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Katie Woolf spoke with TWUSANT Secretary Ian Smith · 360 with Katie Woolf

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  Speaker 1: Mix one O four point nine dot com for all
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  Speaker 1: the latest news and information. Now three sixty with Katie Wolf.
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  Speaker 1: Everyone is listening Mix one oh four point nine one.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I tell you what I don't know about you,
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  Speaker 2: But I was pretty concerned to read the front page
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  Speaker 2: of the paper this morning and see that animals had
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  Speaker 2: been left behind by Quantas. Apparently a turtle was among
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  Speaker 2: the animals left stranded at the Darwin International Airport on
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  Speaker 2: Wednesday after baggage handlers failed to load them onto a
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  Speaker 2: Quantus flight to Sydney. Now joining me on the line
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  Speaker 2: from the Transport Workers Union Branch Secretary for the Territory,
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  Speaker 2: Ian Smith, good morning to you Ian.
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  Speaker 3: Here. Are you going?
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  Speaker 1: Not too bad?
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  Speaker 2: Mate? We're certainly talking more often then you know what
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  Speaker 2: either you or I would probably anticipate at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: And this story about these animals while not being loaded
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  Speaker 2: onto a flight, it's pretty concerning stuff.
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  Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, you know these Quantis made a decision to
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  Speaker 3: outsource the ground handling work, the baggage handling work, which
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  Speaker 3: is a very experienced workforce that work work extremely well.
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  Speaker 3: And I've been there for a long time. I actually
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  Speaker 3: loved the airline. I loved the job. They never replacement
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  Speaker 3: after receiving two billion dollars of public funding from condos,
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  Speaker 3: I replace them with the workforce that you know that
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  Speaker 3: it's not so much potentially that they're unskilled, and probably
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  Speaker 3: the fact that to win these contracts they've had to
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  Speaker 3: cut to cut each other's straights, and they're doing the
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  Speaker 3: less people with equippmed it's not up up to the
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  Speaker 3: standards for safety and they're under pressure all the time.
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  Speaker 3: So when those things occur, this is what happens. Pets
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  Speaker 3: are left, Pets are left and not transported.
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  Speaker 2: And can I just ask in this particular situation, what
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  Speaker 2: do you think has happen? Do you think that there's
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  Speaker 2: not enough staff there or what are your reckons going on?
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  Speaker 3: Look, I can't gateually say what's going on. Look from
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  Speaker 3: time to time before that these certain animals not make flights,
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  Speaker 3: but it was a very rare occurrence. Now what we've
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  Speaker 3: been seeing with quantas since since the ground handling changes
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  Speaker 3: across the country, there's been instances like this where pets
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  Speaker 3: freight baggage hasn't hasn't hasn't a right where on an
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  Speaker 3: increasing and a much high number them was before we've
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  Speaker 3: seen the damage that some of the aircraft in perf
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  Speaker 3: and the incidents are on the other way. It's unacceptable
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  Speaker 3: and there's no there was absolutely no need when the
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  Speaker 3: companies received the amount of money they received for job Keeper,
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  Speaker 3: which was set up so the employment relationship maintained, and
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  Speaker 3: then just to say we're going to get rid of
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  Speaker 3: this this feet of people. When they're saying their domestic
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  Speaker 3: market was head back to one hundred percent, I don't
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  Speaker 3: understand it and it's not right. An Australian, we would
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  Speaker 3: hope that the Federal Court when they make the decision,
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  Speaker 3: comes out and says that it agrees with us and
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  Speaker 3: that's on us. Is wrong and it's there. So we're
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  Speaker 3: going to see more of this occur because these new
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  Speaker 3: contractors are doing the less people probably equipment. It's not
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  Speaker 3: up the standard. And you know it's not just if
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  Speaker 3: they're not just people that put up puts bags and
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  Speaker 3: animals on planes. There should be experienced bagging analysts. They're
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  Speaker 3: crawling in and out those whole you know, the underneath
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  Speaker 3: the lockers in the aircraft must load stuff, we must
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  Speaker 3: load it correctly.
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  Speaker 2: Can I just ask I know that some listening right
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  Speaker 2: now will be thinking, well, surely this has happened as
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  Speaker 2: well before quantas sort of change their workforce and changed
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  Speaker 2: their the way that they're doing things with the outsourcing.
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  Speaker 2: You know, as much as we would like to think
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  Speaker 2: that this is a very unique situation, surely there's been
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  Speaker 2: other instances in the past where unfortunately animals haven't been
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  Speaker 2: loaded onto onto a plane.
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  Speaker 3: Oh look, I'm not going to say that that's not
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  Speaker 3: the case. But whereas once again, these incidences are coming
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  Speaker 3: up now, these sort of incidents are coming up more
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  Speaker 3: often than they were before. Now that is a direct
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  Speaker 3: result in our eyes, and there cutting servis and standards
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  Speaker 3: and they put profit over safety, profit over profit over
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  Speaker 3: making sure at of a service is still maintained.
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  Speaker 2: And do you have any idea previous when when Quantus
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  Speaker 2: obviously had those baggy chandlers that were that were in house,
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  Speaker 2: do you have any idea how many baggage chandlers we
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  Speaker 2: had on the ground sort of per shift comparatively to
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  Speaker 2: what we do now that they've been outsourced.
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  Speaker 3: Not totally, but we do understand. We understand that the
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  Speaker 3: information that's beens apply to us. It's it's there's at
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  Speaker 3: least one less on the crew for each flight. So
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  Speaker 3: you know, there's when you look at the machinery them
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  Speaker 3: and there's one said less eyes out there assisting to
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  Speaker 3: make sure that it an't damage your playing or anything
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  Speaker 3: like that. And then we see the results, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: we've had reports from some of the larger states and
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  Speaker 3: coming out the large re port's coming out of baggage
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  Speaker 3: being soaked when it's got three other destination baggage been missing.
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  Speaker 3: And we're seeing this stuff with the turtles and the tops.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's pretty well unsatisfactory service when you're paying
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  Speaker 3: good money and they've received lots and lots of money
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  Speaker 3: from our federal government, and they need someone needs to
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  Speaker 3: be held account for these sort of incidents continuing.
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  Speaker 2: And where to from here? Like I said at the start,
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  Speaker 2: you know you and I seem to be speaking a
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  Speaker 2: bit more often than what we ever had in the past.
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  Speaker 2: Where to from here?
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  Speaker 3: Our position will be we will highlight and it never
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  Speaker 3: changed before. We'll always highlight when companies companies step out
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  Speaker 3: of line and don't do the right thing. And that
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  Speaker 3: was consistent with us before Quintus outsource outsourced and their workforce,
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  Speaker 3: and it will be consistent now when we're notified of safety.
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  Speaker 3: We're bound by the offer op and sachet the actual report.
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  Speaker 3: So we have written today to work safe anti work safe,
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  Speaker 3: and we're asking there to do a proper investigation to
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  Speaker 3: find out actually what happened on this case, so we
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  Speaker 3: can get to the bottoment, so we can try and
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  Speaker 3: make sure it doesn't happen again. Yeah, and fines should
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  Speaker 3: do the right thing well, not just hide behind the
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  Speaker 3: fact this happens all the time. It doesn't happen all
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  Speaker 3: the time. Yes, it does happen. And from my experience
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  Speaker 3: in the transport over twenty five years, it's a rare
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  Speaker 3: occasion with baggage and dogs and things are missed and
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  Speaker 3: we're seeing damaged change we're seeing on a consistent basis.
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  Speaker 3: We're seeing we're now we're seeing animals missed, left off,
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  Speaker 3: and we're also seeing baggage being not put on or
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  Speaker 3: being damaged because it hasn't been lader correctly well and we.
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  Speaker 2: Are going to have to leave it there. I always
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  Speaker 2: appreciate your time. Thank you very much for having a
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  Speaker 2: chat with us this morning.
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  Speaker 3: Thanks Heddie, thank you.
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  Speaker 2: That is the Transport Workers Union branch secretary there for
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  Speaker 2: the territory, Ian Smith