What did he expect with a Datsun?
I don't see how the car analogy works, because modern cars are a lot more complicated to work on than the old beasts. My first car was an 80s model and I did most of the servicing myself. On the rare occasion that it needed a mechanic it got taken to a classic small garage which was pretty much three grease monkeys, a hoist, rattle gun and a toolkit.
On the other hand, I wouldn't touch a thing on my spoofy new car. Even if I knew where to start, the risk of stuffing up one of the high tech new systems is too great. It gets taken to a workshop that looks like something out of the space program where they plug in computers and all sorts of stuff.
As for not going wrong, everyone's got at least one war story about how the car computer wigged out and stalled the thing, or the fancy gearbox decided that second gear's the best option at 110 kmph, the de-ice engaged in the middle of summer, the air bag system chucked a tanty... the list goes on. And you can still get all the blown hoses and leaky stuff that the old bangers suffered with.
You can barely change a battery on a new car without risking the computer...so it has to go to a mechanic. Therefore, you need more service people, not fewer. Maybe the ALAEA should use the same analogy...
That said, neither Joyce nor the rest of the Qantas Board seem like FYI car types...
