Sunflower,
you are totally correct in everything you said, people are being discriminated against because of the fact that they can't get time off to attend a QF interview, the answer " no " from QF simply shows the attitude to the recruitment process they are showing this time, they obviously don't care if there are fantastic applicants out there, all they care about is that people turn up to the group interview sessions they have organised and they will choose the best of those applicants for positions who were lucky enough to have the day off or whatever ! The reason why they can do this is because they are QF and people fall over themselves to get selected for a position. The fact is that QF have made a total cock up of this initial process, the fact that some people have been rejected for interviews after a phone interview and some have been invited to second stage without a phone interview just goes to show what an unorganised mess this is. Quite simply it is now clearly obvious why no-one at QF cabin HR will answer the phone, nice one guys - nice "spirit " of Australia you are showing.
For some people 5 days isn't enough to organise a shift swap or time off from work to attend an interview and on top of that organise airfares and accomodation during this busy time of the year for everyone.
I feel sorry for the people who go through this process to only be offered a fixed term contract at the end of it.
Sorry that my comments are harsh but having to watch people VERY close to me almost get into tears due to the stress of this whole thing makes me unhappy.
GOOD LUCK TO THOSE WHO SUCEED !
CB