"Nobody does more to grow the pool of skilled pilots in this country than we do"
Another Dixon Classic.
Sorry Geoff, you do very little.
You take already qualified pilots from GA and the Military and use the experience they have for Qantas' gain.
You start cadet courses and the entrants must pay for their own aviation education. When they are finished you place them in positions in Qantaslink in the hope they can ameliorate the problems YOU cause by not giving YOUR Qantaslink pilots a decent career path. In one way though your statement runs true... you grow the pool of skilled pilots available for your competition to gratefully accept.
You start an airline that seeks to lower the wages and conditions of Australian pilots by employing pilots who are desperate for any life-line to keep their families in Australia and then screw them unmercifully, and when these tactics means that people think twice about actually applying to this airline, you seek to bring in foreign pilots, mainly from recently failed airlines who are also desparate for any job in a civilized country. You maintain this line even when many experienced pilots sit in mainline who could easily fill those positions under the provisions of an MOU you signed, but that would be a cost and an industrial backward step for you.
So spare us. The Journos never seem to question these utterances but those of us in the industry, who have seen the devastation you have wreaked on the working life of pilots in this country, are not prepared to let this one go unanswered.