Alan AND lovely Livvy not happy
Don't think this has been posted elsewhere:
From the Australian
Alan Joyce tell-all book: Qantas to urge blocking publication
The speechwriter for Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce threatened to “go feral” if the airline blocked her from publishing a new tell-all book.
Qantas has urged the NSW Supreme Court to stop the publication of the manuscript, by author Lucinda Holdforth, titled Fighting Words.
Lawyers for Qantas argue the manuscript should be suppressed because it contains confidential information that would damage the airline.
Holdforth sought official approval from Mr Joyce and the airline’s marketing and corporate affairs manager, Olivia Wirth, to publish the manuscript on March 14, 2015.
In an email to the pair she said the manuscript was her “personal speechwriter’s take” about the airline’s decision in 2011 to ground its fleet during a stand-off with its workforce. She said it was about the lead up to, and aftermath of those events.
“It is fundamentally a study of your leadership Alan, and of Olivia’s exhilarating command of the communications strategy during one of Australia’s biggest corporate crises,” she wrote.
However, the airline applied yesterday for an urgent interim injunction to prevent Holdforth from publishing the manuscript.
Supreme Court judge Patricia Bergin has delayed the hearing until 2.15pm to allow the parties time for discussions.
Holdforth has been an employee of Qantas since February 2008 and during that time attended confidential strategy meetings with senior Qantas managers.
She was responsible for writing Mr Joyce’s speech during the 2011 grounding and was also a speechwriter for Mr Joyce’s predecessor, Geoff Dixon, and former Qantas chairman Margaret Jackson.
According to court documents, as part of her role she had frequent discussions with senior Qantas managers and was privy to market-sensitive information from the airline’s finance, commercial, group strategy, communications and industrial relations divisions.
The documents reveal she allegedly threatened one of the airline’s senior internal lawyers that they should work with her to get the book published or she would be forced to “go feral”.
Holdforth’s $165,000-a-year part-time role at Qantas is now under a cloud, although she has not been sacked.
According to court documents, Holdforth had informed Qantas executives, including Ms Wirth that she was writing the book prior to March of this year, and between 2011 and March 2015 took time off to write.
In an email to Ms Wirth last Friday, Ms Holdforth said Fighting Words would enter the public domain. “It’s now a question of how that happens,” she wrote.
She said the airline had two options — to grant permission for publication of the book by the University of Queensland Press, and she would make changes to assuage its concerns. She also offered to sever her formal ties so the airline could distance itself.
Alternatively, she said Qantas could refuse permission and take legal action — which she would ignore and release the manuscript online. She said Qantas could then return to court calling for her to be fined and jailed for contempt of court.
“I hope sanity prevails and this can be finalised without further nonsense,” she wrote.
Holdforth is also the author of True Pleasures: A Memoir of Women in Paris and Why Manners Matter: The Case for Civilised Behaviour in a Barbarous World.
A spokeswoman for University of Queensland Press said: “This is not a title currently contracted to UQP.” However, she declined to say whether UQP has been in discussions with Holdforth about the manuscript.
She told Fairfax recently that the manuscript was a memoir of her life and experiences as a speechwriter.
Qantas said in a statement that senior staff in all companies were “aware that discussions and internal documents covering a range of topics are confidential to that company”.
“Ms Holdforth ignored that duty to keep such material within Qantas,” the statement said.
“She has written a manuscript seeking to exploit for personal gain confidential internal information that she was privy to.
“Qantas had no option but to take action to prevent Ms Holdforth from breaching her obligations to the company”.