With late upgrade opportunities for commercial passengers, the chances of upgrades for staff passengers on Qantas international services has significantly decreased.
On all 3 recent sectors to and from DXB and LHR, there were 25 - 30 First & Business class seats 3 or 4 days out from the flight. By the time the flights departed there were 2, 4 & 3 seats remaining.
The dilution of business & first class is not due to staff. What is now happening is commercial pax are accepting upgrades for a far smaller premium than had they purchased the higher class outright. A number of pax are now buying the lower class fare and using seat availability information thats easily available online, gambling that they'll be offered an upgrade a few days prior to the flight.