One can’t defend a poor policy by claiming they are only being consistent.
The reason us pilots are angry this time is that we had already signed our wage freeze EA before the previous bonus was announced so we were never subject to this outright industrial bribery.
More broadly speaking, in previous years there was a well known, company wide wages policy in place, born of the disasterous financial position the company had been steered into. It was a known position that ALL groups would have to comply with the freeze and bonuses were withheld until agreement was reached. (Still a low act)
This time no such circumstances exist.
It is a cynical attempt to stack the deck in favour of Qantas in all EA negotiations going forward long before Qantas have even dream up their demands.