Qantas recruiting has a long history of rejecting a multitude of outstanding operators while accepting the village idiot. Of course, this phenomena is not restricted to QF.
Although I haven't done the testing, my observations over the years of who gets taken and who gets rejected leads me to believe that Qantas recruiting is a random number generator.
Qantas has many fine operators, yet the rejection of excellent pilots and the acceptance of dubious ones is a clear indication it's selection process is derelict.
The subject of this thread was widely respected by both management and underlings at Ansett and is one of the most capable and pleasant operators I have ever flown with.
If he applied to Qantas, after the Ansett collapse, and was subsequently rejected, it would have to rate as one of the biggest stuff-ups in Qantas recruiting history.