Shotgun Wedding

[WorthWhat]

At long last, a proposition that provides Qantas and the Unions with the opportunity to agree change neither will effect unless the other agrees.

Full marks go to Ian McIlwraith @ The Sydney Morning Herald for suggesting the unthinkable.

Read all about it at: Qantas needs a marriage made in Canberra (http://www.smh.com.au/business/qantas-needs-a-marriage-made-in-canberra-20120118-1q6gu.html#ixzz1jrJf7b1R)

Please don’t #*!% it up.

[blueloo]

Utter tosh. Another bit of QANTAS media manipulation.

They have proven they are not able to run an airline.

They have proven they have been manipulating the airline for their own personal gain - and even found wanting and incompetent in this area.

Do you really think these brain-trusts can successfully merge an airline (which practically doesn't exist anymore)

[gobbledock]

Worthwhat, intersting link indeed.
I like a few specifics of the reporters article, such as :
It never happened, largely due to irreconcilable differences over how to defuse the ''Canberra issue''. Politicians boast their love of Qantas because they feel the public love it too (although statistics and blogs are less convincing). Sometimes love is not enough, particularly when you have an open-skies policy that allows pretty much any airline access to Australia. I don't beleive that the open skies policy is benfiting our national carrier or Australian business. It is about time that our weak minded spineless Politicians lived up to the role of their employment contract - 'To act in the best interest of their constituents'. In other words - look after our own nation first, including businesses, people, taxpayers and our future rather than bending over for the rest of the world.
I also like this part of the news article;
Changes in corporate law always seem to be more concerned about finding new boxes for directors and managers to tick each year, rather than shedding any more light on how public companies are being run for investors.
The step backwards in disclosure that has come from cutting back on revealing the remuneration of a company's highest paid individuals, rather than just the most senior executives, is a striking example of lobbying by vested interests winning out over common sense.
The Australian Securities Exchange's rejected partner, Singapore Exchange, has at least one rule that is long overdue here: the disclosure form on the appointment of a new director.
In Singapore, the board must detail not just the basics of name, age, and country of residence, but an explanation as to why and how the directors were appointed, and an exhaustive list of their prior work, as well as relationships with other directors and investors in the company (including in-laws).
The format in Singapore also asks whether the directors have any prior experience as a public company director - and, if not, what they plan to do about that. As a result, when Koon Holdings appointed Ang Sin Liu to the board, investors were informed that Ang was a former controlling shareholder (and father of the controlling shareholder, Ang Ah Nui).
Far more useful information than castigating directors and company secretaries for having been five minutes late in revealing inconsequential shareholding changes.
Imagine the disclosures here if a similar rule is implemented: ''candidate Smith is a member of the Old Boys Club, to which four other board members belong, and was judged worthy''. Superb, best suggestion yet. Our Government should change the QF sales act to ensure the company remains viable, yet there should be clauses added within the Act that covers items mentioned in the above. No more cart blanche mates rates/nupty appointments and hidden remuneration packages and greedy corporate trough swilling allowed. An all transparent, effectively oversighted process should be mandated. Enough is enough.

Apart from the obvious it is about time QF, or more specifically its managers were brought to account. Yes, a strange concept for some but what is required is 'Accountabilty'. Currently these individuals have absolutely no accountability to anybody anywhere. Sorry QF grubs, life doesn't work that way in the real world. The rest of us need to keep on pushing and pushing and applying endless pressure on these turds.

Quite simply: 'How can anybody justify the executives and board being allowed to exist when they have contributed to a decline in marketshare, a decline in profits by 71%, allowed massive hikes in corporate salaries that do not fit within the scope of their actual performance, grounded an entire operational fully functionable airline on the basis that some unions wanted executive heads on a platter, destroy a national icon, and embark recklessly on ridiculous product decimating strategies'??

It is time for the Senator to ramp things up. Time is ticking.

[ohallen]

The Senators are powerless and despite some really strong personal efforts the Govt flicked them off with hardly any effort.

The sad fact is that this Govt is somehow in bed with the Rat and will not act or involve itself in any way because they have no principles or policy agenda beyond staying in Govt.

The AJ/Clifford agenda has been spun to the investment banks and they are the ones who now have the power and what chance does that give when today's press shows Goldman Sachs actually bet against their own share price and lost last year. Muppets comes to mind if you accept there was no other agenda which was highly likely as they spin us again.

Sad fact is that save some act of chivalry, these guys are going to drive the Rat into the wall while they take short term gains.

The fact that there is no credible media interest in these goings on beggars belief and proves the value of freebies.

[Ngineer]

Sad fact is that save some act of chivalry, these guys are going to drive the Rat into the wall while they take short term gains.

They will drive the rat into the pockets of private equity villians. Then we are all screwed.

[hotnhigh]

consultants+private equity=load of excrement.
http://www.myiris.com/newsCentre/storyShow.php?fileR=20120116184141200&dir=2012/01/16

Plenty of big words in the article.

[flyingfox]

WorthWhat? Worth-nothing I'd say. What Qantas and other Australian carriers need is some support from the Government. Ending unfettered access to Australian markets by all comers would help for starters. (You can imagine the interest in Canberra if politicians were subject to competition from cheaper overseas suppliers.) Nothing in Australia will be worth doing if overseas cost are the only measure of value. Law, medicine, accounting, construction.... all can be done at a better price if cost is the bottom line. Most professions operate under 'legal' protection from the State. Pilots aren't part of the 'in crowd', so their industry is an open slather, international bun fight. Just regulating capacity would be a start. If an overseas carrier can justify their flights by the extra 'home grown' traffic they generate into Australia, then that should roughly be their capacity allowance. There is no level playing field for aviation companies in Australia. Australia actually 'taxes' it's local companies in many ways. It imposes regulatory charges in order to operate as an Australian Company. It taxes the workers in a way that is uniquely Australian. Protection is a way of life in our country for any enterprise deemed worth keeping on-shore. Surely aviation should come under that umbrella to some extent. The high value of the Aussie Dollar encourages overseas holidays for many of us here. At the present rate of increasing foreign access to the Australian market, in a few years not one of those holiday makers will depart on an Australian aircraft.

[WorthWhat]

If you can get the ‘Globalisation Jennie’ back in the bottle Foxy, the workers of the western world would surely worship you, and you would deserve it.

If however, such a lofty ideal can’t be achieved, trust you will support other empathetically minded aviation professionals who would like to see as many Australians as possible employed somehow repelling offshore competition not of Qantas’ making.

Good luck to you.

[Nassensteins Monster]

Competitive tax treatment:
1. Allow accelerated depreciation on assets in a similar fashion to our direct competitors' home governments. The airline can participate in fleet renewal. We don't have to make fleet decisions that must serve us for 25 years in such a fast-paced world. We shouldn't be spending mountains of money in fuel and maintenance costs flogging around decrepit 80's technology gas-guzzling clunkers or putting lipstick on the pig. Instead we could be investing in the right aircraft for the airline - replace the B744s with B777s.
2. The introduction of the carbon tax saw compensation and assistance to trade-exposed companies. What could be more trade-exposed than a national airline operating in an open-skies environment? Surely the Canberra clique saw that the introduction of open skies without a commensurate relaxation of some of the reams of tax law and the red tape that binds the national carrier would eventually bury the airline under the flood of capacity broought in by our more favourably treated competitors? No?