‘‘There is a lot at stake but I have absolutely no doubt that the politicians will see sense and reframe the policy framework to make sure this is a level playing field again.’’
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However, Mr Joyce conceded last week that there was no appetite in Canberra for changes to the Qantas Sale Act, which limits foreign ownership in the national flag carrier.
Qantas wants the Foreign Investment Review Board to review the level of foreign investment in Virgin, and consider the prospect of its largest shareholders taking it private.
Depending on the take up of new shares, Virgin’s latest capital raising could allow its three main shareholders – Etihad, Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand - to increase their combined stake to as much as 68 per cent.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Group also has a 10 per cent stake.
Qantas has also demanded the federal government consider whether Virgin is complying with laws which allow it to gain access to air routes out of Australia. Under the Air Navigation Act, an airline has to be 51 per cent Australian owned in order to gain access to these routes under bilateral air rights agreements.
Mr Joyce wants the government to examine whether it was a ‘‘backdoor way for Abu Dhabi, for Singapore, for New Zealand to get access to what should be rights that are available for Australian carriers’’. Etihad is based in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
‘‘The Australian icon cannot compete with two hands tied behind its back, and the policy settings need to be adjusted,’’ he said.
Mr Joyce likened the situation to a soccer game in which Qantas was 10-nil up before Virgin had called three other teams onto the field ‘‘because they can’t beat us’’.
‘‘We need a level playing field for the Qantas Group to have a future. They do their heavy maintenance offshore. They don’t have these investments that we do in this country.’’
However, Virgin has accused Qantas of ‘‘an orchestrated media campaign regarding this capital raising’’, and threatened to take legal action against Mr Joyce.
Mr Joyce raised his concerns directly with federal Transport Minister Warren Truss and Labor’s transport spokesman Anthony Albanese in Canberra last week. Neither side of politics has been willing to be publicly drawn publicly into the stoush.