Federal Labor MPs are backing the prime minister's handling of the Qantas dispute and a Fair Work Australia decision to terminate industrial action at the airline.
"It is a victory for common sense," government backbencher Stephen Jones told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
"We are delighted that Fair Work Australia has decided to terminate the bargaining period, and get the parties together for negotiations."
But Liberal backbencher Jamie Briggs said the dispute, which resulted in Qantas grounding its entire fleet on Saturday, arose because the law was changed by Labor.
"Everybody knew this was coming," he told Sky News, adding it was the fault of Julia Gillard who set up the Fair Work Act during her time as workplace relations minister in the Rudd government.
"She failed to act, when she needed to."
Labor MP Andrew Leigh defended the prime minister for not asking Fair Work Australia to step in earlier.
Qantas management told the government on Friday that it was negotiating with unions in good faith.
"The government was as surprised as everyone else when this announcement (to ground all Qantas aircraft) was made on Saturday," he said.
"We acted quickly to have the industrial dispute terminated."
Mr Leigh said earlier action taken by the government could have been contested through the courts.
"And that could have indeed, prolonged the dispute further, so what we did was the right thing to do."
Liberal MP Dennis Jensen mocked the government for saying it was surprised by the Qantas grounding.
"Part of the problem with this government is that the reason they disappoint us so often, is that they are surprised so often," he told reporters.
He cited the government's response to the High Court ruling against its asylum-seeker swap deal with Malaysia solution.
"They seemed to be surprised ... and then they seemed to be surprised that we didn't appear to support their (subsequent) legislation.
"Now they appear to have been surprised by this Qantas action despite media reports that indicate Qantas had been giving them due warning of their concerns."
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said Qantas boss Alan Joyce had a lot to answer for in taking the decision to ground the fleet.
"It's going to hurt Qantas for a long, long time to come," he told reporters in Canberra.
Senator Brown described as "maverick" airline management tactics in telling the government one thing on Friday and grounding its fleet on Saturday.
"It'll go down in the annals of history as a very black mark against Qantas."
"And the good people who work with Qantas don't deserve that."
There was a real need to protect Qantas staff, Senator Brown said.
Opposition tourism spokesman Bob Baldwin welcomed the Fair Work Australia decision.
"It's great that the planes look set to resume operation ... but it should never have come to this," he told reporters.
"This prime minister failed to act in a reasonable time."
Mr Baldwin said the 21-day settlement period could be extended for another three weeks.
That would be a period of "absolute uncertainty", especially for the holiday accommodation sector that didn't feel assured that people who had pre-booked rooms would be able to show up.
Mr Baldwin predicted there would be between 10 and 20 per cent more empty beds than expected in Queensland.
"This is a industry seeking to recover its position after the cyclones and the floods."
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