Federal Trade and Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham has blasted Qantas' move to start a bidding war between state governments over the location of its headquarters as a blatant appeal for corporate welfare.and relocate Jetstar's office from Melbourne and its heavy aircraft maintenance base from Brisbane Airport.
"This has the potential to represent the worst of federalism and to spark a wave of corporate welfare-seeking by big business if we sort of have big companies around the country just auctioning off their head offices to states and territories," Mr Birmingham said. "In the end, it's taxpayers picking up the bill."
"We have to look right across our business for ways to be more efficient," he said. "Under those circumstances, it’s hard to see why state governments responding positively is a bad thing." NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet for his part said his state would offer "every assistance" to Qantas to keep as many jobs in the state as possible and combine the Qantas and Jetstar offices either in Mascot or at Western Sydney Airport. The Queensland government also pledged to fight to keep the 750 engineering jobs in Brisbane.
pwhatch seems reasonable that a private company seeks a share of the socialism/communism that has engulfed LNP/ALP politics
pwhatch Alan Joyce has been selling millions of tickets fo flights Qantas know will never even depart, refusing refunds & pushing credit vouchers with a 6 month expiry. They've been found guilty of misleading & deceptive conduct 3 times & fined $4.4 million dollars. Qantas fraud scam
pwhatch Birmo sticking up for the Gold Standard State .... while waiting for the phone to ring ...
pwhatch Why not? Virgin did the same thing.
pwhatch If you want it, come and get it. Amazon and pretty much every other major employer does it. Its called free market capitalism.
pwhatch Isn't Joyce's pay packet more than enough to pay for the move?
pwhatch This is learned behavior - just like a trained puppy.
pwhatch All very well to call QANTAS out on this but what are going to do about it?
pwhatch more corporate welfare