Qatar Airways

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:16): I rise today to talk about Qatar Airways and the great work that this airline did in helping South Australians during the two-year national lockdown of Australia when we were dealing with the COVID pandemic. In particular, I want to thank the global CEO, His Excellency Akbar Al Baker, who has been a dear friend of mine since Qatar Airways first flew into Adelaide back in 2016.

In the aviation world, generally governments go out and try to lure airlines to come and begin services in their states. Usually, that has a big cheque associated with it, and payments, to get these airlines to come into places like Adelaide. The discussions with Qatar had been ongoing, but at no stage did they ask our government to put taxpayers' money up for services to start in Adelaide, and we have never been asked to pay taxpayers' money to have this international airline—judged best in the world for the past seven years—fly people into Adelaide from around the world. They have over 180 cities from which they fly into Adelaide, via Doha. They also take lots of freight from South Australia out to the rest of the world.

They began that service in 2016. During COVID, when so many other airlines pulled out of Adelaide and Australia, they kept those flights coming in, three times a week, to get people who needed to make it home back to Adelaide and Australia. I know several of my constituents were helped out by Qatar Airways because a loved one was diagnosed with a terminal illness and they wanted to get back and be with them, or they had their own issues overseas and needed to get back. SA Health had pretty much an open line to Qatar Airways, in particular to Yen Kho, who manages the west of Australia for Qatar Airways.

There is something about looking after people who look after us. I look at everything that Qatar Airways did for us in that time. A few months earlier, during the bushfires, I had a phone call from Akbar—I was on Kangaroo Island—and he said, 'Leon, I see your island is burning. Is there anything I can do to help?' I said, 'Look, we have some fundraising auctions going and things like that,' and he said, 'I will donate business-class airfares.' That is a pretty generous thing for someone to do. When I see Qatar being prevented from increasing their footprint in Australia for no clear reason, that upsets me a bit. I have been lobbying the federal government since October last year to help them grow.

As Chair of the Major Events Committee, I see what these increased airfares are doing. We are paying about 40 per cent to 50 per cent more for airfares and the same for freight. Every time we bring hundreds of cyclists into Adelaide for the Tour Down Under, the bill for that on taxpayers is huge. We are paying a lot more to get their bikes here and to get all the riders here. Then there are events like WOMAD. Not only are we paying more to get these events into Adelaide but we will get fewer people coming to them if they are being priced out of getting onto planes at one of the 180 destinations around the world to fly into Adelaide.

I have had some correspondence and some discussion with Catherine King, the federal transport minister. I have not been happy with the responses I have received. I was told to contact Qatar's lobbyist instead of getting an answer from the federal transport minister ahead of my most recent meeting with Akbar Al Baker in Doha just a couple of weeks ago. I think we need to do better as a nation in terms of driving down inflation, providing cheaper airfares for people coming in and for our freight to go out.

I want to put on the record again my thanks to Akbar for his generosity, to Justin Kestel, Regional Manager for Australia and New Zealand for Qatar Airways, and to all the team, who do a great job.