HOST: Good morning, Prime Minister.
PM: Good morning.
HOST: Now, Alan Joyce has claimed that he would have abandoned his decision to ground the airline had you taken his call and he waited three hours. Is that right or not?
PM: That is reported in today's newspapers, and Alan Joyce has already been on radio this morning saying those reports are wrong - and they are wrong.
HOST: Prime Minister, did Alan Joyce want you to declare the industrial action as illegal?
PM: Alan Joyce did not ask the Government to do that. Let's be very clear here about the timeline and what happened.
On Friday, Qantas was saying it was in the business of negotiating this dispute. Two o'clock Saturday, Alan Joyce contacts our Minister for Transport, Anthony Albanese, and says the planes will be grounded at 5pm. It wasn't put as a topic for discussion or as an option - he was just advising Minister Albanese it was happening.
What the Government then immediately did was make an application to Fair Work Australia to have the industrial action terminated, and it has been terminated, and as a result of what the Government did the Qantas planes will be back in the sky later today.
What will also happen, and I think this is important, is as Qantas continues to work, planes flying, stranded passengers getting to where they need to go, tourism operators seeing people turn up for their holidays, as all of that happens, the parties - Qantas and the unions - will have 21 days to sort themselves out. If they can't sort themselves out, then Fair Work Australia, our industrial umpire, will impose a solution on them. That is all happening because of the application the Government took.
HOST: OK, so you said the Minister responsible received the phone call at two o'clock. Were you also briefed on that phone call at two o'clock?
PM: Yes, I was continuously briefed by my ministers over the weekend.
HOST: And so you knew that those planes were going to be stranded at five o'clock?
PM: We knew that Qantas was grounding the planes at five o'clock, following the phone call to Minister Albanese.
HOST: Shouldn't you have reacted in that situation, given that you had three hours to do something?
PM: Well, we did act. We took the application to Fair Work Australia.
There's been a lot of discussion about using an alternate section under the Fair Work Act, a section that's in the legislation now and has been in earlier legislation where the Minister makes a declaration.
The problem with that is that section has never been used before, and consequently we would have been in a world of legal uncertainty where the Minister's declaration could then have gone to a court with all of the potential time delay and confusion that that would have caused.
So, we took the course to get this done and go to Fair Work Australia, get an order. We have succeeded in that. That is a win for the travelling public and it's a win for the million Australians who work in tourism.
HOST: Prime Minister, given the acrimonious nature of the relationship between the three unions and Qantas up to this point in time, how confident are you that they can reach a resolution on their issues within the next 21 days, and will you or a representative of the Government be sitting in on any meetings and guiding them to resolution?
PM: No, they will have the industrial umpire there seeking to guide them to a resolution, and if they can't do it then the industrial umpire will impose a solution on them. So, either they fix it themselves or the industrial umpire tells them what the outcome is.
HOST: Are you confident they'll fix it themselves in the next 21 days?
PM: Look, that is a matter for Qantas and the unions. I am obviously concerned about the extreme action that Qantas took on Saturday, but my attitude now is Qantas and the unions have got 21 days to sort this out themselves. They should be using those days to get it sorted out. If they fail, then Fair Work Australia will come in over the top of them and tell them what to do.
HOST: I just can't believe that you couldn't have done something in that three hours. You realise this was going to be extreme, you realise that planes were going to be grounded and people were going to be sitting on tarmacs - you had three hours to talk them out of that situation.
PM: Let's be very clear here. Alan Joyce made it crystal clear to Government that this was not open for discussion. He was grounding the planes at 5pm.
That is why I am describing Qantas' action as extreme. It had other options open to it on Saturday, including taking the same sort of application that the Government took to Fair Work Australia and getting the same sort of order. That is, an order to terminate industrial action, to get on with sitting round a table and sorting it out, and if that doesn't work to get on with having Fair Work Australia fix it.
HOST: This has been going on since July. Why weren't they ordered to Fair Work Australia before this?
PM: Well, Qantas said that they were in negotiations up till Friday.
HOST: Prime Minister, on a personal level, how embarrassing is it to sit as leader of the CHOGM meeting over the weekend and see the international representatives and leaders from all around the country potentially stuck in our nation?
PM: Well, I advised the heads of government who were here personally about the Qantas dispute. They took it in very good spirits. They took it in their stride and then the wonderful staff and team that made the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting possible worked with them to make alternate travel arrangements.
HOST: Alright, thanks for your time this morning.
PM: Thank you very much.