‘No additional PPE required’: Qantas fronts court over COVID safety showdown

Qantas has fronted the NSW District Court to face allegations it acted illegally when it stood down an employee who had raised concerns about cleaning an aircraft inbound from China at the onset of the COVID pandemic.

The prosecution under work health and safety legislation is the first of its kind in Australia and followed a complaint lodged with SafeWorkNSW by the Transport Workers Union of NSW.

Qantas is alleged to have stood down Theo Seremetidis- a ground crew employee and health and safety representative- on February 2, 2020 after he advised cabin cleaners they did not have to clean inbound aircraft from mainland China if they felt unsafe.

Crown Prosecutor Patricia McDonald SC told the court on Monday that Seremetidis had raised concerns with Qantas that ground staff were expected to clean planes arriving from China without adequate protections or pandemic safety training before he was stood down.

McDonald said members of cleaning staff from different crews raised similar concerns to Qantas in January 2020 and a Qantas letter to the relevant department advised the department it was “business as usual and no additional PPE is required”. Employees were also told P2 or N95 masks would be provided if requested.

The court was told Seremetidis would provide evidence during the 10-day hearing that he discovered the virus could be transmitted without symptoms after consulting a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, which he provided to his employer.

Qantas’s defence argued the airline stopped direct flights to Beijing and Shanghai from February 9 after entry restrictions on travellers from China were imposed by countries, including Singapore and the US, and not safety concerns as alleged by the prosecution.

“These entry restrictions pose significant logistical challenges for rostering crew to operate mainland China services, leading to the need to temporarily suspend these flights,” A Qantas statement said at the time.

Qantas also pointed out the federal government’s ban of travellers to Australia from China on February 1, which the prosecution quoted from in their statement of claim, was framed as a temporary measure and there was “no basis for alarm” as the risk to Australians was “very low”.