It has already been shown in other industries that "last on first off" falls down as soon as the employer comes up with something along the lines of "we would have to retrain half the company and that will send us broke, better 180 tactical redundancies than 30000 out of work"
Very convenient when it suits them.
AJ's response was that jobs were not being off-shored, rather they ceased to exist, that business was shutdown, and
new businesses overseas were then being opened. (see the Leigh Sales 730 interview). This is clearly to make the quote above "work", to justify redundancies in direct contravention of the EBA.
In effect, labour is being immobilised, while capital is being off-shored. Is it not the clear intent clear intent of the Qantas Sale Act to prevent such an outcome?
A blind eye has been turned to the breaches of the Sales Act as the longhaul operation was slowly but constantly driven into the ground through "benign neglect". However, it is the politicians that have now been caught with their pants down.
They have been deliberately put between a rock and a hard place - a contrived "crisis". They have been put in the position of either enforcing the act and allegedly "bankrupting" Qantas, or being "forced" into amending the act to legalise current practice. There are only two options for the politicians either enforce the act, or amend it to allow the capital & jobs to be off-shored.
Ultimately this is a "political" problem, and will end with a political solution.