HOST: Prime Minister Julia Gillard joins me now.
PM: Good morning, John.
HOST: Thank you very much for giving me some time. You must have had one hell of a weekend - I would think a very busy weekend.
PM: It was a busy weekend, but I'm very happy to speak to you, John.
HOST: That's very nice of you. It's been one of the most appalling examples of industrial terrorism I can recall. What was your reaction on Saturday night, and did you have any pre-warning?
PM: What happened with this, John, is Alan Joyce contacted the Minister for Transport, Anthony Albanese, at around 2pm on Saturday, saying that he would ground the Qantas fleet at 5pm. He was not putting it as a matter for discussion - he was just telling Mr Albanese that that is what he would do.
I believe that that was extreme action from Qantas when they had other options available to them, and it has of course caused such amazing inconvenience to the travelling public. The Government's reaction to this extreme action by Qantas was to immediately make application to Fair Work Australia. That application has succeeded.
Fair Work Australia has issued an order to terminate all industrial action and that means that during the course of today planes will be back in the sky, employees will be back at work, the travelling public will be moving around, and our tourism operators can be reassured that their customers can get to where they are.
HOST: Not surprisingly, Tony Abbott has suggested that the Government showed a bit of reluctance to intervene in this dispute. Do you accept that?
PM: Tony Abbott has got that wrong. What Tony Abbott is doing is pointing to a different section of the Fair Work Act, Section 431, which enables the Minister to make a declaration to end industrial action. That section and sections like it in earlier legislation have never been used, and if we had used that section we could have ended up in a world of legal uncertainty with proceedings before a court.
Now, we thought that, rather than end up in that world of legal uncertainty, we would take an application to Fair Work Australia, we would get the job done and we have got it done.
HOST: The Fair Work decision, is that a decision that you have any influence in?
PM: No, Fair Work Australia is the independent industrial umpire, as it should be.
HOST: Have you had any talks with Alan Joyce over the weekend, or anybody from Qantas?
PM: I haven't spoken to Mr Joyce. As soon as I decided we should make an application to Fair Work Australia to get industrial action terminated, I also decided it wouldn't be proper whilst those hearings were in train for me to speak to any of the sides to this dispute.
HOST: Had this decision not been made, and thank goodness it has been made, but had it not been made, what would you, or could you have done?
PM: Well, I'm not going to engage in hypotheticals, John - the system worked.
HOST: OK, but there would have been an alternative line you could have taken.
PM: Well, I'm not going to engage in hypotheticals.
We created the Fair Work Act and the Fair Work system. We did that to get rid of the hated WorkChoices and to end the rip offs that used to happen under the Liberal Government, where people would just get their penalty rates taken away, their overtime taken away and not a cent of compensation, and people could get dismissed unfairly and have absolutely no remedy.
So, we ended all of that. We created Fair Work Australia and the Fair Work Act. Some sections of the Fair Work Act are like earlier versions of industrial relations law. It's been possible in the past for unions to get protected industrial action. It's been possible in the past for employers to lock the people out.
The industrial umpire, in the past, has had the ability to intervene in disputes that affected the national economy in a significant way. That is what has happened here - we took an application to Fair Work Australia and it has terminated industrial action. That is a win for the travelling public and a win for the million people who work in tourism in Australia.
HOST: Under the provision of the Fair Work Act, you did have the power to order the end of the dispute. People are saying ‘why didn't you use that power?'
PM: Because that power has never been used before - not under the Fair Work Act, or under earlier versions of the legislation. That power can be capable of being taken to court, and we would have ended up in court proceedings-
HOST: -Yes, I understand that, but what's the point of having the provision if you say it's never been used before and by the sounds of things will never be used anyway? What's the point of having the provision there?
PM: Well, the provision is there as an alternate, but it does have, in terms of us acting on Saturday, there we are on Saturday, we have been told by Qantas they are grounding the fleet, no ifs, no buts. We've got to make a decision about what is the best way forward. We thought the best way forward was to use the provision that has been used before: to go to the industrial umpire, to get the industrial action terminated, and we have succeeded in what we wanted to achieve.
HOST: When you look across at your Cabinet members, it is literally dripping with former union heavyweights. Is there not somebody there who could have brokered an arrangement by simply getting around a table with Qantas?
PM: Well, clearly Qantas was saying, as recently as Friday, it was negotiating this dispute, then 2 o'clock Saturday, first advice to the Government that the lock out and grounding of the planes will take effect and take effect at 5pm with effectively no notice to the travelling public.
Our mission then was to get the planes back in the sky and we have succeeded in that, and John, I would remind in us getting an order from Fair Work Australia to end all industrial action, that applies to all sides of this dispute, to Qantas and to the unions.
HOST: What role do you believe a government should have in a dispute like this, which can potentially impact on our national economy and certainly our reputation worldwide, can have an impact on tens of thousands of people who have nothing to do with the dispute other than being unlucky enough to be a customer at the time?
PM: Well John, I believe the role government should play is the role we have played-
HOST: -Is that sufficient?
PM: -And that is to take effective action to get the dispute terminated, the industrial action terminated, to create a circumstance where the parties now must get around a table and talk this dispute through, and if they fail then Fair Work Australia can impose a solution on them.
HOST: It's really a hell of a mess, when you think about it. I mean there's no good will there. Nothing seems to have been achieved, either to the airline or the unions. You know, this could all come undone very quickly all over again, couldn't it?
PM: Well, no John. Let's be very careful here about what the Government has done.
HOST: Yes.
PM: We took an application to Fair Work Australia. The first part of that application is terminate the industrial action. That has happened.
The second thing that happens as a result of the Government's application is there is a 21 day period in which the parties must sit around a table and try and work their stuff out, work their dispute out and get it resolved. If they fail to do that, then Fair Work Australia will act and impose a solution on them.
Now, that is the path we are on now - no industrial action, 21 days, sort it out. If you can't sort it out Fair Work Australia will sort it out for you.
HOST: People are correctly looking to you for leadership. Could you have been more proactive in this, before Alan Joyce grounded the entire airline and inconvenienced literally thousands and thousands of people all over the place?
PM: Well John, let's just go through the timeline here - Friday, Qantas was saying that was in the business of negotiating this dispute.
HOST: True.
PM: Friday. Saturday, 2pm, Minister for Transport is advised the fleet is being grounded at 5pm - no ifs, no buts, it's being grounded.
HOST: So, no discussion at all?
PM: Minister Albanese was advised by Alan Joyce - he was not asked by Alan Joyce, he was advised it was happening. So, that was the circumstance the Government faced on Saturday, advised by Alan Joyce that this extreme action would be taken. The Government immediately responded by taking an application to Fair Work Australia and here we are, Monday, and planes are getting back in the sky.
HOST: Did Alan Joyce call you?
PM: That had been reported today, and Alan Joyce has been on radio today denying those reports as misleading and saying he has very good access to government.
HOST: OK, what now? As I say, there's nothing seems to have been achieved by this.
PM: Well John, let's - I'm going to stop you there - we had on Saturday, as a result of the grounding of the Qantas fleet, we had thousands of passengers stranded; we had Qantas not working; we had tourism operators not knowing what would happen with their business next.
Today, we have planes getting back in the sky; Qantas will start working; people will get to where they need to go.
Over the next 21 days, as the planes continue to fly and Qantas services are provided, the parties will have to come together and see if they can sort the dispute out. If they can't, as planes continue to fly and Qantas does all of the things it normally does, then at the end of the 21-day period Fair Work Australia can impose an outcome on them.
HOST: OK, just back to Alan Joyce and his supposed call to you. We all know that he denied the reports, but did he call you? Yes or no?
PM: Alan Joyce spoke to Minister Albanese-
HOST: -Not you?
PM: Let me be clear about this - Alan Joyce spoke to Minister Albanese, he spoke to my Chief of Staff. He did not seek to make direct contact with me, and John, for what purpose, when he had told us the planes were being grounded.
HOST: Yeah, we'll you'd-
PM: -And he has specifically denied those reports in today's newspapers as misleading.
HOST: Has Alan Joyce been badly behaved in your mind?
PM: I think Qantas's strategy in this has been extreme. I think it took extreme action on Saturday in grounding the fleet with effectively no notice to the travelling public on what is a key weekend for Australian tourism - that is, Melbourne Cup weekend.
HOST: Yeah, what about compensation? The insurance industry says it won't compensate anybody. Can you force the industry to do something in that regard?
PM: Well John, we'll have to work our way through a set of issues. My objective has been to get Qantas working again and it will be working again today.
HOST: What chance compensation?
PM: Look John, I'm not in a position to talk to you about what would be millions of different - well, maybe not millions - thousands of different travel insurance policies. The best thing I could do as Prime Minister is get the airlines moving again, get Qantas moving, and I've achieved that.
HOST: Tell me this, would you applaud the idea of people being compensated?
PM: Look, I didn't want to see thousands of people in the travelling public inconvenienced, clearly I didn't want to see people stranded, and that's why I took the action I took.
HOST: OK, Prime Minister thank you very much for your time. I hope the coming week is a little more relaxing than the weekend obviously was.
PM: Thank you very much, John.
HOST: Nice to talk to you Prime Minister, thank you very much.
PM: Thank you.
HOST: Bye.