay they deserve. So I congratulate Qantas, I congratulate the FAAA, and it’s great to see Qantas doing the right thing by its workers.
 
Thanks very much, and I’ll hand back to Teri or anyone else who’d like to say something. Anyone else? There’s no pressure if you don’t want to. Otherwise we can take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: Yeah, Teri?
 
TERI O’TOOLE: Yes.
 
JOURNALIST: The FAAA’s relationship with Qantas has been fractious over the years. What does this signify? A change of the mood perhaps?
 
TERI O’TOOLE: Absolutely. I think under Vanessa Hudson there’s been a real change in how Qantas want to engage with unions, and I think that that’s just a positive move. If you’d have said to me two years ago that we would have been able to get the labour hire employees employed with Qantas, I would have thought you were joking, and yet here we stand today, and the offer will be made, regardless of whether the variation is voted up, they will be taken in as QAL employees, and that is a massive thing for a company that has made labour hire part of its business program.
 
JOURNALIST: What new protections will staff get under this deal?
 
TERI O’TOOLE: When you say protections, so some of the things we’ll get is we’ll get access to the 350 aircraft, which is when new aircraft come you need to have access to that aircraft otherwise that work can be taken offshore. So we’ve actually got access to the majority of the ultra long-range flying and, of course, that will be Sydney-New York, Sydney-London and any other route that Qantas bring in later. And so that protection means that its longevity and it's actually going to make sure that we keep jobs in Australia.
 
JOURNALIST: Is it for international cabin crew or across the board?
 
TERI O’TOOLE: So this is for international cabin crew that we’ve made this variation. For our domestic cabin crew we’ve actually made three applications, and that is going through the Same Job, Same Pay process. But today Qantas announced that they would not oppose those applications, which is a fantastic position.
 
JOURNALIST: How far away is a deal for long-haul staff?
 
TERI O’TOOLE: This is for long-haul. So if you mean when will it kick in? So we’re looking at a vote some time in September and then obviously if it’s voted up we just need the Fair Work Commission to verify it and then it’s in.
 
JOURNALIST: Will Jetstar get a similar deal?
 
TERI O’TOOLE: We have some applications with Jetstar, and we’re still talking around those things. Nothing’s been decided.
 
JOURNALIST: What do you make of Qantas’s profit announcement this morning?
 
TERI O’TOOLE: Well, look, it’s a hard one, isn’t it? If they don’t make profits, we don’t have jobs. So we really are encouraging – it’s in every employee’s interests to make sure that the company is profitable. This is probably the first time we’ve ever seen a profit flow down to employees, because this is a 30 per cent increase which is flowing down from this profit.
 
JOURNALIST: Is this a sign that Qantas is turning its reputation around?
 
TERI O’TOOLE: I hope so. I actually think that under Vanessa Hudson’s leadership there has been a real change, a real shift in how business is being done. And from a union perspective, we actually are having much better conversations, much more productive conversations, and the employees’ opinion is being taken a lot more into account.
 
JOURNALIST: I do have some questions for the Minister, if that’s all right?
 
MURRAY WATT: Sure.
 
JOURNALIST: So I wanted to ask you, related to Max Chandler-Mather. You’ve been at large rallies, do you think it’s fair for Max Chandler-Mather to say he can’t audit signs next to him on stage?
 
MURRAY WATT: No, that’s absolute rot from Max Chandler-Mather. Max Chandler-Mather, the Greens Party representative, yesterday made a decision to share a stage with a disgraced union leadership that have been facing all sorts of allegations of organised crime infiltrating their union, corruption and criminality let alone violence. And a Greens MP from Brisbane decided to share a stage and endorse that kind of behaviour. Right in front of where Max Chandler-Mather was standing was a coffin with the Prime Minister’s face on it. Max Chandler-Mather didn’t have to look hard to see some absolutely disgraceful signs, coffins and other kind of messaging that he chose to endorse by speaking at that rally. He still hasn’t apologised for doing so, and his leader Adam Bandt has backed him for doing so. I think that tells you a lot about the moral fibre of the Greens – it’s completely non-existent.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you support making it easier for the 3 million Australians on awards to apply for work from home?
 
MURRAY WATT: Well, I mean, these matters are obviously working their way through the Commission at the moment, and I’m not going to say too much about that. But I would recognise that post-Covid the world has changed and many businesses and many workers are taking advantage of the fact that people can work quite productively from home. You know, like with all things, I think we need a balanced approach. There’s times in my office where people work from home, there’s time when we need them to be at the office and do that kind of team work. I’m confident that employers and workers can work these things out cooperatively.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you agree that the LGBTQI questions shouldn’t be included in the census?
 
MURRAY WATT: Yeah I support the decision of the Government to do that. What we’ve said is that right now the priority for Australians is focusing on cost of living relief. That’s where all of our attention is being directed, and we think that there’s no reason to add additional questions to the next round of the census.
 
JOURNALIST: Refugee advocates are protesting the death of a Tamil asylum seeker who died after setting himself on fire in Melbourne’s south east. Does this suggest the Government should change its approach to asylum seekers on bridging visas?
 
MURRAY WATT: Look, I haven’t been briefed on that matter so it’s probably best that I not comment. All good? Thanks all.