The delays started last week which was a few days before the QF9 incident, so doubt it is a flow on effect from that.
What I was thinking myself was some issue related to the fitting of the premium Y seating, but cannot work out why Qantas is just allowing it to effect QF1. You would think if they had a capacity issue (which clearly they do with the 744's) they would let it effect some of the other flights, which like QF1 have large catch up time at their destination and not just let it bugger up QF1.