Melburnian1
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- Jun 7, 2013
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This extract from 'The Australian's' online feed is paywalled so I cannot provide a link that'll work, but I subscribe:
(No doubt Minister Catherine King's CL membership will continue and she'll always use it. Hypocritical.):
Transport Minister Catherine King says she is disappointed by Qantas’ decision to slash 850 workers from its operations, confirming Labor would have considered purchasing a stake in the airline during the pandemic.
Accusing the Australian airline of operating a business model based on outsourcing its workforce, Ms King warned the cuts could damage Qantas’ reputation, urging management to invest in its Australian workforce.
“I think the union is right to be disappointed that it’s resulting in 850 job losses. I think investing in the workforce that has basically built it should be a priority for Qantas,” she told Radio National.
“This has been a model that Qantas has been using for some time, outsourcing jobs, no longer having them in-house. It’s not the only company that obviously does that, but the scale of it when Qantas does it is substantial.”
Reflecting on a $2.7bn bailout for the airline and previous job cuts during the pandemic, Ms King claimed if Labor were in government at the time the party would have seriously considered purchasing an equity stake in Qantas.
“I think certainly when it comes to Qantas, that would have been one of the things that we probably, had we been in government during COVID, put on the table to them as well,” she said.
“It’s by law required to have 51 per cent Australian ownership, and that continues. That’s obviously a benefit to Australia, but a constraint it has on its capital raising.”
(No doubt Minister Catherine King's CL membership will continue and she'll always use it. Hypocritical.):
Transport Minister Catherine King says she is disappointed by Qantas’ decision to slash 850 workers from its operations, confirming Labor would have considered purchasing a stake in the airline during the pandemic.
Accusing the Australian airline of operating a business model based on outsourcing its workforce, Ms King warned the cuts could damage Qantas’ reputation, urging management to invest in its Australian workforce.
“I think the union is right to be disappointed that it’s resulting in 850 job losses. I think investing in the workforce that has basically built it should be a priority for Qantas,” she told Radio National.
“This has been a model that Qantas has been using for some time, outsourcing jobs, no longer having them in-house. It’s not the only company that obviously does that, but the scale of it when Qantas does it is substantial.”
Reflecting on a $2.7bn bailout for the airline and previous job cuts during the pandemic, Ms King claimed if Labor were in government at the time the party would have seriously considered purchasing an equity stake in Qantas.
“I think certainly when it comes to Qantas, that would have been one of the things that we probably, had we been in government during COVID, put on the table to them as well,” she said.
“It’s by law required to have 51 per cent Australian ownership, and that continues. That’s obviously a benefit to Australia, but a constraint it has on its capital raising.”
