The half-baked effort by Qantas chairman Richard Goyder and the rest of the discredited airline’s board to allay public and shareholder anger by shaving a sliver off departed CEO Alan Joyce’s bonus demonstrates a group of directors in deep, deep denial.
Joyce’s pay has been docked just $500,000 from his short-term bonus to reflect customer fury, but the rest of it — $2.2 million — along with another $8.36 million long-term bonus, could still be handed to Joyce on top of the $23 million he’s walking out the door with.
To recap what Joyce achieved:
- trashed Qantas’ reputation through abysmal and unreliable service;
- illegally outsourced workers, exposing the company to massive compensation — and litigating ferociously to try to avoid facing up to its actions;
- allegedly sold tickets illegally to flights it knew would never fly;
- underpaid its workers by $7 million;
- hoarded airport slots far in excess of what it needed, with the goal of locking out competitors;
- profiteered and gouged Australian travellers, exploiting a de facto government-endorsed monopolist position in Australian aviation;
- sold off nearly all his Qantas shares while knowing the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) investigation into fake flights was under way.
In all this, Joyce was enthusiastically supported by the Qantas board.
Qantas is one of the highest-profile, and most important, companies in the country, but its board is a clutch of second-raters who sat back and did nothing while Joyce turned what was once an iconic and loved company into one of Australia’s most hated. (Most hilariously of all, the board includes alleged marketing guru Todd Sampson, who has been a member while probably the biggest destruction of brand value in Australian corporate history has taken place.)
That Goyder and co decided to engage in what was essentially theatre in inflicting a trivial reduction in Joyce’s pay and holding the rest of his bonus in abeyance until a more convenient time, shows that they don’t get it. Why would they? They didn’t get it when Qantas was running a service that became a national joke, nor when the airline kept losing the legal actions brought by the victims of its outsourcing campaign; they didn’t get it when Qantas became the most complained-about company in the country; and they didn’t get it when the ACCC came knocking with serious allegations.
They didn’t get it, don’t get it, because they don’t need to. They’re essentially a monopoly operating an essential service. No matter how hated Qantas is, no matter how ineptly the company is run, no matter how appalling the service is, no matter how much the one-time national carrier is turned into Aeroflot, travellers still have to use it.
Compare and contrast the big banks: they’re oligopolists, but they’re much more heavily regulated as systemically important parts of the economy, and they face at least some competition from each other and from smaller and regional banks (which is why ANZ is trying to snuff out a competitor in Suncorp’s banking arm).
When the banking royal commission and AUSTRAC exposed their contempt for their own customers, their gouging and profiteering, and their flagrant breaches of money-laundering laws, the Westpac CEO and chair both quit, NAB’s CEO and chair both quit, ANZ sacked more than 200 staff, and the CBA CEO resigned.
Others fared even worse: AMP, one of the oldest and most respected names in the Australian economy (and not just finance), saw billions in losses and dud managers in the first two decades of this century. Then it was exposed by the banking royal commission, not to mention management scandals, so out went the fourth CEO and fourth lot of board members this century, forcing the company to split itself and sell off assets to survive.
Qantas’ misconduct is at least as bad — it may not have charged fees to dead people like AMP, but it flogged tickets to flights it knew would never leave the ground, gouged customers and sacked workers illegally. Literally no-one has paid any price for that, given Joyce merely brought his retirement forward by a few weeks.
But Qantas faces no threat of competition — not while the Albanese government is looking after its interests and a benign regulatory environment in which there is no independent complaints-handling body, no price monitoring and no check on its profiteering.
Why would Goyder and the nonentities who populate the Qantas board change their ways? The CEO might have changed at Qantas, but the board and the airline won’t, because they don’t have to.
I have to clench my teeth whenever I hear Qantas described as “our national carrier”.
Qantas is now a shareholder-owned public company whose loyalty is only to the shareholders.
This company was once a proud government owned Australian icon with a loyal and devoted workforce, its reputation for safety and customer service second to none.
Since the advent of Alan Joyce, late Ryanair CEO, we have seen the rapid erosion of standards, service and workforce trust and morale.
The lowest point in my opinion was when Joyce suspended all Qantas flights during an industrial dispute leaving Qantas passengers worldwide stranded. There have been other low points but I think this one demonstrated Qantas’ complete contempt for those who chose to fly with them.
It remains to be seen what the new CEO and the Qantas board will do about Joyce’s massive golden parachute and what reparations the company will have to pay their abused former workers.
Was he just learning from the politicians now departed or did they learn from him? Interesting thought.
PS Does a bank robber have to hand back the proceeds of the robbery? Then perhaps the shareholders should hand back their ill gotten gains also. See how long the Board lasts then.
The ACCC have the whip hand on this one………..
……….they could press for the maximum damages for the breaches of Competition Law (and don’t forget, each single breach is a separate offence, carrying the possibility of the full penalty) which could amount to several times Qantas market capital.
In the resultant inevitable bankruptcy, the Commonwealth could exercise it’s Constitutional right to compulsorily acquire Qantas for “Fair Value”………….
………..and “Fair Value” for a bankrupt airline would be about a slab of beer.
Hah! If only we lived in that world. Recall how the LNP gleefully stood by while GM took Holden out the back and gave it a bullet. The Alternative Liberal Party are dancing to the same tune.
If that’s the analogy, the shareholders are not the bank robbers. The metaphorical robbery was done by the board and CEO, with those in their employ as unwitting or involuntary accomplices. At most the shareholders are receivers of stolen goods, though that is pushing it. How much they knew about the methods used to extract the dividends they received is questionable. The ability of shareholders individually to control the boards they formally appoint is not that great. Perhaps a better analogy, though still not that good, is the awkward situation of those who buy an article, maybe in good faith, but then find it was stolen. Whatever, there is supposed to be a principle that those convicted of crimes should not be allowed to profit from their crimes (this is now extended and routinely abused in the USA by ‘civil asset forfeiture’: confiscating the assets of persons suspected but not convicted, leaving them to prove their innocence if they want their property returned, while the authorities keep the money for their own use). Anyway it is far too much of a stretch to assert the shareholders of Qantas are actual genuine criminals.
Sorry for the almost duplicate posts. The ModBot choked on the last word used in this version.
If that’s the analogy, the shareholders are not the bank robbers. The metaphorical robbery was done by the board and CEO, with those in their employ as unwitting or involuntary accomplices. At most the shareholders are receivers of stolen goods, though that is pushing it. How much they knew about the methods used to extract the dividends they received is questionable. The ability of shareholders individually to control the boards they formally appoint is not that great. Perhaps a better analogy, though still not that good, is the awkward situation of those who buy an article, maybe in good faith, but then find it was stolen. Whatever, there is supposed to be a principle that those convicted of crimes should not be allowed to profit from their crimes (this is now extended and routinely abused in the USA by ‘civil asset forfeiture’: confiscating the assets of persons suspected but not convicted, leaving them to prove their innocence if they want their property returned, while the authorities keep the money for their own use). Anyway it is far too much of a stretch to assert the shareholders of Qantas are actual genuine crooks.
Perhaps!
But, woulden’t most of the shareholders be larger Companies run by directors picked from the same priveledged aristocracy as the Qantas directors?
Possibly even the same people in some cases.
Most of the larger shareholders would be Super Funds and Investment Funds…………
………so, by extension, everyday Australians are responsible by virtue of not complaining to their Super Fund about the Qantas service.
No, it would not.
I’m a Qantas share holder. What ill gotten gains? Suggest you do your research. Qantas haven’t posted a dividend since 2019 and then it was pathetic. I don’t know where the money goes but it’s not to the shareholders.
I know where the money went………….
………into the kick of the Toxic Dwarf and his Board Enablers.
(Useful hint: Shares in Airlines should NEVER be a part of an individual’s portfolio – their business case is almost non-existent)
There’s no loyalty to shareholders, as they’ve seriously destroyed shareholder value well into the future. Their loyalty is only to themselves, their remuneration and their spin. If they cared about shareholders as they claim, they’d have done much more to preserve and enhance shareholder value and shareholder assets for longer term gain.
Just so. Shareholders have very few ways to control the boards. The boards can if they choose run rings around the shareholders. Blaming the shareholders for the actions of the board is not far different to blaming the general public for the actions of government ministers. Yes, there is a formal or technical argument that says they are responsible, but the reality is quite different.
In the fifteen years of the Toxic Dwarf, Qantas has NEVER regained the share price that was bequeathed by his predecessor…………..
Fair, but what keeps Qantas’ protected species status is the informal attitude of many Australians, neither shareholders not frequent flyers, who view large and long standing public companies as iconic artifacts of past Australia; bit like ‘bricks & mortar’ make people feel secure, even if declining in value….
“ sold off nearly all his Qantas shares while knowing the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) investigation into fake flights was under way.”
This is the very definition of insider trading!!! Where are ASIC and ASX? And the journalists?
Any other CEO would be subject to an investigation ? Where is the little greedy prick anyway?? In hiding? Why aren’t the media trying to find him and expose him?? Many others have copped that type of paparazzi treatment for much lesser crimes! And don’t give me that ‘ respect privacy at this time’ crap! Seems like the media is giving him an easy ride, although most likely he is OS – south of France I suspect!
PS. The Board is a disgrace and that Todd Sampson is weak as piss!! Cannot be on Gruen or the ABC until he explains and apologises!
The toxic dwarf bailed out for Ireland (on an EMIRATES flight! – no bags lost there) the day after he quit………………..
Holy crap, I had no idea about Sampson; what an impostor!
Nah, just a true-to-form marketing shonk. Brand name is all about fancy bells-and-whistles marketing jingles – nothing to do with substance. But doesn’t he look cool in the executive T-shirt!
Time for the populist media to give Joyce the same treatment as Christopher Skase.
Or any minor street criminal, who gets front-page treatment, accosted on the footpath, etc.
Or any minor street c-r-i-m-i-n-a-l, who gets front-page treatment, accosted on the footpath, etc.
(The bot has been told to object to the ‘C’ word.)
I suppose he wants to spend more time with his money.
If there’s such a thing as justice members of the Qantas board should be voted out by the shareholders at the next AGM.
Goyder’s dereliction during the destructive Joyce era & his current lack of judgement indicate he should not be on any board. The bad smell coming from Qantas seems not to affect him.
The only way forward with this appalling board and Joyce replacement is to vote with your feet. Don’t buy the overpriced tickets that may or may not deliver a tight seat on an aircraft, and if a shareholder, flog the shares. It won’t get any better. Joyce skips away with a truckload of money, the board will continue to collect their several hundred thousand a year and travel first class and fines and compensations will have to be paid somehow, either by shareholders or through further savage cost cuts and that means even lousier service and further trashed employee morale.
This mob doesn’t understand how on the nose they are, or don’t care and has to be shown the power of the consumer.