The employer doesn’t get to keep it.
Yes they do.
Eligible employers (30 or 50% reduction in turnover depending on the size of the business) get $1500 per eligible employee. The employee has to fill out their own paperwork.
If the employee is stood down without pay the employee gets the full $1500 pre tax.
If the employee is still working but getting less than $1500 per fortnight the employer has to make up the difference using Jobkeeper and keeps the remainder. eg. a casual barista who has been employed for more than 12 months, who normally gets paid $1000 per fortnight will now earn $1500. The employer pays them their normal $1000, tops it up with 500 from Jobkeeper and keeps the remaining $1000. This is why the system is a windfall for some low paid employees who are getting a payrise funded by the government.
If the employee is still working or, importantly in QANTAS’s case, accessing paid leave while stood down at a rate of greater than $1500 per fortnight, the employer pays the employee as normal and banks the $1500. This is a real windfall for the employer. QANTAS is currently getting tens, it not hundreds, of millions of dollars in leave off the books, subsidised by the government.
QANTAS will get roughly 600 million from the federal government between now and September. It’s not possible to determine how much of that will go to the company and how much to employees. Back of the envelope, given 10,000 people are still working and the remainder are accessing a mix of Jobkeeper and their leave, I would expect QANTAS to keep perhaps half of that amount.