Costello feels heat on Qantas takeover bid
 

February 7, 2007

THE Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, came under concerted pressure from Government backbenchers yesterday to impose strict conditions on the Macquarie Bank-led takeover of Qantas.

About five Liberal and National MPs used the Coalition's joint party room meeting in Canberra to raise concerns about the impact of the takeover on the airline's 38,000 employees.

Backbenchers also told the meeting they were worried about the amount of debt Qantas would take on under the planned $11 billion private equity buyout, saying it would expose Australia's main airline to greater financial risks.

MPs speaking about the Qantas takeover included the Sydney Liberal MP and former state tourism minister, Bruce Baird, who has been a strong supporter of Qantas in the past.

Mr Baird said he was worried that if the takeover went ahead the new owners would put more pressure on the company to cut costs by relocating jobs overseas.

"It is critical to have guarantees against offshoring of jobs," Mr Baird said. "It is hard to get guarantees of actual job numbers being preserved but the issue is in terms of where they deliberately decide to shift jobs offshore, including jobs of flight attendants, back room accounting functions and particularly maintenance jobs."

The Victorian Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella also voiced concerns about the takeover.

It is understood she suggested the Government should reconsider its policies of restricting competition against Qantas on international aviation routes unless the new owners accepted stringent conditions to protect local jobs and air services.

Other MPs speaking on Qantas included the Queensland Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce, Western Australian Liberal Senator Ross Lightfoot and Sydney Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop.

Mr Costello told the party room meeting that the deal would be closely examined by the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Later he told Parliament that in addition to scrutinising the proposed buyout under foreign investment law, the Government would ensure that the Qantas Sale Act was "strictly enforced".

The Qantas Sale Act, which was the vehicle for the former Labor Government's privatisation of the airline, imposes requirements on Qantas including majority Australian ownership, Australian incorporation, keeping its head office and main operations centre in Australia and having Australians make up two thirds of its directors.

"I want to make it absolutely clear that all of those conditions will be enforced strictly and in full," Mr Costello said.

Senior executives from the consortium bidding for Qantas, Airline Partners Australia, continued meeting federal MPs in Canberra yesterday to explain their takeover proposal. But airline unions will bring a delegation of around 15 Qantas employees to Canberra today to lobby for conditions to be imposed on the takeover.

The Transport Workers Union and other airline unions have prepared a list of sale conditions including:

■ No reduction in employment in Australia in Qantas airline functions or any related Qantas company as a result of deliberate management strategies.

■ No reduction in pay or employment entitlements.

■ No reduction in regional airline employment as a result of changes to regional networks.

■ No loss of air services to regional destinations currently served by Qantas or its subsidiaries.

Movement at the Station....
 

Seniority has just gone up 50 slots..domestic VR.
LWOP being offered to both longhaul and the domestics.
Accelerated leave still happening.
NRT still in standing bids(Some Good News)
MAM language speakers and casuals making bigger inroads....
All this and the APA bid.
Good God I hope the Australian Electorate wakes up and votes little Johnny Turkey out.

Geoff "Gordon Gekko" Dixon
 

And the half yearly result is out tomorrow........should make for interesting reading....more bonus on top of a bonus for our esteemed executives?? :E

Defcon4,

"domestics" - are you refering to Shorthaul?

Or are you refering to Qantaslink?

Clarification
 

By "domestic"I refer to those individuals whose pedigree is TAA...Qantas by default only.
This exchange is redundant.
The answer to the question was known before it was asked.
Lets move on to more serious issues shall we ?
I will not be responding to anymore questions in regard to this subject.

Fact
 

I am in a long term relationship with a Qantas S/H CSM who is an ex TAA "hostess" who has a global seniority in the mid 200's and is WAY too young to retire, age wise .

What is the problems with all of you junior guys and ladies who were still at school when she was doing midnight horrors from Perth etc?

You must be a junior if your seniority went up by a whole 50 numbers.

You all work for the same company and need to look out for each other and keep all of your hard earned conditions, as my union says.......you inherit an award and need to hand it over to the next generation in a better condition than you got it.

The enemy is management.........not L/H and S/H infighting.

P.S, having done many L/H flights we are both in awe of how you deliver a service for up to nearly 12 hours eg SYD-PEK (we were in Y class) and still smiled and we met the Captain in the Silk market the next day he said that you all kicked on till 3 am he said, we paxed and were snoring by midnight.

Please, no infighting.

Global Seniority
 

I am under 50(just) and have been flying 27 years.
My seniority is in the 400s
Your girlfriend is either lying about her age or you are looking at the wrong seniority list ie.the purser list only.

47 yo, global seniority as per CIS seniority in mid 200's and joined in late 1977 (according to her ATSIC)

Your Point?
 

As you can see I am NOT junior and my seniority jumped by 50 so your assertion about junior people complaining is incorrect.
So what exactly is the point you are trying to make?

Stop the L/H and S/H division and look after each other, and remember a CSM is a CSM not the Naval term of Purser.

Look out for all FAAA members and utilise your seniority to ensure all new members join the Union.

The olive branch is thrown out, please unify all QF cabin crew for the long term.

It Will Never Happen
 

It has been tried several times over the last 10 years and failed miserably each time.
So as much as I sympathise with your sentiment, events(bastardry) over the last 3 years have meant that unity is and always will be a fiction.
If you are interested in the events to which I refer they can be read in other threads which were ultimately closed because these events are provocative.
Now....where were we? aaah yes.....the current sadness

How the worm turns
 

Have just heard a rumour from a S/H colleague that there is a fairly large SURPLUS of shorthaul crew (particularly in SYD ) and guess what??

What does Qantas usually do when they stuff up their crewing levels !

DIRECT LEAVE.

Get ready for it guys , we had to put up with this disgraceful act ( LSL burn)

Now its your turn.

Apparently ,there is scope in your EBA7 to direct if you have OVER 28 A/L days.

Happy Holidays;)

Deal Done with the Devil
 

No wonder DW resigned.
The domestics are now paying the price for the Deal Done with the Devil
Its doing to be high price too....oblivion.... just like the rest of us

grahamm...Maths
 

If your girlfriend is 47 now she was born in 1960.
If she started with TAA in 1977 she must have been 17.
A little young to be a flight hostess?

This argument is a redundant one as we have been over it time and time again..

It does not matter whether this person is real or not or 47 or 107.

I don't really care if s/h disappear from the face of the earth.S/H don't care about us and we have to look after ourselves but not fight with them because thats exactly what the company want.

The real enemy is the company and the divide and conquer tactics they use.

A perfect example of this is FRA.The other day we arrived and the company has stiffed us on a lunch allowance.The tech crew still got it but not the cabin crew.They did a similar stunt the other day in NRT as well.

The FAAA email said that the cabin crew department and ops had nothing to do with it but if you believe that you probably still believe in Santa.

Notice how little we hear from Lusly Grunt theses days , it seems as though someone else is pulling the strings.

The company love to divide and conquer and we have to take the fight to them and be proactive and not react to them all the time.If we have a chance on radio or any media we have to put the boot in and not wait for them to put us on awa's.

According to her "ATSIC" card????

She's a Torres Straight Islander as well?

It would be great to get our hands on those cards ...We'd never have to work again

Oops, too many wines last night,
She joined TAA at 19 in 1977, born in 1958 and I believe the card is an ASIC card which I wish I had so as to be able to grab the jump seat when plane is full.

I hope the sale doesn't go through and AWA's get thrown out

QANTAS must maintain its travel routes in the event of being sold, Business Council of Australia president Michael Chaney warned yesterday.

His call came as speculation mounted that a part-owned Qantas subsidiary, Jetstar Asia, which flies to Asian cities from Singapore, was in financial strife.

And for the moment Qantas does not face the headache of a Senate inquiry into its sale, after National Barnaby Joyce voted against one last night, saying the Foreign Investment Review Board review should do.

The business intervention came as unions said they received commitments from 90 per cent of Government backbenchers to lobby for the protection of Qantas jobs and services.

Private equity consortium Airline Partners Australia has made an $11 billion takeover bid for Qantas.

Mr Chaney said the new owners should retain regional and international services — as Australia, being so isolated, depends on them.

Mr Chaney also feared the surge of private equity takeovers could unravel if there was an economic downturn.

His comments came as delegates from the Transport Workers Union, Australian Services Union and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union met Coalition MPs in Canberra.

TWU national airlines co-ordinator Scott Connolly said 90 per cent of about 30 backbenchers canvassed had promised to write to Treasurer Peter Costello, asking for conditions on the sale. The delegates will see about 15 more MPs today and are seeking protection for workers' jobs and entitlements, onshore maintenance and frequent flyer points.

Jetstar Asia, meanwhile, has racked up more than $100 million in losses since its start-up two years ago, with the airline having apparently failed to take on Qantas arch-rival Singapore Airlines on its home turf.

The airline cancelled 30 per cent of its scheduled flights yesterday and its other subsidiary, Valuair, cancelled 50 per cent of its services out of Singapore, amid talk in the aviation industry that the airline is looking to jettison some unprofitable routes.

Jetstar Asia spokesman Ai Ling Ng denied there were any problems. Qantas head of corporate affairs Belinda de Rome said the carrier had no plans to quit its 44.5 per cent investment in Jetstar Asia-Valuair. A spokesman for the Airline Partners consortium bidding for Qantas rejected talk that it would scuttle Jetstar Asia.
--------------------------------------------


Interesting that Darth and his apprentices believe that they are entitled to a bonus when their idea has cost the group more than $100 million....I wonder if the new owners will be as forgiving with that sort of management performance.At the moment Darth may be numero uno but if APA take over he has to answer to a new boss who wants a (fast) return on $11 billion

stubby jumbo

The yearly number crunching surplus for short haul was announced in early Jan from memory (after we were advised in early Dec that we were so short staffed that the FAAA was holding urgent meetings with the company to address the shortage) and was also in cabin crew news, so this is not anything new.

Unlike long haul crew enough short haul crew traditionally take up the options which are LOWP 6 months, Temp part time 6 months, adhoc LS and Holiday leave to cover the surplus without being forced onto directed leave but if that was possible so be it, not much anyone can do about it. However crew are already being knocked back for adhoc leave requests and generally when the "surplus" occurs it means more drafting etc for crew.

The difference is short haul are a lot more flexible and are willing to work with the company to manage the surplus that occurs from time to time throughout the year. Furthermore our casual crew somewhat protect permanent crew when a surplus occurs.

So I wouldnt get to excited about exacting your petty revenge just yet!