Abbott slams Qantas’s ‘corporate thought police’

Tony Abbott says Qantas has gone PC mad as the airline tells staff use “gender-appropriate’’ words and to recognise the reality of Australian invasion.

A Qantas 747-400 painted by South Australian Aboriginal Art Studio, Balaranji.

The head of the Diversity Council says Qantas “should be applauded” for introducing an information pack which advises staff to refrain from using “gender-inappropriate” words such as “guys” or “chairman”.

Qantas’s People and Culture group executive Lesley Grant sent the advice out as part of the airline’s “Spirit of Inclusion” month, prompting former prime minister Tony Abbott to slam the move as being devised by the “corporate thought police”.

Diversity Council of Australia CEO Lisa Annese said the advice had come from a project the council had done last year called “words at work”, which was designed to “build inclusive workplaces around the power of language”.

As well as warning against the use of gendered language, the Qantas document makes a foray into Australian history, advising employees to recognise the “reality” that “Australia was not settled peacefully”.

“Describing the arrival of the Europeans as a ‘settlement’ is a view of Australian history from the perspective of England rather than Australia. Instead of settlement, try ‘colonisation’, ‘occupation’ or ‘invasion’,” employees are advised.

They are also warned against using terms such as “husband” and “wife” and “mum and dad”, “which can reinforce the idea that people are always in heterosexual relationships”, advised to be mindful of “manterruptions”, when men interrupt women, and told to stop using terms of endearment such as “honey”, “darling”, or “love”, because they “often offend”.

Asked whether there was a danger of alienating people with overly politically correct recommendations, Ms Annese said the suggestions were designed to promote discussion, rather than be prescriptive.

“Language can be used to include people and exclude people, and this was produced from an evidence-based piece of research we did around the impact of language,” Ms Annese said.

“The commentary around this project has not really understood what we’ve tried to do. The guides are only meant to enable a discussion.

“What we’re saying is if you want a workplace where people feel valued, respected and included, it’s better to be using the word chairperson, rather than chairman, especially if the chair is a female.

“Many of our members employ indigenous Australians and we suggest having a more sensitive understanding of the history. They can use whatever words they want, but they have to realise that if they’ve got a workplace with indigenous people, it might be really offensive to talk about settlement, and maybe invasion would be a better word.”

Ms Annese said that at a time when workplace sexual harassment was in the headlines, it was good to see companies like Qantas taking initiative.

“I really give credit to Qantas who do a lot of work to make their employees feel included and valued and respected, especially now when we’re seeing stories of bad behaviour,” she said.

“People who are trying to do the right thing need to be applauded, not criticised.”

Lesley Grant and Qantas boss Alan Joyce.

Abbott slams Qantas’s ‘corporate thought police’

Mr Abbott said the instructions were “political correctness that’s gone way over the top”.

“Frankly if companies like Qantas want to give their customers a better deal, they can scrap all these inclusion units, just scrap them, save the money because it’s just rubbish this idea that we need a corporate thought police,” he told 2GB.

“I mean really and truly it is a complete, absolute and utter waste of money.

“I’ve been on hundreds of Qantas flights over many, many years now. Qantas staff are very good people. They are decent, sensitive people, they’ve got to deal with just about every possible type of person, and they don’t need this kind of nonsense, they really don’t.

“It’s an insult to them, quite apart from a great waste of money, but I’m afraid these are the very weird and strange times in which we live.”

Mr Abbott said people should “calm down” over the use of terms of endearment such as “darling” or “love”.

“I think people can be incredibly precious about these things. I call a lot of people ‘mate’. Sometimes I might even say that to a girl.

“I just think we should just calm down about a lot of this,” he said.

“I think people have got themselves altogether too agitated and again, it’s a species of political correctness that’s gone way over the top.

“I think that different people have different verbal mannerisms as it were, and I think that we should be pretty easygoing about them.”

Qantas’s People and Culture group executive Lesley Grant. Picture: Sam Mooy