Anthony Albanese has brushed off coalition attacks about a meeting with ex-Qantas boss Alan Joyce, labelling the comments as an "absurdity" and a "conspiracy theory".
The prime minister has come under fire from the opposition after a freedom of information request showed Mr Albanese had a 30-minute meeting with Mr Joyce at Parliament House in November 2022.
The government was criticised in 2023 for blocking rival airline Qatar Airways from having additional flights in Australia, with accusations of protecting Qantas.
The meeting between Mr Albanese and Mr Joyce had already been public knowledge, but Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the prime minister needed to be upfront about the nature of the talks.
The prime minister said the meeting in question was to do with industrial relations laws being debated at the time by parliament.
"This is just an absurdity, the meeting with Alan Joyce has been known about since last September," he told reporters in Sydney on Friday.
"Qatar was not raised, nor were what would be at any time probably 10 to 15 different air services agreements and applications from different airlines."
Mr Albanese said the former Qantas boss also met with other federal MPs and senators during the visit to Parliament House.
The industrial relation laws before parliament at the time would make changes to multi-employer bargaining.
"The coalition needs to stop the nonsense of conspiracy theories and explain why it is they voted against the interests of those workers at Qantas, who simply wanted a fair crack and a fair go," he said.
The Qatar controversy led to Mr Joyce bringing forward his retirement by two months and prompted a Senate inquiry into air service agreements.
Coalition senator Bridget McKenzie said it would be unlikely the former Qantas boss would not have raised the Qatar issue during his discussions with the prime minister.
"For him not to bring that up, I find that absolutely inconceivable," she told Sydney radio station 2GB.
"That's why it begs the question why has the government and Qantas put Alan Joyce in a witness protection program plan?"
The former airline boss was summoned to appear before the Senate committee, but Mr Joyce said he was unable to attend due to being overseas.
