Really? The LHEAs and SHEAs permit the respective stand downs. That would be the case whether jobkeeper existed or not. The stand downs were likely to be enacted whether the government placed restrictions on travel or not. Once jobkeeper expires you are correct about it defaulting to the respective EAs as it would have been had jobkeeper not existed to start off with.
Of course the feds may decide to continue to hand out jobkeeper to Qantas if they keep heavy restrictions on international travel. What if they decide to do that for another 2-3 years? By pilots arguing that the stand downs are linked to jobkeeper the government can essentially throw crew a bone and there is nothing we can do about it because we were the ones that argued it was linked to ‘the legislation’.
I can understand the desire to fight the stand down on the basis of it being linked to jobkeeper but I hope we don’t do so out of the desire to ‘do something’ and instead consider the ramifications very carefully.
Whilst ever a pandemic remains declared in various places around the world it’s likely that the law will continue to see some stand downs as reasonable for LH crew. Better a negotiated outcome than a legal precedent. Just need to see how some pilots were faring with sick leave before the TWU lost their court case compared with after.