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29 November, 2022

Qantas responds to senator’s claims it’s “hoarding all the bananas” with dedicated page

Qantas has become involved in yet another feud, this time with Aussie politician and trade unionist, Senator Tony Sheldon.

Sheldon, who was once a senior figure in the Transport Workers Union, has been so vocal in his criticism of the national carrier that Qantas has set up a dedicated page to counter his claims.

The airline accused Sheldon of having his own agenda after he called out Qantas’ opposition to Labor’s industrial relations reforms.

According to Qantas, over the past week, Sheldon has called the airline “mongrels” and “big corporate gorillas” who “hoard all the bananas”.

“We’re also ‘the sharp part of the knife going through people’s workplace rights’ as part of our ‘war on the middle class’,” the airline said.

“This kind of rhetoric seems to borrow heavily from his time as head of the Transport Workers Union, with a lot of his comments similar to what he was saying about Qantas a decade ago.

“The difference is, he’s now a Senator in the Australian Parliament elected to represent the people of New South Wales and not focus disproportionately on a single company.”

The statement claims that Sheldon has posted almost 100 tweets about Qantas and launched numerous attacks on the airline in the senate, calling the airline to testify in front of several parliamentary inquiries he’s chaired as well as holding press conferences to condemn how the company is run.

“Oddly, he didn’t mention the fact Qantas returned to being Australia’s most reliable airline in October. Or that we have hired and trained thousands of people into well-paid careers over the past six months,” Qantas pointed out.

“Instead, the Senator has fired off a list of mistruths that’s so long we’ve had to create a dedicated page on our website to correct them.”

One claim by Sheldon was that Qantas is cutting wages by 40 per cent, which the airline has labelled “absurd” given it is offering pay rises of 3 per cent and the opportunity to secure bonuses of up to $11,000 per employee.

“Another was that we’re not investing in our fleet – despite the fact we have a new aircraft arriving almost every month,” the airline continued.

“Most concerningly, the Senator claimed Qantas has “compromised safety”. When pressed on such a serious claim by Sky News, he repeated it.

“That’s frankly irresponsible given the high standards all airlines in Australia operate to. And it’s simply wrong given we’ve published data showing our safety performance was even better in 2022 than pre-COVID.”

The industrial relations reforms at the centre of this war of words is Labor’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill, which Sheldon said will prevent companies from tearing up enterprise agreements and introducing contracts with worse conditions.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has claimed that the reintroduction of multi-employer bargaining, a major part of the reforms, would hamper innovation and “take us back to the 80s.”

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alan joyce Labor qantas Tony Sheldon trade unionist Transport Workers Union