‘Why are we protecting them?’: Host’s Qantas spray

The federal government’s controversial decision to block Qatar flights has sparked heated scenes on TV.

The federal government’s controversial decision to block Qatar flights has sparked heated scenes on TV, with 2GB host Chris O’Keefe launching into a spray at Labor minister Bill Shorten and demanding to know “why are we protecting” Qantas.

Virgin Australia last week slammed the government’s decision in July to reject Qatar Airways’ request to double its flight capacity, claiming there was “no coherent logic” for the call.

Mr Shorten appeared on Nine’s Today on Wednesday where he was grilled by host Karl Stefanovic.

“Qantas doesn’t want the government to let in more Qatar flights because it will only help Australians,” he said. “Bill, it will help Aussies, therefore we shouldn’t do it. How does that make sense to anyone in the world?”

The Government Services Minister countered that there was no shortage of flights.

“Well, first of all, in the first week of September there were 1857 international flights in and out of Australia,” he said.

“So, you know, Qatar’s pursuing a commercial agenda. They’re bankrolled by their government. Just because a business wants to add some flights doesn’t mean we’ve all got to immediately say ‘thank you very much’. The fact of the matter is Virgin has a private equity sale. They want a good price for them. There’s a fair bit of commercial interests in here.”

O’Keefe hit back that “it would be nice if Australians got some cheaper fares”.

The government has been accused of protecting Qantas over consumers. Picture: David Gray/AFP

“Are we talking about Qantas protecting its commercial interests?” he said.

“Are we talking about Albo, all of you lot in the Chairman’s Lounge? It would be nice if somebody at some point during this discussion went, hey, little old Australians, can we have cheaper airfares? Which is what this deal would have secured.”

O’Keefe argued Qantas’ interests were being protected over the public.

“We keep missing this,” he said. “Qantas is a private company. Why are we protecting a private company? It is a free market, they operate in a free market and they prove [that] time and time again, [like] when they illegally sacked workers like [chairman] Richard Goyder said for ‘sound commercial reasons’, illegally sacked 2000 people.”

Mr Shorten interrupted the rant.

“Alright, Chris, enough, enough — you got the reaction you want now,” he said.

“First of all, don’t associate me with any decision of the board. I don’t know what it takes for a corporate board or a chairman to resign these days. I was out there on the front line with those baggage handlers when they got sacked. Of course it is illegal.”

Mr Shorten agreed that Qantas has commercial interests but “there’s another sets of commercial interests, the Qatari government and Virgin, they’re businesses too”.

“What I’m saying is let’s not put a white hat on one side of the commercial negotiations and a black hat on the other,” he said.

“I’m only interested in how Australian passengers are not treated like hostages but customers. What you have here is a very unbeautiful, ugly contest between two major airlines. We want cheaper flights for people but let’s not pretend that having Qatar on a particular day makes your flight cheaper to the Gold Coast.”

Richard Goyder, Vanessa Hudson and Andrew Finch. Picture: Martin Ollman/NCA NewsWire

Long-time Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce abruptly resigned last month.

He did not appear before a Senate inquiry last week into the federal government’s decision to block Qatar Airways from increasing its capacity into Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

New Qantas boss Vanessa Hudson, flanked by Mr Goyder and Qantas’ legal counsel Andrew Finch, received a baptism of fire in a tense grilling by inquiry chair, Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie.

Ms Hudson told the hearing she was not involved in conversations with Labor about the Qatar bid.

But Qantas did confirm the company had lobbied for it to be blocked to let the local market recover after the pandemic.

“We were not formally or informally advised … the feedback I got was that there was no informal conversation, and we learned through the media,” Ms Hudson said.

She said the decision was ultimately one for government and stressed Qantas did not receive a heads up on the outcome but took the question on notice.

“This would have to be the first time that Qantas in decades has not had a formal discussion with the government about a decision that affects its market share,” Senator McKenzie responded.

Earlier in the inquiry, Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka said she had two conversations with Transport Minister Catherine King prior to the decision being made.

After the first meeting in January, she “was left with a very clear impression, that the decision to proceed was very compelling and imminent”.

But four months later in May, Ms Hrdlicka said Ms King had changed her tune. “The Minister indicated there was some challenge regarding the Doha airport incident of 2020,” the Virgin chief said.

The Senate is holding an inquiry into the Qatar decision. Picture: Martin Ollman/NCA NewsWire

Ms King has repeatedly said she rejected Qatar’s request in the “national interest” but conceded the incident was relevant “context” to her decision.

Last month, Ms King revealed her decision was made on July 10, the same day she wrote to the Australian women who were detained by Qatari authorities at Doha airport in 2020.

During the incident, five Australian women were ordered off a plane at gunpoint and strip searched after officials found a newborn in a bin.

“I was surprised by this, given my understanding that there had been a diplomatic resolution on the issue between the government of Qatar and the federal government,” Ms Hrdlicka said.

Qatar Airways senior vice-president of aeropolitical and corporate affairs Fathi Atti told the Senate inquiry the incident was not raised with the airline during the government’s consideration of the application.

“We see this as a one-off isolated issue, and we’re committed to ensuring it does not happen again,” Mr Raos said.

“Let me provide assurance we have had nothing like that very extreme incident previously in our history, and we’re completely committed to ensuring nothing like this ever happens again.”

Mr Raos said Qatar Airways was “surprised and shocked” to find out its request to double flights to Australia had been rejected by the government, and that he found out via media reports.

“Even more surprising was that the government gave us no reason for rejecting our application,” he said.

— with NCA NewsWire