Translation: A buck today is so much more valuable than a buck and change next week.
This is exactly what we observe in Aviation, companies have failed to invest and return the cost saving and profit to reinvest in the their businesses beyond the absolute minimum - lack of training pilots is a prime example. That is what the major shareholders wanted. They wanted the cost savings converted to the present value through increased returns. For every $ saved in headcount and reduced training, a manager can take that $ buy back the stock, hence raise it's price and enable the shareholder to capture in increase capital gains, the value having be transferred from the employee.
Managers don't see the fact that they extinguished and exploited the entire industry, extracting every last morsel out the system as a problem. They simply see offshore pilots paid less than the Australian market rate and look to exploit that resource. Pilots are not human beings to the managers, they are just a series of skills to be acquired at the cheapest price. Pilots are simply widgets to be moved around, trained and used as sparingly as possible in the short term.
This is precisely why the French declared when setting pay rates for pilots
'les compagnies aériennes ne ressemblent à aucune autre'
The reason why we spent the time on the Qantas fleet shows exactly how a slick CFO manufactures a transformation, complete with manufactured decline and huge volumes of share options and a conga line of analysts, even union leaders ask no questions and instead wait their place in line. Qantas need a new fleet, senior management failed in an elementary function of strategic planning: fleet replacement.
Qantas management have borrowed from the future to pay for their own largess. Candidly when US pension funds own big blocks of Qantas stock, who cares whether down the track the company needs new aircraft?
The IR/HR model is predicated on unending supply and even when confronted with evidence of a shortage, it is all rather simple, bring in a 'Stream Lead' to help maintain the status quo and undermine the employment market for one last waltz.
They have failed again, with respect to strategic planning for flight crew and instead decide it is more to their liking to undermine the very nation for which they fly a flag of convenience.