....Qantas claims that the union job security demand would mean Jetstar pilots would end up being paid Qantas rates...
Yeah, AJ, Olivia, and all the rest of the crowd barricaded up in the QCA building know full well this is totally false. Yet they continue to peddle it anyway because, to be brutally honest, it's about all they have to cling to at the moment.
Jetstar pilots get Jetstar pay. Qantas pilots get Qantas pay. Plummet Airways Asia (or whatever the wholly owned Qantas Group subsidiary will be called) pilots will get Plummet Airways Asia pay (5 pesos/stick hour, 50 pesos in the slot to use the inflight loo). That has always been the case with the longhaul pilot claims. What longhaul pilots want is the equivalent of food labelling laws. You can't legally claim a burger pattie is 100% Aussie beef, sell it as such, and then put 100% processed Kazakhstan mutton offcuts in it. The same should apply to flying planes.
I think a lot of the media are gradually wising up to the Qantas corporate spin, but of course it's pretty competitive getting airtime and column space with everything else going on these days.