HOST: Prime Minister, welcome to the program.
PM: Thank you Leigh.
HOST: How do you explain the discrepancy between transport minister Anthony Albanese's account of his dealings with Qantas and the accounts of the Qantas CEO Alan Joyce?
PM: My understanding from Minister Albanese and he has said this publicly is he spoke to Mr Joyce this morning and Mr Joyce will verify that what Mr Albanese says is a correct account of their conversations.
HOST: Has Alan Joyce misled the government in any way, do you believe?
PM: Leigh, I'm not going to get drawn on commentary about these kind of matters. I wanted to ensure and I believe Minister Albanese wanted to ensure that the correct version of events was there on the public record. We faced some circumstances today, for example, with newspaper reporting that Mr Joyce very clearly and quite early this morning said was incorrect. Then following Mr Joyce's press conference, Minister Albanese spoke to him and arising out of that Minister Albanese has been able to clarify the position and that is that the question of locking out all of the Qantas staff and grounding all of its flights was not raised with the Government until Saturday when Qantas and its board had already determined to take that very extreme action.
HOST: And do you think that that was the right behaviour by Qantas, do you believe that they should have raised that prospect with you earlier?
PM: Well I've been crystal clear, Leigh, that I think Qantas's conduct on Saturday was extreme. I believe Qantas had other options available to it. I've made my views very clearly known to Mr Joyce and of course I've made them known publicly as well. Tens of thousands of people were stranded. We faced a circumstance that had implications for our national economy as a result of what Qantas determined to do on Saturday. This was against a backdrop where as late as Friday Qantas was saying that it was negotiating its way through this dispute.
HOST: If Qantas was saying as late as Friday that they were negotiating, how is that not misleading the government?
PM: You are going to have to direct that question to Alan Joyce or other Qantas representatives.
HOST: Well can you trust Qantas in future dealings with them?
PM: My door is always open to major Australian businesses because they provide jobs to working Australians. I'll always be there prepared to listen and to talk to major Australian employers about what they are doing in their business and how we can work with them. My focus as Prime Minister is on making sure people have got the benefits of work, the dignity of work, I've been very clear about that-
HOST: But on the specific point about Qantas, have they breached your trust?
PM: Leigh, I will continue to work with Qantas as I work with other major Australian businesses.
HOST: Do you have faith in Qantas's leadership?
PM: I will work with Qantas with Alan Joyce as CEO with Qantas representatives in the interests of the Australian nation and in the interests of Australians having the benefit of jobs. Qantas is a major employer. It's an iconic national brand and of course my door is always open to Qantas, the way it is to other major employers in this country. And indeed, as I'm available to, to the representatives of small businesses that I meet with.
HOST: Today you've repeatedly described Qantas's actions as extreme and you've done it again now. But wouldn't it be more apt to describe their actions as savvy given they've effectively played your industrial relations laws to give themselves the upper hand in their dispute with the unions?
PM: Everybody is in the same circumstance in this dispute now, Leigh, as a result of us taking an application to Fair Work Australia and Fair Work Australia terminating the industrial action. Qantas is not able to pursue the lock-out. Unions are not able to pursue their industrial action. Everyone is required to have the dispute in conciliation for 21 days and if they can't sort it out, everyone will have the industrial umpire's decision imposed upon them. Everyone is in the same position.
HOST: But isn't Qantas in the better position, though, because it means within 21 days, the negotiations are going to have to end. Industrial relations experts say that if it goes to compulsory arbitration the outcome is most likely to favour Qantas management?
PM: I won't make assumptions about what Fair Work Australia may do if it ends up imposing a decision on Qantas and the unions involved. My message to Qantas and the unions involved today has been very loud and very clear. The onus is on their shoulders now to get around a table and get this fixed and the sooner the better.
HOST: We know that the Government chose to make an application to Fair Work Australia instead of issuing a ministerial order to force the industrial action to end. And you said today that that's because the use of a ministerial directive hasn't yet been tested in law. Haven't you now though signalled to every employer in the country that in industrial disputes in the future the Government will baulk at using that ministerial provision?
PM: Leigh, I've just said publicly what anybody could've worked out for themselves if they'd pulled an industrial relations textbook off the shelf and turned to the right page. It's no secret about this. That provision which is in the Fair Work legislation and was in the legislation before Fair Work has never been used. And anybody who wanted to look at industrial law would've worked out, too, that if a minister made a declaration under that section then it's capable of judicial review, causing most likely a court case to proceed-
HOST: But then in which case are you likely to actually use that then?
PM: Well on Saturday Leigh, I faced a choice in this Qantas dispute about what was the best thing in the interests of the travelling public and the Australian nation. And I determined the best thing we could do was go to Fair Work Australia, have the arguments out and seek an order for termination of industrial action and in that strategy we succeeded. Got what we needed done, achieved and as a result, the travelling public can see planes back in the sky-
HOST: But what I'm asking is, when are you going to be prepared to test that legislation? You've said you're anxious that it's going to be open to a legal challenge if you use it. Under what circumstance then will you test it? What's the point of having it there if you're not prepared to use it?
PM: Leigh, I think you're in error in using the terminology legal challenge. I am not concerned about that section of the legislation somehow being subject to legal challenge as if the legislation has a problem. It's a ministerial declaration, subject to judicial review. What that means is you still end up or are very likely to still end up having legal proceedings. So you then face a choice. What's the best thing to do in the circumstances that present themselves? On Saturday, I determined the best thing to do was to go to the industrial umpire, Fair Work Australia, and that has absolutely worked to get us the result we needed for the nation and that is Qantas planes back in the sky.
HOST: Julia Gillard, thank you very much for joining us.
PM: Thank you.