Qantas chairman Richard Goyder has tried to ameliorate the growing clamour for his now-inevitable resignation with a string of apologies in the company’s annual report, released yesterday, and the possible withholding of $14.4 million in bonuses to departed chief Alan Joyce and other executives.
The report has been delayed about two weeks as it was hastily tweaked to include said mea culpas. This was needed after revelations that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is eyeing $600 million in fines for the airline for allegedly selling tickets for “ghost” flights it had already cancelled in 2022 — as well as the body blow of the High Court backing the Federal Court’s finding (twice) that Qantas had illegally sacked 1,700 workers.
Like an opera diva hurling himself off the balcony to give his audience (superannuation funds) the ending he thought they wanted — and such dramatics have worked in the amateur theatrics circles of corporate Australia — Goyder is all show. After all, who can forget the minimalist bloodletting after the banking royal commission — sure, there were scalps to go round, but regulation-wise change was minimal — before returning to the business of rogering customers and closing branches?
“As we move through our recovery, management and the board are acutely aware of the need to rebuild your confidence in Qantas,” Goyder told shareholders. “We’re also conscious of the loss of trust that has occurred because our service has often fallen short of expectations, compounded by a number of other issues relating to the pandemic period.”
Those are the words. Here are the actions: Goyder’s annual pay in cash and kind from the cashed-up Red Rat is now a cool $750,000 — that’s up 14% from the previous year. This is for the part-time job at Qantas he juggles with other major, time-consuming roles heading the Australian Football League, fossil-fuel giant Woodside, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and the Channel 7 Telethon Trust.
Indeed, the Qantas board collectively banked a pay rise of 8.3%. But this was distorted by departing director Michael L’Estrange getting a rise of less than 1%. If you take out him and Doug Parker, appointed in May, the remaining six long-serving directors averaged a 20% pay rise, with Maxine Brenner the biggest winner with a jump of 70% from $280,000 to $404,000.
Brenner is also a member of the Qantas board’s remuneration committee, along with Jacqueline Hey (chair), Todd Sampson and L’Estrange.
But hang on, maybe directors were just catching up on a COVID-era pay freeze like the one they enforced on staff? Well, no. Last year they handed themselves a 5% pay rise.
There’s a neat trick here. Shareholders occasionally vote for a total “cap” for directors pay — it currently totals $3 million — but in 2019 the board decided to cut back from 11 to eight directors, meaning there has been plenty more scope for it to feather its nests, without troubling shareholders to raise the total. Now sitting at $2.7 million, there is still scope for a decent bump next year.
Yes, the Qantas board has decided to throw a remuneration fiesta, tossing customer revenue and shareholder funds around like confetti. For now, Joyce may be having $10 million or so in bonuses withheld, but he will still likely sail off with a stonking pay packet of $21.4 million, even if we slip into another part of the multiverse where all his bonus is withheld.
Reading Goyder’s message to shareholders, it’s hard to see that it has even sunk in that the company acted illegally in sacking workers — there’s just some vague “regret” about ruining countless lives. He even has the hide to say the High Court “endorsed” Qantas’ strategy.
The directors have also been taking care of the other senior executives, bringing them along for the remuneration celebrations. The report outlines chief executive Vanessa Hudson’s pay deal, including her defined benefit superannuation, with her having started with Qantas in 1994 when it was still government-owned. And with her pay review ahead, less than a year into her official tenure, her deal looks even sweeter.
Departing Qantas international and domestic chief Andrew David’s pay jumped 70% — remember he is the designated fall guy for the illegal outsourcing. And loyalty chief Olivia Wirth’s pay soared by 66.6%, despite her group underperforming compared with the rest of the company — remember, too, she was the beaten candidate for the top job. Wirth jetted off to Singapore in first class at the weekend, insiders told Crikey.
Qantas staff, however, have not been invited to the remuneration rave, left sitting home watching Netflix, their pay raised 1.2% on average over six years — including the two-year pay freeze. But they are sure to be cheered by the company’s decision to appoint a chief staff officer (who will undoubtedly be invited to next year’s pay party). This person, Goyder said, will “help increase the focus on what is our most important asset”. Pilots in regional subsidiaries readying to strike will doubtless be changing strategy upon hearing this.
Meanwhile, back at the airline’s actual operations, the signs that Joyce’s timing in stepping away was finely balanced between reaping as much reward as possible and exiting just as major capital spending was needed to both buy new planes and reboot ageing operations is becoming increasingly apparent.
Yesterday the Federal Court ordered the airline and the Transport Workers’ Union to attend a month of mediation with its former chief justice James Allsop. The largest compensation orders issued under the Fair Work Act’s adverse action laws could be its largest ever — in the region of $200 million.
“We have incredibly passionate people working for us and we’re continuing to invest heavily in skills development for pilots, cabin crew and engineers,” Goyder concluded.
Pilots, cabin crew and engineers who spoke to Crikey said Goyder must, somehow, be running a different company.
How can such repulsive, deficient, self fixated emptinesses like Goyder get in office and then up and on?
Have you MET our society?
Are those not some of the requisite qualities for such a career? There’s certainly nothing to indicate that being ethical, decent and honest gets you very far, no matter how capable you might be; such people are more likely to end up as whistle-blowers with their lives and their health completely ruined and the prospect of many years in prison.
Qantas certainly has a Goiter I mean Goyder ready for excision.
The board & senior executives appear to be shameless about trashing a once efficient & admired airline. Shareholders are the only ones who can fix this by voting out the Chair & board.
Yeah nah, a socialist government which is prepared to nationalise all natural monopolies and dominant corporations are the only ones who can fix this.
Even though we apparently exist for the benefit of shareholders these days, you have to remember that some of them are more equal than others; that’s just a convenient lie halfway between decency and reality.
Barely more than a couple of generations ago, such a Government would have been called centrist (or just “responsible”).
‘visionary’, even.
Indeed. The units of production must understand by now what she meant when she said, “There is no such things as society.”
It isn’t even necessary to declare nationalising as socialist. How could “too big to fail” exist if it weren’t the case that the average person always picks up the bill.
Why not? I think it’s worth hammering the point that putting society first has become a fringe position.
True but the meaning of words has been reinvented through repetition of misinformation. One would spend most of their time defending the history of socialism and what it isn’t. The word now triggers fitting.
The Qantas board and executive management are collectively liable for the misleading and deceptive conduct perpetrating a fraud on their customers. Charges must be laid.
The only way to get the message across is to stop using Qantas. Use trains & buses domestically and Virgin or other airlines for overseas travel. What they don’t seem to have worked out is that what they’ve done is reduce future profits by stripping the company of its most valuable assets, its loyal experienced staff, its reputation for safety and quality whilst also making people dislike it with such intensity that many won’t use it, even if it is inconvenient. They have now descended to a level that is even worse than British Airways, which is why I’ve used other airlines for the last decade, or used buses and trains.
They have NOT increased shareholder value. They have destroyed it. Shame on them all, including Todd Sampson who should know better.
If Russell Brand and Barack Obama are anything to go by, the ability to convincingly make pretty noises doesn’t necessarily correlate with any belief in them.
Just catching up. Glad you mentioned the word “safety”. Because I wouldn’t feel safe jumping on one of their planes right now. So I don’t.
The prostitution of Qantas started with the Keating Labor government. This is the inevitable result of that sordid decision. Sometimes the only justification one can gave for supporting Labor is that the Coalition is worse!
Giving that as a reason to vote Labor is invalid, illogical and anti-democratic.
Have ever looked at the coalition and its record? Dismal is an understatement. At least does some good things.
I agree. But I see that to vote for Labor because the LNP is worse is illogical because it perpetuates the two-party system, when what we need is a change – at least a minority govt with input from fresh thinking. It’s also anti-democratic, because the two parties use fear and lies to destroy interference from new competitors: it’s the one thing they always agree on. And why is it invalid? I’ve completely forgotten the reason I said that! (It was a valid comment at the time.)
Actually, it’s the opposite – valid, logical and democratic. Also tragic; it’s not like it’s saying anything positive about Labor. But the fact remains…
As per my reply to Ann Urch, above, I contend that Both Labor and the LNP are anti-democratic because they unite in destroying competition i.e. democracy. Therefore it also can’t be logical to vote for them, imo. OK it’s a valid vote. I should’ve said tragic.
Competition is not the definition of democracy. The fundamental requirement for democracy is that the common people (or the mob) have the final say. Just about the only really democratic institution in our so-called ‘representative democracy’ is the jury in a criminal trial, and of course its democratic power is very strictly limited the one question of choosing between guilty or not in the case brought before it. This is better than nothing, and in plenty of countries it would be a big improvement.
All very true. My feeling though is that a democracy must have choice – who to vote for. Some countries claim to be democratic by holding elections while having, realistically, only one party or leader to vote for, with opposition suppressed. Here, the choice is strictly limited to two, both of whom have similar policies. Ridicule is showered on the Greens for example. The Democrats were similarly undermined. ‘Teal’ is a slightly pejorative term – by grouping them so, incorrectly, they become a target.
Australian democracy has many faults, imo, most of which could be addressed if only the two main parties would take their hands off its throat. But I’m no political theorist, and any changes I would like to see made would not necessarily improve society in general. But I really would like my vote to mean something, and isn’t that Democracy?
Competition is not the definition of democracy. The fundamental requirement for democracy is that the common people (or the mob) have the final say. Just about the only really democratic institution in our so-called ‘representative democracy’ is the jury in a ‘crook’ trial (had to use the weird euphemism because the ModBot cannot cop with the standard term used to describe such a trial), and of course its democratic power is very strictly limited the one question of choosing between guilty or not in the case brought before it. This is better than nothing, and in plenty of countries it would be a big improvement.
The neoliberal privatisation and deregulation ideology was propagated by the Mont Peleron society, taken up by the Thatcher and Reagan governments and then enthusiastically adopted by other, predominantly english speaking countries around the world. None were more enthusiastic than Australia and New Zealand. In Australia the heritage of the post war generation was raped and pillaged during the 1980’s and 1990’s by a succession of State and Federal governments, both Liberal and Labor. Everything owned by the Australian people of any worth was flogged off and to make matters worse, regulations were weakened to the point of being totally ineffective, toothless regulatory bodies were established and the public service largely outsourced to private vested interests.
All of this has to be undone, but that is a Herculean task requiring enormous political courage, long term vision and voter support. None of that is present today and short of another world war, there is no prospect of it in the future either.