Media Release

KAP Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter today introduced legislation into Parliament to ensure that Australian airlines such as Qantas remain majority owned by, and employ, Australians.

Mr Katter’s Aviation Laws Amendment (Australian Ownership and Operation) Bill 2013 ensures that Australian airlines can only access domestic flights and ports by meeting a definition of “Australian”, namely:

• the airline be 51 per cent owned by Australian citizens or residents (including by ownership of shares in a company);
• the airline conducts at least 80 per cent of its aircraft maintenance in Australia; and
• the airline’s crews must live in Australia.

“What it really says is that Qantas will stay as an Australian company, will be based here, and those maintenance engineers and technical staff, they will be based here, so that if a plane gets into trouble it can be fixed here and not keep flying until something terrible happens,” Mr Katter told the House of Representatives today.

Mr Katter said that unlike the early investors in Qantas – including his own family – who wanted to ensure a reliable and affordable air service for all Australians regardless of where they lived, the company had been “taken over by a grubby little group of slithering snakes from Sydney”.

“What they have done is the complete opposite to that of great people like the Fysh family, my grandfather and many others who put in their money to establish this airline,” he said.

“The current board is flogging off the airline and cutting services to make themselves rich. They are sacrificing the services to the Australian people to make themselves richer—the complete opposite to what the Fyshs, the Kennedys, the Browns and the Katters did.

“They sacrificed themselves to help their country (but) this mob is sacrificing the interests of their country to help themselves.”