You know English? Qantas executive asked

A Qantas executive has spent a tortuous two-days on the witness stand at a court hearing into the outsourcing of 2000 workers.

Qantas Domestic and International chief executive Andrew David. Picture: AAP

A judge has questioned one of Qantas’s top executives over his understanding of English during two days of difficult testimony in the Federal Court.

Qantas Domestic and International chief executive Andrew David was giving evidence in the case brought by the Transport Workers Union over the airline’s outsourcing of 2000 ground handling workers.

As the decision-maker in the matter, Mr David was subjected to rigorous questioning from TWU barrister Mark Gibian SC, but was unable to recall or had no knowledge of many of the matters raised with him.

Mr David previously made headlines in 2019 after telling an investors meeting that climate change was responsible for the airline’s poor on-time performance out of Sydney Airport.

In a tortuous cross-examination session, Mr David insisted he had no clue as to whether a small or large percentage of ground handlers were union members, or what other workers the TWU might represent.

Asked if he believed the union was influential with regard to matters affecting the ground handling workforce, Mr David sought clarification on the meaning of the question.

“Do you understand the Eng­lish, what the English word influential means?” asked judge Michael Lee of Mr David, who is of New Zealand heritage.

“It’s likely one person influences a decision made by another person. I think that’s … the way in which influential is being used in that question.”

“In that context I’d say, yes, I did (believe it),” Mr David said.

He denied seeing or being told about a report on the outsourcing proposal prepared by industrial relations consultant Justine Oldmeadow, which highlighted the risks of going ahead with the plan. 

These included damage to the Qantas brand and a negative ­reaction from government and media because of the large number of job losses involved. 

Justice Lee also questioned Mr David over an in-house bid process undertaken when the outsourcing proposal was made public on August 25, 2020.

In line with the workers’ enterprise agreement, they were invited to submit their own bid for the ground handling work to prevent their jobs from being outsourced to third party providers.

“Did it occur to you at that stage the in-house bid process would have to come up with at least $100m of savings and whatever the saving associated with not having to spend $80m of capital expenditure in future, in order to be a feasible option,” he asked.

“I recognised it was a very big ask of the employees of the ­organisation, yes,” Mr David said.

“On August 25, 2020, you must’ve thought there was very little prospect of any in-house bid process coming close to delivering those benefits,” Justice Lee said. “Yes,” Mr David replied.

The hearing is expected to wrap up on Thursday.