Senior officials to face grilling over blocked flights

Alex Mitchell and Andrew Brown | September 28, 2023

Senior public servants are set to be hauled over the coals as the decision to block Qatar Airways’ bid for more flights to Australia continues to be probed.

Representatives from the prime minister’s department along with others from Treasury and both the transport and foreign affairs departments will face the parliamentary committee.

The inquiry examining what role Qantas played in the transport minister’s decision to knock back their application delivered a warning shot to the departments on Wednesday night, declaring its intention to get some answers.

“If you’re not prepared tomorrow and you just take (a question) on notice, I would flag an expectation to call you back until we get those types of answers,” Liberal senator Simon Birmingham told the inquiry.

“So come prepared is the warning.”

Virgin chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka told the inquiry she’d met with Transport Minister Catherine King twice in 2023 as the decision was being made.

Ms Hrdlicka, whose airline is a partner to Qatar, said the bid was barely raised and she thought it would be easily granted.

In hindsight she regretted not lobbying harder, she said. 

Nationals senator and inquiry chair Bridget McKenzie said the government had been too close to Qantas.

“Qantas has over 60 per cent of the market share, which means it’s got a lot of muscle, it’s like the gorilla in the sector,” she told Seven’s Sunrise program on Thursday.

“There’s a very cosy relationship between the rime minister … and Qantas, and so you’ve seen the government make decisions specifically to protect Qantas from more competition, which, in the end, hurts Australian travellers.”

Qatar Airways also appeared on Wednesday, saying the government had not explained to the carrier why its bid was rejected.

But their executives were also grilled on the 2020 incident at Doha’s international airport where female passengers were subjected to invasive gynaecological examinations.

Five Australian women underwent the searches, with the incident cited by Ms King when defending her decision to knock back additional Qatar flights.

Qatar Airways vice-president Matt Raos was asked to guarantee a similar incident wouldn’t occur in the future.

“We’ve had nothing like it previously in our history and we’re completely committed to ensuring nothing like this ever happens again,” Mr Raos told the inquiry.

Australian Qatar Business Council chair Simon Harrison said the decision to block Qatar Airways from securing additional flights was frustrating and he was hopeful of the decision being reversed.

“What we have here is the minister had conflated effectively what were alleged criminal abuses by certain individuals to human rights for the nation of Qatar, then equated that with a commercial decision between two sovereign nations,” he told Nine’s Today program.

Mr Harrison said there was a “high probability” based on evidence at the inquiry that there was a sweetheart deal between the government and Qantas.

Qantas has defended asking the government to deny Qatar additional flights, citing commercial considerations as Australian airlines recover from COVID-19 downturns.

There were also accusations from independent senator David Pocock that Qantas was curbing competition from budget airlines such as Bonza by adding flights on their new routes until the smaller competitor left the market.

Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson said the airline welcomed competition and entering markets led to growth and prices coming down.

“We determine our schedule and our frequency based on demand,” she said.

The committee is due to report by October 9.