The Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson AM MP, has welcomed the resumption of flights following Fair Work Australia’s acceptance of the Government’s application to end all industrial action at Qantas.
“The Government welcomes the decision of the independent umpire, Fair Work Australia, to terminate protected industrial action in relation to each of the proposed enterprise agreements immediately,” Minister Ferguson said.
“The decision provides certainty for travellers, businesses and Australia’s $34 billion tourism industry.
“The decision provides an opportunity for Qantas and the unions to get around the table and work in good faith to resolve the issues. Qantas and the unions now have 21 days for negotiation.
“Fair Work Australia is available to assist the parties during the post-industrial action negotiating period.”
Minister Ferguson noted that the Crisis Incident Management Group (CIMG) met for a second time this morning as part of the continuing work under the National Tourism Incident Communication Plan. CIMG agreed to retain its ‘Red Alert’ status, moving back to Amber once flights resumed.
CIMG is preparing and disseminating regular updates to industry on the situation, providing advice on day to day management and ensuring industry is receiving timely and accurate information as the situation develops.
As a result of the incident, which is being managed by tourism leaders through the CIMG, additional staff have been deployed in tourism centres nationally and overseas to assist passengers with bookings and accessing information.
“Now that flights are resuming it is imperative that the message that Australia is ‘open for business’ is communicated quickly across the industry and to the market,” Minister Ferguson said.
“The CIMG will continue to meet on a daily basis as needed and to provide advice to the industry, the travelling public and the million people who are directly or indirectly employed in the tourism industry.
“Tourism Australia is also working to ensure the critical message that the industrial dispute at Qantas has been concluded is spread to overseas markets and within Australia in the coming days and weeks ahead.
All of Tourism Australia’s external channels including Australia.com and Facebook will carry these messages and their regional offices around the globe will proactively communicate to their stakeholders and the travel trade.”