Catherine King reveals she spoke with Virgin Australia before blocking Qatar Airways’ request

The transport minister, Catherine King, has admitted she spoke with Virgin Australia and a lobbyist for the Qatar government before making her decision to block the gulf carrier’s request to fly an extra 21 services to major Australian cities.

The Albanese government has been called into question by industry groups, the opposition and crossbenchers over its decision to not grant the extra flights to Qatar Airways, which it argues was made in the national interest.

The opposition used question time on Wednesday to force the minister to reveal further details about her decision after accusing the federal government of protecting its “sweetheart deal” with domestic airline, and Qatar and Virgin’s competitor, Qantas.

King, during the rowdy question time on Wednesday, said she had also spoken to Qantas before her ruling in July but, to her recollection, it was related to “same jobs, same pay” and not Qatar.

“From my recollection, the main people lobbying me about Qatar came from Virgin, and a third party into my office on behalf of Qatar, and the discussions I’ve had recently with Qantas have been about their concerns about our same job, same pay legislation,” she said.

But King’s response was not clear enough for the Coalition. The manager of opposition business in the House of Representatives, Paul Fletcher, moved a dissent motion against the Speaker’s ruling that King had answered the question.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, told Speaker Milton Dick: “The question needs to be answered appropriately by this incompetent minister.

“She is a member of the executive and refuses to say, in response to questions, whether or not she met or spoke with Mr Alan Joyce,” he said.

The debate lasted nearly 30 minutes and was briefly interrupted by independent MP Kylea Tink, who asked everyone to behave more appropriately.

“If we could please have this debate and have it reasonably, without yelling at each other, I think that would be in the best interests of everyone,” Tink said.

King’s admission comes one day after the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, confirmed he had also spoken to Virgin Australia, which counts Qatar Airways as its partner airline, ahead of the decision to block Qatar’s request – but not to Qantas executives.

skip past newsletter promotion

Our Australian morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

after newsletter promotion

Paul Fletcher speaks during question time in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The Coalition on Tuesday was successful in forcing a Senate inquiry into the matter after weeks of questioning whether the federal government was giving special treatment to Qantas.

The transport minister on Tuesday had defended her decision against Qatar’s “unprecedented” request as being inconsistent with the government’s “slow, incremental approach”.

Former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, who on Tuesday brought forward his retirement date two months early amid intense scrutiny, has strongly supported the federal government’s decision to block its competition, saying the almost doubling of Qatar flights into Australia “would cause distortion”.

Virgin Australia chief executive, Jayne Hrdlicka, has been critical of the government’s decision to block its partner airline’s request, saying there was “no understandable reason why [Qatar] were denied those rights”.

She said she had been unable to secure meetings with the government to discuss the topic.