Richard Goyder’s Qantas pantomime swansong

Richard Goyder has elected to take an excruciating route to the inevitable.
Joe AstonColumnistOct 11, 2023 – 7.30pm

And the scales fell from Richard Goyder’s eyes.
This was a major shift from the Qantas chairman, to accept that he was part of the problem.
Six weeks ago, as the ACCC’s deceptive conduct lawsuit landed with a thud, Goyder denied that Qantas’ transgressions were serious enough to demand “knee-jerk reactions”. He was maintaining the delusion that Qantas’ problems were being blown out of proportion, having previously maintained the delusion that Qantas didn’t have any problems at all.
Five weeks ago, as Alan Joyce left the airline early, Goyder brought out his limited edition eau de parfum, Humility by Uncle Rich™, and insisted, “I think my role in [Qantas’ turnaround] is pretty important”.
Three weeks ago, Goyder reckoned, “people want me to continue to do the role, and I think I’m well suited to do it”, adding that “compared to almost any airline in the world, Qantas has done a pretty good job”. A spritz of moral relativism to complement the humility?
Two weeks ago, Goyder told the Senate he retained the confidence of “about 14 of [Qantas’] top 20 shareholders”. That confidence didn’t last long, if it was even construed correctly in the first place.
So, Goyder elected to take an excruciating route to the inevitable. His may have been a noble intention to repair the mess, but it always betrayed a failure to comprehend his own agency in the ugly decisions that caused it.
But he got there, he shifted, he went from microdosing reality to shooting it up. On Wednesday morning, he said: “OK, it’s over honey. Let’s just be civil and adult about this and do what’s right for the kids.”
Deluded Uncle Rich may have been the character he’s played in recent months, but that is not who Richard Goyder is. He’s been in denial, but he is not dumb, and he didn’t get here without some innate good judgment.
It takes a lot to accept that the problem is you, but it clearly dawned on Goyder that he could genuinely satisfy his desire to do the right thing. The real tell there is how quickly he cleaned out Maxine Brenner and Jacqueline Hey and provided clear air for a high-quality board to be constructed around Goyder’s successor. Investors will love that, as they should.
All of these realisations were available to Goyder a month ago. He needn’t have lost acres of skin in the public flayings or a full week in back-to-back meetings being yelled at by Qantas shareholders.
He was clearly in shock. This doesn’t normally happen to people like him, to people whose trajectory has only ever been up. As we’ve said before, Goyder has spent his entire career not preparing for this moment.
Up there on the very, very tip of the corporate pyramid, it’s a feedback loop of unreality. There would’ve been almost no friction in Goyder’s life. Even planes would wait for him. As Qantas, AFL and Woodside chairman, it’s a world of no inconvenience and utter acquiescence.
Non-executive directors are also beholden to the quality of information that company management provides them. In so many cases, boards place their trust in executives who feed them bull****.
That is no excuse for directors not to go out and sense-check their information, and now that Goyder’s back with us in reality, it’s blindingly obvious that is the first thing he should have done. Let’s hope he finally kicks some of those no-hopers up the arse on his way out the door.
Goyder’s reluctance to accept his predetermined fate is also very easy to understand on a human level. He just didn’t want it to be true. Who would want to give up the chairmanship of Qantas? That is a trophy, and nobody gives up their trophies lightly. Accepting the marriage is over takes time because we had so many happy times together. This was so good for me! I loved this!
A hallmark of Goyder’s management style is to slow everything down, to shoehorn milestone events onto his own ponderous timeline. We’ve seen that in the CEO successions at Woodside, Qantas and the AFL, and even in renewal of the AFL Commission. It is supposedly a symptom of steady long-termism, but is incredibly one dimensional.
Slowing everything down at Qantas became untenable weeks ago, but Goyder was the last to realise it. Being long-term isn’t helpful in a crisis. A long-term plan to extinguish a wildfire will not save anyone from burning alive.
What will happen next is that a legion of carpetbaggers will turn up touting for the Qantas chair – indeed, for any spot on the Qantas board. A platoon of investment bankers will be pushing Goyder to install their spivvy mates who might later sling them mandates.
People will desperately want these jobs, and they will knock themselves out striving for the prize. Everyone might want to be Qantas chairman, but the person who wants it most or who lobbies hardest will not be the person shareholders need to do it.
This is actually where Goyder’s trademark approach, to slow things down and do them thoroughly, will play to shareholders’ advantage. He must get this right. Qantas is as complex as businesses get, and massive, top-down cultural change is needed in the organisation.
Goyder will consult widely because he won’t want to be Mike Wilkinsat AMP and appoint David Murray on a whim, or Lindsay Maxsted at Westpac appointing John McFarlane. No saviours here, please. We just need world class.
With Wednesday’s announcement, Goyder has ensured the Qantas AGM in three weeks will still be bad, but no longer a re-enactment of the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones. Make no mistake, Todd Sampsonwill be carried out in a box. He is going down. But Belinda Hutchinsonmay now survive, and retail shareholders probably won’t storm the stage.
Now that Richard’s joined us in the land of the living, he’s got a ripping opportunity here to stage-manage this pantomime for comic effect, to remind Doreen and Barry from Toowoomba who the real Qantas villains are.
He should get Alan Joyce back to warm up the crowd and soak up a few crates of tomatoes. Jetstar’s Steph Tully can hand out the tattoo removal vouchers. PR man Andrew McGinnes makes the perfect usher, officiously wielding his flashlight, a “Kick Me” sign stapled to his back. And Andrew Finch (or Lord Dovegrey Airmiles-Haughtipants, as Kaz Cooke christened him on X) will be the 3-Minute Angel, offering shoulder massages or free hugs to the army of pensioners. It would be truly priceless to see Finch endure physical contact with an actual commoner.
If he gives us a show, well, Goyder will have earned his director’s fee after all.