One Mr T.J- now with Q.F , who was known at Ansett as a desk thumping megalomaniac, pushed extrememley hard to get the ratio changed fron 1:36 to 1:50. It just happened to coincide with the introduction of 100 seat CRJ jet for Kendall Airlines. It was his cost saving dream to operate these aircraft with 2 cabin crew instead of 3.
Probably because he is widely known as a total W@#nker his pleas to CASA were thankfully denied.
No doubt this will be tried again in the future , particularly with the widespread development of the one class, low service model in Australia.