Australian Leader Slams Striking Pilots

Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke said tough safety standards will be enforced on aircraft and crews enlisted in the dispute that has grounded Australia’s domestic airlines, and he called the airline pilots hypocrites.

“No aircraft will be allowed to fly in Australia unless it meets our standards,” Hawke told a news conference Sunday.

Pilots involved in the dispute have warned that safety standards for air travel could be compromised by increased charter flights and by a recruiting drive for new flight crews that has been mounted by the three major domestic airlines.

But Hawke, who has in the past likened the pilots to glorified bus drivers, now called them hypocrites.

1,600 Resigned

“Can you imagine anything more hypocritical than these people, who are bent upon destroying the Australian economy, having the gall, the hide, the hypocrisy to set themselves up as judges about the interests of Australia,” he said Sunday.

More than 1,600 pilots resigned 12 days ago when domestic carriers, backed by Hawke’s Labor government, rejected calls for a 30% pay raise. Hawke fears that any such deal could shatter a six-year union accord that has curbed wage increases.

Chartered flights are supplementing a skeleton service provided by air force troop transports to help keep people moving across the huge continent.

Little-Known Law

The government of the isolated Northern Territory Sunday said it had chartered a Boeing 757 from the Sultan of Brunei to bring tourists to the region. A McDonnell Douglas DC-8 freighter has already been chartered for emergency cargo service.

Tourism executives Sunday appealed to Australia’s head of state, Governor General Bill Hayden, to invoke a little-known law providing penalties for disputes that threaten the economy.

Tourism was Australia’s biggest foreign-exchange earner in 1988, yielding about $5 billion. But industry officials say 1989 looks like a disaster, with air and hotel bookings collapsing.