Vanessa Hudson, queen of footnotes

Joe AstonColumnistSep 17, 2023 – 7.30pm

If Alan Joyce was the king of the asterisk – an enabling device in the most brazen lies by omission – then his successor as Qantas chief executive, Vanessa Hudson, is emerging as the queen of the footnote.
When Qantas had its arse surgically removed and handed to it by the High Court of Australia on Wednesday, the company didn’t lodge a statement with the Australian Securities Exchange. Qantas put out a press release, like it was upgrading the Qantas Club in Hobart or unveiling a new line of flammable socks in Business class.

Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson has a long road ahead to rebuild the airline’s trust and reputation with customers. Bloomberg We got towelled up on a technicality, Qantas insisted, before reverting to the “sorry, not sorry” form of apology last put to grim use by Rio Tinto’s Chris Salisbury. We’re not sorry for firing you illegally, but we’re kinda sorry that it ruined your life. It’s a real bummer and we’ve said that from the beginning – yet we did it anyway. We fought you for three years and cost ourselves gazillions in fines, but we’re not sorry about that because the fines are so much less than the recurrent savings we achieved by firing you!
There is something seriously wrong with a country where breaking the law and being punished for it is still cheaper than doing the right thing.
This press release included a footnote. It said, “Qantas made a provision against this potential liability following the original Federal Court decision in 2021.” Don’t worry shareholders, we knew this would happen and we planned ahead. We did the right thing by you – we made a non-cash provision in the 2021 accounts that we never told you about. We buried it in the great COVID accounting bloodbath and now we’re telling you about it in a footnote to a media statement we’re not sending you. It’s all good, we are so fine!
This amateur chicanery was authorised by Vanessa Hudson, finesser of footnotes. There’s no blaming the asterisk king now. It was her call to do this.

Just shocking

So, how much is the provision? Is it the $30 million cost of their legal advice? Is it the $200 million of potential compensation to their axed workers? Is it the $100 million maximum penalties that Justice Michael Lee can impose? Please tell us. This is material to the price of Qantas shares and instead of telling the ASX they’ve whacked it in the footnote of a press release! It is just shocking.
Last week, Herald Sun reporter Ben Butler stumbled upon another footnote, previously unnoticed on page 44 of Qantas’ 2022 annual report, revealing that Hudson’s “superannuation benefits are provided through a defined benefit superannuation plan”.
Hudson joined Qantas in October 1994, back when the airline was still government owned. She joined a division of the Qantas Super scheme which was closed to new members in April 1995.
Under that scheme, Hudson is entitled to a lump sum payment upon retirement of at least 9.3 per cent of her final fixed annual remuneration multiplied by her years of service. For instance, if Hudson resigns as CEO three years from now, after 32 years of service, her cheque will be at least $4.8 million (in addition to her short- and long-term bonus shares). That figure will continue to snowball the longer she remains CEO.
When Hudson assumed the job two weeks ago, the $920,000 fixed annual remuneration she received as CFO increased to $1.6 million.
Stop and think about this. Her final super benefit will now rise by at least triple the amount of that base pay increase. Happy days. If she departs in 2026, this will have delivered her an additional amount of at least $675,000 per year.
So Hudson’s base pay to 2026 is not really $1.6 million, it’s at least $2.4 million – which is 4.5 per cent more than Alan Joyce’s was in his 15th year of service. That is just Vanessa’s get out of bed money, her price for turning up.
Why wouldn’t Qantas chairman Richard Goyder negotiate a much lower base salary for Hudson to adjust for her top-up benefit? Was he even across it? Hudson would scarcely have been drawing it to his attention. She would’ve been fairly confident based on recent form that Uncle Rich, Mr Detail, would miss the whole play.
Is this the humility Goyder was promising? Vanessa’s too humble to brag about being in the defined benefit scheme. She doesn’t want the rest of us to feel bad!
It’s an extraordinary situation. Hudson is surely the only chief executive in the ASX 100 on a defined benefit and, also true to form, the Qantas board has not disclosed any of the particulars of this entitlement to shareholders.
It wasn’t even mentioned in Hudson’s new contract terms lodged with the ASX on May 5. Unless the footnotes to that contract were written in invisible ink, that is; perhaps you can only read them when you’re standing inside an airport body scanner?

Detained in the ether

This from an airline that has remorselessly chipped away at its employees’ pay and conditions. We’re adapting pay for productivity, we’re modernising our labour agreements, we’re getting rid of ancient work practices, except for the highest paid worker in our labour force.
On her first day in the job, Hudson flew from Melbourne to Sydney in Economy. The emptiness of that gesture is just glorious. She sits in Economy but also in the First class super scheme. She flies 90 minutes in Economy, but that’s the only perquisite she’s economising.
She’s in the cafeteria having coffee with Qantas pilots at 5am as they arrive for duty. A few silver-haired captains would be in the same super scheme – maybe it’s a little club they have, even better than the Chairman’s Lounge. They start at 5am because it takes the rest of the day just to figure out how to spend it all.
Keep in mind that my calculations of Hudson’s defined benefit rely on some unverifiable assurances provided by Qantas, which, given recent form, are dangerous to accept on face value. Hudson’s entitlement could actually be a lot higher than this.
Qantas’ 2023 annual report has been detained in the ether. Goyder is still working out how to look like he’s docking Joyce’s bonuses while really setting them aside to pay him later. But there’s a second factor behind the delay. The audit committee is still tracking down a cryptographer fluent in Egyptian hieroglyphs to compose the footnotes on Vanessa’s real entitlements. There’s a Qantas delay worth waiting for