“No logic”: Flight Centre boss blasts Catherine King’s claim over Qatar Airways saga
Australia’s top tourism boss has blasted Transport Minister Catherine King for factoring in a human rights violation when rejecting Qatar Airways’ bid for more flights saying “there was no logic to it”.
NSW
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Australia’s top tourism boss has blasted Transport Minister Catherine King for factoring in a human rights violation when rejecting Qatar Airways’ bid for more flights saying “there was no logic to it”.
Flight Centre boss Graham Turner said under that reasoning Australia would have to ban any airline from a country with a poor human rights record including China and the United Arab Emirates.
Mr Turner said the incident at Doha Airport involving the strip search of five Australian women at gunpoint had “almost nothing to do with the airline”.
Ms King contradicted her earlier statements on Thursday morning by saying the strip search incident was “a factor” and ”context” in her decision but not the only factor.
“Everyone accepts it was a pretty bad incident but it had nothing to do with the airline. It’s ridiculous saying you’ll punish an airline for what the country does,” Mr Turner said.
“Why are we allowing flights from any country that has human rights abuses? If you are going to do that to Qatar the airline, when they almost certainly had nothing to do with it, (then) you do that with every airline from every country with human rights abuses. And why wouldn’t you cancel all flights?”
The United Arab Emirates, who owns national carrier Etihad Airways, has had an appalling record on human rights including torturing human rights activists and allowing women to be flogged and stoned under the legal system for not adhering to strict sharia law.
The region is also notorious for the modern slavery of Indian workers.
China’s national carrier Air China is also welcome into Australia despite the nation’s record on human rights including the imprisonment of two Australians and the oppression of the Uyghur Muslim minority.
Mr Turner accused the government of having a policy of “deliberately raising prices”.
“It would appear that they have a deliberate policy of trying to increase prices. They are deliberately trying to keep prices,” he said.
“A lot of Labor voters are people who are not on high wages. It‘s affecting them and it’s affecting our tourism industry.”
MINISTER STUMBLES UNDER PRESSURE
Embattled Transport Minister Catherine King has once again stumbled on answering why she denied Qatar Airways’ bid for extra flights out of Australia.
Ms King has contradicted comments she made six weeks ago by saying an incident where five Australian women were strip searched at gunpoint at Doha Airport contributed to her decision.
Ms King had previously said the decision had not been behind her rejection of the airline bid but has now described it as “a factor” but not the ”only factor”.
“As I’ve said repeatedly, I made this decision in the national interest, and there is no one factor that I will point to that swayed my decision one way or the other,” she said at a press conference at Canberra Airport.
“In making this decision, I did have the national interest – not commercial interests – at play when I was making that decision.
“Certainly, for context … this is the only airline that has something like that … has happened. And so, I can’t say that I wasn’t aware of it. But certainly, it wasn’t the only factor. It was a factor.”
Ms King has stood by her decision and said Qatar’s request for 28 flights was more than the number that had been approved in the past.
She also added that Qatar Airways is not willing to fly into and out of other regional airports including Darwin and Canberra.
She refused to reveal which of her colleagues were consulted over the decision to reject Qatar Airways’ bid.
Ms King has said it was “routine” for ministers to consult with colleagues but Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have all said they were not consulted on the decision although Mr Albanese was informed of the decision.
Ms King said the rejection of the bid was a very routine decision.
She used Question Time on Thursday to attack the Coalition on its own record on aviation before spruiking her aviation green paper.
Ms King did not reveal the date on which she informed the Prime Minister’s office of her decision saying the decision was “unremarkable”.
She said Mr Albanese was told of the decision before July 18 but did not give a date.
The coalition had been pressing Ms King on the date the Prime Minister was informed in a bid implicate Mr Albanese into the growing scandal.
“On the 10th of July I made the decision … I informed the Prime Minister prior to my decision being made public and normally these decision are not made public,” she said.
During a press conference in Jakarta following a meeting with China’s Premier Li Qiang, Mr Albanese was asked if he was one of the “colleagues” Ms King claimed she had consulted with before making the decision to block Qatar’s request for additional flights into Australia.
The PM declined to answer in line with his longstanding practice of not commenting on domestic issues while overseas.
Pushed by journalists to respond to the question of whether he still had “confidence” in Ms King as minister, Mr Albanese said: “of course I do”.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has refused to be drawn into questions over whether the incident impacted the Qatar Airways decision.
Ms Wong said she did not discuss the airline decision with the Qatari PM when she spoke to him earlier this week.
“That’s a matter for Minister King,” she said when asked if the Doha incident impacted the airline decision.
Trade and tourism spokesman Kevin Hogan said the decision to turn down Qatar Airways’ bid for more air spacewill hurt farmers.
Mr Hogan said more opportunities for airfreight was urgently needed at a time exports have fallen by two per cent.
“In relation to airfreight, this is particularly hurting meat, horticulture, seafood, dairy and honey products, which together account for close to two-thirds of our exports,” he said.
“We agree with former ACCC chairman Rod Simms, who said that if ever there was a time for new entrants this is it, and former Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan, who has called for the decision to be reviewed.
“This protectionist government does not back Australia’s most critical sectors.”
Mr Hogan said visitor arrivals were also only at 60 per cent pre-Covid levels and needed to be boosted with more flights.
Mr Hogan adds to a chorus of Coalition MPs dumbfounded with Ms King’s decision, with cybersecurity shadow James Patterson questioning why any Qatar Airways’ flights are being allowed into Australia if their record on human rights was a factor in the decision.
The Qatar decision, which the Opposition claimed was a “sweetheart deal” between Qantas and the Albanese government, became the centre of a Question Time showdown between Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Ms King on Wednesday.
In a rowdy debate, the Opposition claimed Ms King was being “evasive” on answers about whether she spoke to Qantas before making the Qatar decision and moved a procedural motion as a stunt.
“The minister has a clear question before her, will she answer it honestly? So far she hasn’t and the Australian public demands nothing less of her,” Mr Dutton said.
“You’ve got this Minister who refuses to answer questions … This minister has brought this house into disrepute.”
On Thursday, Mr Dutton said the flying public were paying “literally thousands of dollars” more for their flights “because we don’t have the competition in the market that we should”.
“At the moment we’ve got a minister who … has forgotten what the truth is, she’s told so many versions but the fact is that we’re not getting an honest answer out of the government.”
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