No, there is no threat. The way it was explained there is an amount of money set aside for this flight ops business case of reducing head count and costs, etc. If there is no LWOP and no changes to the EA, that changes (decreases) the amount of money available for VR. Qantas can respond to this in a number of ways. They may choose to limit the VR to specific categories- or more correctly change which offers they accept- and then go down a different road of dealing with the head count.
This has been explained on a couple of different webinars now. I didn’t get it the first time I heard it. Took me about three goes to understand what they were getting at. I don’t have a full understanding of what options would be considered.
I still reckon they’ll VR everyone who asks for it up to about 196 people (if that many ask for it). I suspect the 747 crew are the lay down misere. Beyond that will depend on aircraft type and so on and as has been confirmed a coupe of times, would require a re-evaluation of the business case to see if the additional numbers ‘fit’ into the case.