SUBJECTS: Travel upgrades; airline competition; competition reform; market concentration in farming.
KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: As the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh, it's all pretty ugly, isn't it? This stuff about Qantas?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, certainly our focus, Kieran, has been on getting more competition for flyers. What we've done with the airline Ombudsman, compensation for people who are delayed, the slot review at Sydney Airport. Plus I've been a pretty assiduous critic of Qantas’s cancellation of flights between Sydney and Canberra. These have been the issues that I've been focused on, which are about getting a better deal for the flying public.
GILBERT: From memory though, the government hasn't included the aviation sector in all of its competition reviews. And the argument is, this is one of the areas that you've actually taken an approach to benefit Qantas.
LEIGH: Well, not only was aviation included in the Competition Taskforce’s work, but I also gave a speech earlier this year which laid out some of the troubling statistics about aviation competition.
GILBERT: So, you haven't put punches on Qantas?
LEIGH: Not at all. Making it very clear that where you've got more flyers on a route, people get a better deal and indeed the price.
GILBERT: What about the Qatar decision then?
LEIGH: We've been very clear over the Qatar decision, which now moves to international aviation, that they're welcome to fly into a range of different destinations. We've been very clear in terms of opening up slots for Turkish Airlines, Vietnam Airlines, welcoming more international competition and encouraging more domestic competition. I don't think anyone in the Parliament's been more critical of Qantas than me. And so, I'm very happy to be a Competition Minister who, in this sector, as in many others, Kieran, is arguing that too few firms can be bad for consumers.
GILBERT: The Prime Minister says he's been up front. Andrew just reported there that the Prime Minister's position is that he did not speak to Alan Joyce for upgrades personally, or for his son's Chairman's Lounge arrangements. Should he just come out and rule it out definitively so that people can move on? Because right now he's just putting air into it.
LEIGH: Kieran, others can speculate on this and the questions you ask are better put to the Prime Minister than to me. I'm the Assistant Minister for Competition. I'm very happy to be working hard to get more competition in the Australian economy, in airlines, as in many other areas.
GILBERT: And does it pass the pub test, that you take the upgrades, to this sort of extent? I know he was trying to turn the attention to the likes of Paul Fletcher and Peter Dutton and his use of private jets, but does that work when he's been taking upgrades across his career?
LEIGH: Kieran, you're a political commentator. You can do the politics, I'll do the economics and the policy. Our policy is very clearly focused on getting a better deal for consumers. The Prime Minister has been transparent, as have others. That's what really counts.
GILBERT: On the speech you're giving today, because a lot of our viewers are in the bush and on the land, tell us the message you're sending here in terms of farmers, because they're being squeezed, obviously, at a number of different points of their operations.
LEIGH: That's right, Kieran. They're the meat in the competition sandwich. They are buying their inputs often from concentrated fertiliser manufacturers, concentrated machinery producers, and then they're selling on to a concentrated industry such as processes and supermarkets. So, the work that we're doing through the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct, banning unfair contract terms and merger reforms, really isn't just about getting a better deal for families, but also a better deal for farmers who are suffering when market concentration gets too bad.
GILBERT: Are you getting support from the National Farmers Federation and others in this area of policy? Because, you're not perceived as the party of people on the land, the Labor Party.
LEIGH: We've certainly gotten support from the National Farmers Federation for making the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct a mandatory code. The Liberals and the Nationals set it up as a voluntary code, a toothless code. It was up to Labor to make it a mandatory code and they've been very supportive of the work we've done in that area, as well as banning unfair contract terms, the Competition Taskforce. We've had great conversations with the National Farmers Federation and indeed with the Horticulture Council as well.
GILBERT: Andrew Leigh, thank you, as always. Appreciate it.
LEIGH: Pleasure, Kieran.