Prime Minister Tony Abbott has ramped up pressure on the opposition to "rise to the challenge of reform", invoking the Hawke-Keating Labor government's decision to sell Qantas as he called for the Sale Act to be amended.
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During a rancorous question time, Mr Abbott accused Opposition Leader Bill Shorten of being "good at complaining but hopeless at leading" and insisted there was "every chance" the attempt to repeal part three of the Sale Act would pass the Senate.
But Labor and the Greens have vowed to block the more to repeal sections of the Act in the current Senate, while the Palmer United Party and independent senators Nick Xenophon and John Madigan, who will share the balance of power after July 1, have said they would block the move too.
The combined opposition of the two independents, three Palmer-aligned senators, Labor and the Greens means at least 38 senators in the 76 person senate will oppose the bill after July 1. Labor and the Greens are likely to secure at least two more seats between them in the WA senate by-election, taking the combined opposition to 40 senators.
Mr Abbott's move to build pressure Labor in the Parliament came after Transport Minister Warren Truss admitted to Coalition MPs during the weekly party room meeting that the government did not have a ''plan B'' if its attempt to repeal part of the Qantas Sale Act failed to pass the Senate.
Veteran Queensland Senator Ron Boswell asked Mr Truss what the government's plan was if the legislation was blocked in the Senate.
Mr Truss reportedly then told his party colleague ''there is no plan B''.
During question time, Mr Shorten asked the Prime Minister about his deputy's comments.
"Given that the Prime Minister knows that his package has no chance of passing Parliament because it will mean that Qantas can no longer call Australia home, why is there no Plan B to save our national carrier? Why is the Prime Minister's only plan to play politics with thousands of Australian jobs and our national airline?"
But Mr Abbott said the government wanted to allow Qantas to operate under "exactly the same rules that Virgin operates under".
"Virgin has gone from zero Australian employees to almost 10,000. That's not bad. Virgin has gone from nothing to being a great Australian airline. Virgin actually started off 100 per cent foreign owned. It's still majority foreign owned, but Virgin employs Australians, it flies Australians and it services its planes in Australia. What's so bad about that?"
"Why wouldn't a sensible Labor Party, a Labor Party animated by the same patriotism that the Hawke Government was animated by, a Labor Party that spawned people like Martin Ferguson...wake up to itself and allow Qantas to do what Virgin does, to stop giving Virgin an unfair advantage?"
