The Script
Did Abbott & Hockey let the cat out of the bag on last nights 7:30 report?
Abbott of course can use "I booked to fly Sunday with family" Plausible deniability. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
I smell the "script" for the lockout was something along the lines of the following. Of course this is superstition:
Step 1: Qantas "backgrounds" the lockout in the Parliment house over the past few weeks. No direct contact with the government about the issue.
Step 2: Qantas goes live with lockout threat to government, threat must be seen to be credible.
Step 3: Qantas banks on Gillard using full powers under the fair work act to terminate not just the protected bargaining period , but also the industrial agreements for the three unions.
Step 4: [contingency] Implement lockout, seek termination at FWA
Gillard didn't play by the script in step 3, so Qantas had to go live with the lockout. It would appear that somewhere someone got the wrong signal about what the government would or wouldn't do with regard to its FWA unilateral powers.
Processes from here at FWA have the potential to be extremely messy for Alan Joyce, Olivia Worth, and Qantas. I'm sure coming into the next election campaign will figure very strongly in Gillards thinking. The government can score maximum points if it can kick a "rogue employer" in the nuts. Its use of "extreme action" by various ministers already highlights this thinking.