Qantas Sale Amendment (Still Call Australia Home) Bill 2011

[nlagalle]

Could Senator Xenophen please not act like he knows everything?? He can't even get the aircraft models correct!

 

[medhead]

Or required exactly the same for ALL other airlines in Aust and those operating in/out of Australian airports
DJ do not do heavy maintenance in Aust & from newspaper reports pay maintenance staff & crew less

Should not the Government ensure an even playing field.
And as DJ do not have CL all pollies should loose the CL cards

We need to remember that qantas was formerly owned by the government and the qantas sale act basically sets the conditions of sale.

We should also remember that this bill is highly unlikely to get passed. So there is no real need to be advocating greater government interference in private business


Sent from my iPhone using Aust Freq Fly app so please excuse the lack of links.

 

[TonyHancock]

Well that is from the commentary about the bill not from the bill itself. So bit hard to claim the amendment isn't grammatically correct.

It is from the bill itself. I know it is a little hard to believe. I did a double take when I read it. :shock:

 

[Danger]

Xenophon has information (not that it's hard to come by, I guess) that Buchanan is a director, since 2009, of Singapore-based New Star Holdings, which is the holding company of Valuair and Jetstar Asia.

Xenophon is now questioning on JQ flight crew. One Asian-based (I think it was Singapore) claims his entitlements were withheld by JQ after he spoke out over cabin crew conditions.

Buchanan said of the four cabin crew who spoke out, three have been re-contracted.

Xenophon asked if Fair Work Australia is investigating conditions of Thai and Singapore based cabin crew operating in Australia.

Buchanan said "we have four or five flights a day" that begin a international leg and then continue domestically, primarily through DRW and CNS and "they help build viable services". Xenophon is questioning specifically of JQ 58 SIN-DRW-CNS, where customers clear customs in DRW and continue to CNS with the international crew "on $400 a month". Buchanan said that $400 is "completely false". Xenophon has asked, on notice, details of what international crew are paid. Buchanan adds "our Thai cabin crew are paid 10 times the average salary and 17 times the minimum wage".

Buchanan: "The average duty length for someone in BKK or MEL . . . is almost identical".

 

[Danger]

Xenophon asked Joyce if the board has had discussions about closing down QF international. He said no but they have had discussions about canning routes and restructuring, saying "we fundamentally believe" that restructure is necessary. "We're spending $2.5 billion a year on new aircraft". Joyce believes the Asian plan will turn around Qantas international "in three to five years".

Xenophon: "you are planning to shrink the flying kangaroo out of a number of cities, aren't you?"

Joyce: previously mentioned LHR reductions, adding LHR is heavily slot-restricted with the slots "rented to BA for three years". "We've kept the slots . . . we wouldn't have done that if we didn't believe we could start growing QF international again".

Xenophon reads from paperwork allegedly saying QF seeks approval to basically have a wholly-owned QF subsidiary to operate routes to Germany and from Thailand, Hong Kong and Japan.

"I can say categorically that we are not replacing Jetstar to Frankfurt . . . or Hong Kong or Thailand".

 

[Danger]

Xenophon: questions in relation to the grounding of QF last Saturday and whether Joyce had any view, leading into the AGM last week, that QF might be grounded. Joyce said he had no view, adding there was a belief that "the board and management" would be "rolled by the shareholders".

Xenophon: "So it was a board decision?"
Joyce: "No, the decision was a board-endorsed decision. It was my decision".

 

[Danger]

Joyce has a "$40 million capital limitation" on what he can spend, without board approval. (Wow.)

But on the operational side, "I have complete autonomy on what we need to do because I have to make decisions every day about what can cost the company tens of milliions".

Xenophon has probed very definitively on Joyce's seemingly-amazing autonomy.

Senator Gallacher now questioning.

 

[serfty]

I was specifically referring to the 49% ownership requirement as per what I quoted. As I understand that is already in place via the existing qantas sale act. I can't see bolding on iphone but none of the quoted text mentions the 49% ownership requirement as I read it. ...

In which the reference to the "bill needing to change" has little to do with the topic of this thread - that is already written into an act.

This thread is about changes to that act imposing additional restrictions as indicated.

I have changed the color of the bolded bits in my previous post to blue.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Buchanan said "we have four or five flights a day" that begin a international leg and then continue domestically, primarily through DRW and CNS and "they help build viable services". Xenophon is questioning specifically of JQ 58 SIN-DRW-CNS, where customers clear customs in DRW and continue to CNS with the international crew "on $400 a month". Buchanan said that $400 is "completely false". Xenophon has asked, on notice, details of what international crew are paid. Buchanan adds "our Thai cabin crew are paid 10 times the average salary and 17 times the minimum wage".

Buchanan: "The average duty length for someone in BKK or MEL . . . is almost identical".

JQ58 SIN/DRW/CNS is the only flight whereby pax remain airside in DRW & clear customs in CNS. Ditto for outbound JQ57 where pax clear customs in CNS & remain in transit in DRW.

I don't know whether the crew only do SIN/DRW/SIN with another crew doing the DRW/CNS/DRW or whether they do the entire flight.

A friend of mine who was a DRW based F/A with JQ used to do back to back DRW/DPS/DRW, DRW/SIN/DRW, DRW/SGN/DRW five or more days in a row. She'd arrive home about 0900 get a couple of hours sleep & have JQ Ops on the phone calling her to come in early for her duty that afternoon. No wonder JQ couldn't hang on to staff as that kind of flying was exhausting & not sustainable.

All other flights MNL/DRW/SYD, DPS/DRW/BNE, SGN/DRW/SYD, SIN/DRW/MEL all pax clear customs in DRW before continuing on domestically.

I know on 3 occasions when I have flown JQ82 DRW/BNE (which originate ex DPS) the crew have all been overseas crew apart from one flight where there was one Australian F/A.

 

[Danger]

Senator Cameron (Labor) asked whether Joyce's position would have been "untenable" if it did not endorse the grounding decision. Joyce said it's a hypothetical and he had the board's endorsement.

Senator Abetz (Liberal) is following on from Xenophon's questioning on the grounding.

Senator Gallacher again (Labor) asked how many aircraft have been put into QF service this year. Joyce said he will take that on notice. "One A380 costs us over $300 million. That's the cost of five A320s that are going to JQ".

 

[Danger]

JQ58 SIN/DRW/CNS is the only flight whereby pax remain airside in DRW & clear customs in CNS. Ditto for outbound JQ57 where pax clear customs in CNS & remain in transit in DRW.

I don't know whether the crew only do SIN/DRW/SIN with another crew doing the DRW/CNS/DRW or whether they do the entire flight.

It seemed clear - and indeed was a point of Xenophon's questioning - that the Asian-based crew do the entire route, hence his line of questioning on conditions.

 

[Danger]

Joyce seems to be defending the decision to purchase A380s over the 777s. I'm fairly sure he said the original model could not fly to LA but the 777ER could. However, by that time, QF had committed to the A380s.

"Today we have this order of A380s that precedes the cost of the 777s . . . The A380 is the clear winner." Lots of defence of aircraft choice, including the 787.

Gallacher: "What's the average age of the Qantas fleet that the public travels on?"

Joyce: I'd have to take that on notice. I do know that the vast majority of the money we're spending is on the Qantas fleet".

 

[Danger]

Joyce: "We've got the second largest order of A380s. The second largest order of 787s".

Joyce: "Qantas has taken seven new 737s this year and another two that are arriving this year and another 16 in the next two years and half of those are replacements".

Gallacher questioning on the grounding. "I've been told by people that Qantas booked 2000 rooms in LAX, 800 in SIN . . . and couriers engaged to get letters out to employees' homes" prior to the decision was discussed with the board.

Joyce: "We book hotel rooms all the time because airlines of our size have disruptions".

Joyce: "Three of our PR people were at the races in Melbourne . . . had to book Virgin flights to get back to Sydney" in defence of questioning that the grounding was pre-meditated.

 

[nlagalle]

Joyce seems to be defending the decision to purchase A380s over the 777s. I'm fairly sure he said the original model could not fly to LA but the 777ER could. However, by that time, QF had committed to the A380s.

"Today we have this order of A380s that precedes the cost of the 777s . . . The A380 is the clear winner." Lots of defence of aircraft choice, including the 787.

Gallacher: "What's the average age of the Qantas fleet that the public travels on?"

Joyce: I'd have to take that on notice. I do know that the vast majority of the money we're spending is on the Qantas fleet".

Correct. The 777 didn't have the Range to do SYD LAX.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Buchanan said "we have four or five flights a day" that begin a international leg and then continue domestically, primarily through DRW and CNS and "they help build viable services". Xenophon is questioning specifically of JQ 58 SIN-DRW-CNS, where customers clear customs in DRW and continue to CNS with the international crew "on $400 a month". Buchanan said that $400 is "completely false". Xenophon has asked, on notice, details of what international crew are paid. Buchanan adds "our Thai cabin crew are paid 10 times the average salary and 17 times the minimum wage".

Buchanan: "The average duty length for someone in BKK or MEL . . . is almost identical".

Bruce your Thai cabin crew may be paid 10 times the average monthly salary but that could easily be $400.00 a month. The comparison should be about Thai based salaries vs Australian based salaries for doing the same job on flights to/from/within Australia.

Whatever the average or minimum salary is for a Thai person working in Thailand should not come into the equation.

 

[medhead]

It is from the bill itself. I know it is a little hard to believe. I did a double take when I read it. :shock:

Ah ok Actually thinking about it you've reminded me about amending some legislation once. The language police told me that I couldn't use "shall" as it was archaic and the public don't understand it. I almost died when I heard that, closely followed by much swearing. Maybe this bill was drafted by similar language brain boxes.


Sent from my iPhone using Aust Freq Fly app so please excuse the lack of links.

 

[Danger]

Gallacher has asked Qantas to provide, on notice, to provide the courier order for couriering letters to QF employees on the lockout.

Joyce says he has a note from CASA saying they are being 'watched' with regard to the industrial action and its impact on safety.

Joyce defending the decline in share price, referring to the profit-making of QF during the past few years of aviation hits.

Joyce: "The Asian airline is not going to use [cost] one single Australian job".

Joyce: "We only have 18% market share. Eighty-two per cent of travellers travel on another airline".

 

[serfty]

...

Whatever the average or minimum salary is for a Thai person working in Thailand should not come into the equation.

Actually it should, as that's part of the problem.

The question Xenephon should asking is "How much an FA working for Air Asia X gets paid in relation to the average or minimum salary of thier place of residence?".

 

[lovestotravel]

Correct. The 777 didn't have the Range to do SYD LAX.

Does that include V Australia, Delta or Air Canada ?

 

[Danger]

Joyce: "Our cash flow at the moment is $1.7 billion. We're spending 2.5".

Returning to the booking of hotel rooms, Joyce said he's told that "there was no more additional rooms booked" as a result of the grounding. Senator Sterle (Labor) then said it must be common practice for QF to book 2000 rooms in LA on a Friday night. Joyce said he would take that on notice.

Joyce: "Our cash flow at the moment is $1.7 billion. We're spending 2.5".

Actually it should, as that's part of the problem.

The question Xenephon should asking is "How much an FA working for Air Asia X gets paid in relation to the average or minimum salary of thier place of residence?".

I'm trying to get a senator to ask that question but I think the retort from Buchanan would be 'we don't have access to the wage rates of other airlines'.