Senator XENOPHON: In terms of the Qantas Sale Act and the whole issue of subsidiaries—and Mr Johnson referred to this on the last occasion—there is nothing in the Qantas Sale Act that would prevent international routes being flown by Jetstar, for instance, and Qantas becoming a largely domestic carrier. There is nothing in the act that would prohibit that.
Mr Joyce : There is no prohibition in the act against all of our international routes being replaced by Emirates or United one day. The market will dictate who flies internationally and who will survive. I will tell you our intentions. I hope that someday Jetstar can be very big, because that would be great for Australia and the group, because these aircraft would be flying all over Asia. We want Qantas to be in the same position. I want to turn around the international business so that Qantas can have the same growth opportunities that Jetstar has. I absolutely believe that you cannot lock into legislation restrictions on Qantas to somehow ensure that Qantas stays in the race, because it will not happen. If you put those restrictions in place, Senator, all you will be ensuring is the absolute demise of Qantas. It has to be commercial, it has to be flexible and it has to adapt. That is the only way you can ensure what you are saying never happens and it is not our intention. We absolutely want to scrape around to be flying to every continent around the world, but we have to have a commercial entity.
Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee - 06/02/2012
Very careful use of disinformation to obscure the true motives, given he was likely already in discussion with Emirates about the non-equity takeover at the time he made this statement.