![](https://i0.wp.com/newcatallaxy.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Jacques-Onfroy-de-Breville-1-870.jpg?resize=583%2C770&ssl=1)
This is almost too funny.
This is almost too funny.
All Bruce wanted to do was enjoy a little snow time and get his end wet. It is a tragedy.
A gift, most likely, to be returned unopened … duuuuh!
Tongue. Eeeew
A journey in numbers FOUR months away… TWENTY-THREE countries: Mauritius, South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde, Las Palmas, Greece, Tunisia, Malta,…
Good moaning, back to work for some of us but croissants don’t grow on trees you know.
Have nice day-week as the cousins keep saying.
I don’t have to do that because in this liberal democracy we have agencies like ACCC, imperfect as they may be, that are tasked with doing this. Enjoy your evening/morning.
We retreated to a small village called Glifa for an overnight rethink. All of central Greece was flooded with very bad headlines So we spent several hours working out our options, and decided on bring our flight forward…back to Oz on Monday night.
Travelling back to Athens was weird, like something out of an “end of the world SF movie”. Very few cars on the main A1 super-highway, and police roadblocks for anything going the other direction – eg: outwards from Athens and northwards. Freeways empty. Cars going the other way were lined up, with police advising them and generally turning them around. But there was one constant – Mrs TE guessed we would have six tolls, we were up to 5 with 100kms to go. They varied from 90p through to seven euros.
We gave car #4 of our travels back to Mr Hertz, and found an Air BnB in a seaside area of Athens. Flying the excellent Qatar Air again home.
Top Ender
Sep 11, 2023 2:08 AM
I feel for you for missing parts of your holiday, things happen, better luck next time.
I don’t travel by air, but my children and friends love Qatar, excellent service and even now, reasonable price.
Flying the excellent Qatar Air again home.
And the Empty Crates Mob are quite good as well.
As to ‘Quiantarse’. well Airbus/Boeing Tennis Elbow can get his ‘jollies’ on that one along with the Chairmans Lunge treats.
John Spooner.
Mark Knight.
Peter Broelman.
Christian Adams.
Peter Brookes.
Michael Ramirez.
A.F. Branco.
Al Goodwyn.
Henry Payne.
Matt Margolis.
Lisa Benson.
Thanks Tom. I like Spooner’s Airbus/Boeing Tennis Elbow Lizard.
Von der Eurotrash pushing her commo agenda-evil old woman
Spare a thought today for those who perished in 9/11.
“Spare a thought today for those who perished in 9/11.”
A dreadful day.
I see Ramirez’ TDS remains unabated.
Twenty two years ago, everyday people were still sound asleep, some with bags packed for their early morning flights, others with work clothes ready on hangers, perhaps lunches packed. Street sweepers wended their way along the kerbs in their night time cleanup, fire fighters were starting their graveyard shifts.
Meanwhile, others were wakeful. They had a plan to commit an unspeakable crime on innocent civilians. They too laid out their equipment for the task – harmless to anyone but ideological perverts.
Here in Australia, as dawn broke on the 12th, received the horrifying pictures. The night owls like my husband had watched, transfixed, from the early hours. Something is happening in America was all he said, a shocked face half a world away.
We are still experiencing the fall out from this today.
Further to the old fred, there are clearly a few here on this august blog who would be happy with a censoring media, as long as that media censors according to their tastes, their whims and their desires. My response to this? No, and it’s equally as dangerous as having an MSM fully captured by the left. I don’t want a one sided media. I don’t want a right-wing Nine Media, a right-wing ABC, a right-wing SMH, I want robust media outlets, be it broadcasting or print, that provide platforms for all opinion, and then people can make up their own minds.
There is more diversity on Sky than on their ABC. The best newspaper in this country, The Australian, tries to balance both left and right in its opinion pages. Which is why I buy it. I don’t have a problem with Chris Kenny or Mavis Bramston writing their pro-Voice propaganda, For every hysterical Kenny piece on da Voice, there are more measured pieces from Paul Kelly, Janet A or Dennis Shanahan. However, I draw the line at Dribbler Sheridan. He should be put out to pasture, he’s now just an embarrassment. They should leave foreign affairs to Adam Creighton, who’s much more nuanced.
Back to Peter Costello and Nine. Firstly, Costello is no Kerry Packer or Ruperdink Murdoch, he doesn’t own the company and he can’t directly interfere with opinion, programming and so on. His role is purely commercial, to keep Nine commercially viable. Costello can’t do what lonely old Rupert did back in April and fire Tucker Carlson. Oh and further to this firing of Tucker, that’s a classic example of a proprietor directly, and some might argue catastrophically, interfering in a media organisation’s operations. How did that go? Well, I say, not well, not well at all. Secondly, my understanding was that when Nine purchased the old Fairfax staples, that there was an agreement for the “Fairfax” staples, be it The Age and SMH mastheads, to remain editorially autonomous. The Nine media group includes such radio stations as Radio 2GB, and I’d hardly describe 2GB as “left”.
“We are still experiencing the fall out from this today.”
That fall out will continue for decades.
Odd how you get times wrong. In NYC, it’s only 5:30pm. It’s the “see you tomorrow”, “drinks after work” and pick up the kids time of day. Subways full, clattering home, a bit of shopping, working out what’s for dinner.
All those everyday things you do, heedless of tomorrow’s realities.
The great weight of evil and malice behind the attacks still has the power to shock me. Make today count, don’t ever waste it.
Almanac, you called Q and Joyce frauds. In this liberal democracy you need to provide evidence for these accusations. This isn’t your China, old pal.
We were still up when the first reports and images came through, watched it all unfold in the next few hours. At the time we had a visitor from Canada who was alarmed at the cessation of global flights though by the time she was due to go home normal flights had returned.
During the 2003 visit to New York ground zero was still just a ruined pit. On the 2014 visit the new building was up as well as the memorial reflecting pool. I said a prayer for all the victims of that day.
Sky is the only channel with diverse views programming. Channel 7 leans to the centre but has no specific non-left programs though is still better than the rest of free-to-air channels.
Adam Creighton is good value and is very measured when interviewed on Sky, not simply repeating CNN garbage like the vacuous Annelise Nielsen.
Oh, you are a card. Tell that to all the people who have been called racists by our betters simply for opposing a constitutional change.
Sophie Elsworth such good value: in the OZ
Last there in summer, 2019. The site is sombre, but busy. Nothing stands still, and neither should it. It’s a living city, not a museum.
The pools, marking the buildings’ footprint, have a waist-high coping. It’s sloped and carved with the names of those who perished. Not in alphabetical order…the placement is far more poignant and thoughtful. They are grouped with their workmates, remembered in death as they last stood in life, with the people they spent their days with.
The coping is punctuated with the occasional flower. A birthday, an anniversary, something significant. It’s powerful and emotive, and that’s not a bad thing.
I don’t want media outlet that lean either left or right. I want media outlets that offer opinion from both sides.
The History Channel had a doco on this morning which consisted of home videos of New Yorkers on that terrible day 22 years ago. It was raw and gut wrenching. Never forget.
Six years ago I was in New York and had a flight that day to Toronto. The TV had the service where the name of every person who died was read out one by one. Driving across Manhattan to Newark Airport the solemn atmosphere was evident. I just hope that time does not diminish the memories too much.
Remainer Brookes’ Brexit breakout would probably lose something
if he made mention of some of the other H.E. members.
Like Israel.
And New Zealand.
Sophie again — updated from yesterday’s article
Crossie
I don’t get the logic. Extend your thought a little further. We should call Q and Joyce frauds because the left are using unfounded slurs against NO voters. Is that where you want to be. Moreover our old China thinks one of the most useless politicised entities in the country (ACCC) is a reliable entity. Really?
Can’t be any mirrors in Ms Sales’ house.
Wasn’t QANTAS making fraudulent bookings in part at least to deny others from using terminals?
“most useless politicised entities in the country (ACCC)”
Yep.
I want media outlets that allow uncensored comments.
Goose, gander, sauce.
Are you prepared to put up your house and super to indemnify them if your published comment is libellous?
Dot
Q came out of mothballs with all sorts of teething problems such as serious staff shortages etc
The only way to measure their performance is to put them beside other airlines and see how they went. Try the US airlines. It was the equivalent of a late term abortion. Q has done well in comparison.
Joyce made a few mistakes, but he’s not a fraudster which was what almanac was suggesting.
Also on this day in history, though not as profoundly shocking:
1914 – An Australian naval & military task force occupies the colonial German capital of their New Guinea territory, leading eventually to a mandate from the League of Nations for Australia to govern the same. (Japan scored German territories further north).
1943 – Australian troops begin the reoccupation of Salamaua, on the Huon Gulf of New Guinea, dislodging the Japanese after 18 months. Lae & Finschhafen followed, eventually leading to the clearance of the Huon Peninsula. When the Americans occupied the opposite shores (Western New Britain), the way was clear to initiate a north-western momentum.
Tinta beat me to it (above):
Headkicker Sophie Elsworth has taken over The Australian’s Monday Media Diary – a much needed credibility boost for a news source that had become little more than a gossip column for journos.
Today, Elsworth takes issue with 3AW’s new Drive host Jacqui Felgate, who’s little more than a walking social media billboard for a range of products over which she has not yet declared any conflict of interest:
(To save you scrolling up)
In my opinion, Felgate can’t ethically run the Drive show without strict observance of the professional ethics that apply to journalists. Felgate has been a journalist for years if not decades as she previously worked for the Seven Network, where she was the weekend sports presenter.
But she’s now behaving as if the rules don’t apply to her.
Crossie
You’re arguing we should punish innocent people in order to payback the left.
No, we shouldn’t do that as it’s wrong.
Joyce behaved like a woke idiot at the end but I’d be very careful to call him a fraudster. Over the years he did an incredible job running the airline.
Dependence on a utopian ‘balance’ in the mesozoic media will lull conservatives into a false sense of security. What is required is to understand our audience as well as/better than, our opponents. It’s inarguable that our message delivery & associated tactics are woeful.
I’m surprised that sales were not linked to stock levels at Qantas and that the software didn’t allow for the absence of product but still permitted a sale.
It may be that airlines do their sales differently to most other businesses but this is pretty basic stuff.
The renewables industry is cracking apart. Local suppliers are floundering. And here we go, the only answer is more taxpayers money to prop up uncompetitive businesses?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-11/wind-tower-companies-and-unions-want-local-procurement-guarantee/102837748
Are you claiming that Joyce didn’t know about the bookings for non-existent flights? And if he didn’t then how was he such a brilliant CEO? Joyce may be lots of things but innocent he is not.
I think there might be different ramifications between claiming a particular major corporation and its CEO behaved fraudulently and labelling everyone who might anonymously vote no racists.
Neither is acceptable but I suspect only one potentially ‘actionable’, as one great former cat sage might have suggested.
Energy Bill Authorises “Reasonable Force” to Install Smart Meters that Allow Authorities to Turn Customers’ Energy On and Off.
Andrew Bridgen MP | ULEZ and Net Zero
From the Beaby-Sea
Voice Referendum: Lies Fuel Racism Ahead of Australia’s Indigineous Vote.
It is as expected.
Werent there lots of cancellations because covid quarantine rules meant staff were unavailable well beyond normal provisions for sick leave?
I recall it was chaotic.
I guessing a commercial operation would have preferred to fly the planes than not.
Interesting that Leigh is only concerned about activism journalism now that their audience share has slumped. There must be a lot of uncomfortable conversations at Ultimo.
Correct, JC.
Joyce transformed Qantas into the mega-successful airline it has become — a task that was too hard for his predecessor Geoff Dixon.
He didn’t need Uncle Luigi’s help, but he got it anyway because Qantas worked out that the prime minister would respond less than ethnically to certain inducements.
Elbow can’t suddenly start complaining about the Australian political playing field where leading companies are forced to take political positions to curry favour with the government. Elbow and his predecessor Scott Morrison authored Australia’s new fascist economy.
The Problem with Smart Meters -Worldwide Testimonies
They are not compulsory here but you wouldn’t know it from the correspondence from providers. I think I already mentioned that I received a letter of from Origin last year stating that my meter would “updated” on such and such a date and please be available. I rang and said that I did not want a smart meter and only then did they admit that it wasn’t compulsory.
It would be helpful to know the timeline between sales and cancellations. If it’s only a matter of days, that’s conceivable. If it’s weeks or even months, then the issue becomes one of incompetence and perhaps malfeasance.
Ticketing systems are pretty sophisticated. It’s not is if physical vouchers are still widely used – it’s all automated. And those programs would have already been in place well before Covid. A flight cancellation would result in a “hold” on sales, a simple computer function.
Qantas isn’t the only airline to be grounded for so long. I know BA had endless problems with cancellations, and still do. Did they also sell many…many tickets for flights cancelled well prior to the sale?
I’m claiming that you look first before crossing a busy road.
I’m claiming that if an extremely complex operation comes out of mothballs after a two year lockdown it’s not going operate as a well oiled machine.
That’s what we were told about Pell.
Tom
Get wodney to give you 1099 ticks for the last comment. Well deserved.
The Guardian is all over it, 8000 instances of selling tickets after a flight had been cancelled, when the transport industry was nuts.
The ACCC are out to punish a company that lost billions due to covid chaos.
Yet it sounds like an overloaded system problem to me.
Can they point to this happening pre covid, then they might have an argument it was deliberate.
The average time was two weeks.
There is no point in comparing internationals who were all flying around long before Australia opened its borders.
international tourist arrivals since 2010
Sen. Johnson to Newsmax: Obama ‘Fully Aware’ of Influence Peddling
Tim Blair:
Tom Switzer had Shireen Morris on his RN program on the weekend. She is a keen Voice advocate.
She put up a word wall when he pointed out that the Yessers describe it as a modest, measured request but also a profound, transformational change. How can it be both ?
Alexander Downer was interviewed as well and made some knockout points.
Rosie, the only problem I have is a simple processing one.
Cancel a flight, hold ticket sales – the moment the decision is made, the system is activated. A keystroke or two. This is not difficult, because someone decided to cancel the flight. That someone in operations has access to the scheduling and sales via their keyboard.
It sounds as though this simple but vital element was left for later on and someone else – which is basic incompetence.
I for one, will never fly with quaintarse again. Too much arrogance in the way it’s staff are made to treat us.
I am also not a fan of Branson, but I am ok with his airline. At least the air staff appear to be friendly.
Fraud? Dunno, that one can be tough to prove. That leprechaun though, what a prick.
Why? Their operations systems are all similar.
They had willing eager partners. The totally innocent Australian Business didn’t get their arms twisted to get in bed with the Govt.
The only reason this soft fascist partnership manifested was because they mutually benefited. Govt gets Business to go into bat for it’s Green/Woke/Vax agenda and Business can “encourage” Govt to impose regulatory hurdles that restrict/suppress competition. That’s the Aussie way.
The same Leigh Sales who two weeks ago wrote an advisory memo to ABC staff on how to deflect claims that the Uluru Statement was not a mere one page document?
From Sancho’s link.
If Trump Doesn’t Win in 2024, He Won’t Just be the Last Republican President Ever. He’ll be the Last Republican — PERIOD!
How can Trump win a fixed election?
I dont know how Qantas systems were coping. I’m guessing in the circumstances of unprededented demand and staff, including adminstrative staff, testing positive to covid, there may have been system problems.
I doubt it was as simple as a keystroke or two.
I believe Martha’s Vineyard is a welcoming place.
With many soon to be empty dwellings as the northern summer nears its end.
Just back from my Monday swim .. age (75) starting to catch up, usual 1km but more breast stroke than freestyle laps nowadayz .. 6 months ago 20 free, 3 months ago 10 + 10 and today 15 BS & 5 Free ..
“Joyce may be lots of things but innocent he is not.”
Judge, jury and executioner.
Internationals didnt have the problem of being hit with a sudden surge in demand for flights in 2022 after two years of Australian border closures, coupled with stringent exclusion rules for positive tests.
Europeans had been flying around since at least May 2021.
I’m not going to assume fraud simply because post covid there was a lag between flights being cancelled and bookings being taken.
You too, Rosie
1098 upticks
Wods is going to have a busy morning.
Oh and a little perspective, it was 8000 bookings out of a total of over 21.25 million passenger journeys in 2022.
Yea, one for the “a farty breakfast with acrid tears” & ‘da woodchippa’ crowds to consider re: malicious and fraudulent investigations undertaken by “hero cops” like Gazza Jubelin, etc.
Let’s say I book a flight from Sydney to Melbourne at 4:30 p.m. on 30th September.
That flight is cancelled, but Qantas has other flights available on that route.
Is it wrong to retain the cash and offer alternatives.
I think the problem with long standing flight credits is that they regarded them as captive fares to be dealt with at leisure.
If they can sell seats for 50% more than my credit is worth, they are going to keep bumping me.
Almanac, you called Q and Joyce frauds. In this liberal democracy you need to provide evidence for these accusations.
Sad to see when folk just ain’t mooovin’ wiv the times ..!
PROOF is sooo 2019-ish .. nowadayz post-BAT FLU all that is required is the “accusation”
rosie
If a bank has 200 bn transactions in a month and has 800,000 questionable transactions in the same period, you cannot dismiss them as mere errors.
These claims need to be investigated (and they may be totally baseless). If the terminal access was intentionally compromised for competitors then QUNTAS may be in deep doo doo.
Djokovic is now GOAT in slams.
Stick that up your arse NY Bidenites.
Echoes of Alan Jones and “Cash for comment”? But not showing the same enthusiasm for complaining as when they were attacking a class enemy?
Brutal:
In time, the Western narrative about this war is going to be absolutely exposed as a series of deceptions, lies and obfuscations.
Where did I suggest it wasn’t worthy of investigation?
It’s offered up as fraud, no question. Alan Joyce fraudster, no question
That is the issue.
If QAN systems are anything like banks I expect it take months to get anything done. I also expect someone in management knew the problem was occurring and decided to allow it to continue. I am not sure that would have been the CEO (it should have been but I would not be surprised if it was not.)
The other possibility is provisional cancellation.
An undersubscribed flight is *cancelled* subject to more bums on seats, then it is reinstated should sufficient tickets be sold.
As for “simple keystrokes” it’s amazing what they can achieve if a system is programmed accordingly. Seems to work for other complex businesses.
Op shopping yesterday .. hard cover copy of Lisa Wilkinson .. IT WASN’T MEANT TO BE LIKE THIS .. $2.00 …. gave it a miss ..!
it isn’t fraud
it is theft
Calli, the ACCC has created more problems than it has solved, but I have fully supported its new rules that ban companies from lying about their products and services in their advertising.
The ACCC is talking about fining Qantas around $250 million for selling seats on flights that it never had any intention of operating.
For a company making north of $2 billion p.a. in annual profits, that’s not a disincentive. To get the new CEO’s attention, the fine will need to be $500 million+.
ACCC chairwoman Gina Cass-Gottlieb is just a wealthy corporate lawyer whose uncle Moss Cass, was one of the radicals in the Whitlam regime. That’s why she got the job.
Cass-Gottleib is no friend of Australian consumers. Her weekly shopping is covered by a luxurious expense account. Being Moss Cass’s niece, she is, I expect, an enthusiastic supporter of Australia’s skyrocketing domestic electricity bills because it is helping to bring down capitalism. Like the rest of the wealthy elite, household budgeting is not her problem.
But I hope the fine Qantas is forced to pay breaks a record.
“I don’t want media outlet that lean either left or right. I want media outlets that offer opinion from both sides.”
+1000
Yes, I want REPORTERS to report what is known, who said what etc. I don’t mind some opinion JOURNALISM, but I want REPORTERS first and foremost.
How long before Adams starts shining a spotlight on the New York skyline with a bat shaped symbol?
As you’re here, JC, I favour a G & T nightly in this vale of tears. Same as the old Queen Mum, and she held on till one hundred and one, still smiling. Role model. 🙂
read The Age … where journalistic kiddies are given group assignments
2 for the price of 1
mem
Sep 11, 2023 8:50 AM
The renewables industry is cracking apart. Local suppliers are floundering.
It’s not even an industry. It’s a racket that even the Mafia would be proud of. Guv’ment (Taxpayer) sponsored as well. Although the Taxpayers are only now slowly waking up to the scam. FFS.
Another server error.
We flew home Qantas Business Class from our recent stopover in Seoul, Korea.
Worst Business Class flight evah.
from the RedBridge poll last week…
Imagine, if you will, a referendum to change the constitution to enshrine the right to taxpayer-funded federal subsidisation of golf course membership fees.
Can you imagine 16 percent of voters saying that their main reason for supporting the subsidy of golf courses was that the proposal “was initiated by Anglo-Saxon people”?
It would not happen. Nobody would think for 5 seconds that golf course subsidies should be supported simply because the people asking for it were white.
The most generous interpretation here is it’s just more evidence that 16% of the country are as thick as two short planks. They might even be a bit racist.
What do you cats hear in your social circles?
Are people talking about the racist aspect of the Indigenous Voice To Parliament?
Okay…what are the normal, everyday words that have been banned? I’m trying to post a comment without swearing, anger, nastiness or any of the other garbage that floods these august pages. Yet it is refused.
I dont know how Qantas systems were coping. I’m guessing in the circumstances of unprededented demand and staff, including adminstrative staff, testing positive to covid, there may have been system problems.
I doubt it was as simple as a keystroke or two.
Of cvourse it was! .. the program(s) weren’t affected by BAT FLU or staffing .. allowing a system to keep selling non existent flights is, obviously, inbuilt into the program, with forethought .. a deliberate fraud …….!
Interesting times around the Vitrioli Skelton kitchen table.
“How was your day Dear?”
“Not good.”
During the 2003 visit to New York ground zero was still just a ruined pit. On the 2014 visit the new building was up as well as the memorial reflecting pool. I said a prayer for all the victims of that day.
And some of those victims were Muslims.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Sep 11, 2023 9:54 AM
We flew home Qantas Business Class from our recent stopover in Seoul, Korea. Worst Business Class flight evah.
Why?
(not pro-Q. Just interested.)
calli
Sep 11, 2023 9:57 AM
Okay…what are the normal, everyday words that have been banned? I’m trying to post a comment without swearing, anger, nastiness or any of the other garbage that floods these august pages. Yet it is refused.
Maybe it’s the AI.
Nothing wrong with shared bylines, MT. It’s standard industry practice.
The problem with The Age is that:
a) It is now a workers collective that can get editors fired on a shopfloor vote. Therefore, editors aren’t allowed to edit.
b) Every story The Age runs now has a political purpose. At The Age, “public interest” is so last century.
Anyways…off to Stitch n’ Bitch for the first time since July. Might do a straw poll on the Voice, although I suspect everyone except the politicians are Voiced-out.
😀
Always better to demonstrate actual intelligence than the artificial sort. People can always tell.
Real Deal on Saturday morning posted an article on NT jackery and its recent antics:
The Northern Territory’s new top cop is pleading with almost 250 former police officers to rejoin the force in a bid to heal rifts in the organisation following a “tumultuous” few years sparked by a fatal police shooting and the Covid-19 pandemic.
To recap, a constable shot a career criminal wanted for a raft of violent badness in Yuendumu. At the time of the shooting, the cop was being stabbed by the crook with a pair of surgical scissors.
The NT government was tanking, and tanking badly. Three years earlier, Chief Minister Michael Gunner gave NT Assistant Commissioner Jamie Chalker a lucrative job in his Department of Housing, heading up delivery of houses in remote locations – on yuuuge cash, it is said.
Gunner then parachuted Chalker into the Commissioner’s chair after the departure of Reece Kershaw (now the AFP honcho). Chalker got the nod ahead of Michael Murphy, and there was – and remains – substantial discussion that in exchange for the big jack chair Chalker owed Gunner, and owed him big time.
Chalker had to pay out early. Very early indeed. That constable was then directed to travel to Darwin from Alice Springs, where he was arrested, and parked up in the cells before being charged with murder.
All of this happened without a single statement having been taken.
The main problem with The Age is exactly the same as at Fauxfacts. It is just too expensive to kill off.
On “smart meters” .. I’ve had one 2 maybe 3 years .. never noticed any additional difference to my usage on the bills .. I got that sort of letter from AGL about access .. came home one day and a small plastic oblong thingy with wires attached on the side of the electric box & a note in the letterbox to say dun .. and that was that ……..!
Thanks for your comments, KD.
“Are you claiming that Joyce didn’t know about the bookings for non-existent flights?”
I’m not a lawyer, however it seems to me that:
1) if customers acknowledged they had read the T&C’s, and said T&C’s “covered” cancelled flights, that’s perhaps not the best customer service, but probably OK;
2) if Q NEVER had a plane and/or staff (pilots etc) ready to fly it, but still sold tickets, then this looks bad;
3) if Q kept selling tickets after they had decided to cancel the flight, then this looks bad.
II.
It is said by some in certain circles that Chalker ran the police as his own personal fiefdom, and that his peeps effectively had to swear undying loyalty to him personally – much in the manner of an Austrian painter some decades back.
Covid was perfect for him. He turned up to daily pressers behind the same Chief Minister that gifted him the job, and issued various edicts along the company line. This went on for so long he believed his own press.
The jacks themselves did not enforce mandates to anywhere near the extent of their southern counterparts. From speaking to a few, they spent their time driving around with self-imposed blinkers, ‘not seeing’ people driving around or walking their hounds, etc. No doorknocking (although that may have been recorded in their paperwork), no nothing. The few protest marches in Darwin were a relaxed affairs, with jacks at intersections joking with protestors (including yours truly).
Chalker did, though, remove the jacks who didn’t get hit with the jab/s because they failed to respeck his authoritah – i.e., a directive he gave them. Some resigned, and some challenged him – more on that shortly.
We are thinking of trying out Qatar Airlines sometime next year for another European trip in summer 24. Hope they get more flights from Oz by then. Hairy’s booked us already for travel next March to the US, (using Delta I think to Puerto Rico), to pick up a Caribbean and South America cruise, coming home flatbed via Santiago on Air Chile. We’ve flown Business with them before and they are good.
We generally take Business Class for long haul trips. Shorter hops we do in daytime, sometimes in Premium Economy, sometimes just Economy and go straight to an airport hotel to recover.
Lanair Chile is now Latam. An amalgamation, with Brazilian input.
An Endgame for the Ukrainian War w/ John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen
Excellent discussion. Addresses NATO enlargement, negotiations with Russia will have to address the European security architecture not merely NATO membership and neutrality of Ukraine, and so on. Must listening.
Flew Qatar Airlines to Europe in 2017. Highly recommended.
III.
“We saw a lot of resignations, through and post-Covid,” Mr Murphy said.
Yep. This is the reason every police force in the country is both running short of applicants, and taking everyone that applies, regardless of dunderheadedness.
I contend that cops join the cops to lock up crooks. They do not join the cops to enforce health policy dreamed up by unelected mediocre bureaucrats.
One of the very first things Murphy did was reinstate, with back pay, five of the abovementioned cops who challenged Chalkers directive to jab or get sacked. Evidently, and although it’s early days for Murphy, this has earned him substantial goodwill.
The 51-year-old said he planned to reshape the force’s leadership now that positions in the executive are opening up with Assistant Commissioner Bruce Porter and Deputy Commissioner Murray Smallage retiring.
Porter and Smalpage were part of the inner circle. Yes men to the core apparently, so mu so in Smalpage’s case that Chalker brought him over from the WA jacks as his deputy. There is very good mail that two more of Chalker’s Top Men will be gonski in the next month or so.
From people that know him – Murphy is not the messiah, and he is starting with a very low bar by replacing the most unpopular Commissioner in 150 years. However, it’s a decent start and time will tell.
Good to see Sky News fighting back over fact checking.
Would be interesting to look back at the fact checking of Sky presenters in 2021 in relation to vaccine matters. Pretty sure they were silenced for saying things that were or later found to be true.
*so much so*
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Sep 11, 2023 10:17 AM
Try flying with Emirates as I have heard that their Business Class is good. I flew with Qatar from London onto Colombo on Business Class in 2018 and it was very good.
All pre the Virus I know and I suspect that the Virus disruptions and lockdowns haven’t helped the current situation one bit.
I had a bad experience with Quaintarse recently and will never fly with them again.
“… Qantas worked out that the prime minister would respond less than ethnically to certain inducements.”
Far be it from me to point a spellink misteaks, but this is amusingly Freudian IMO.
Known antivaxxer wins US Open tennis.
I watched that entire presso on YouTube yesterday DB… it was quite good viewing but also scary to see the pickle the West have gotten themselves into…
The West, who have made so many promises to Russia (since 1994) regarding Ukraine not entering into NATO have really burnt their currency. And on the flipside, Russia are also in a pickle as they have no real clear delineation as to what a “win” looks like…
Why Trump Is STRONGER Than EVER!!! with Rich Baris!! with Steve Turley
Good discussion of the current situation electorally for Republicans, generally, and Trump, particularly.
ACCC tells us it was 8,000 flights, not bookings. So, unless QANTAS was cancelling an extraordinary series of one pax flights, we appear to be talking 100’s of thousands of paid bookings.
Roughly 25% of the total flights scheduled in that 3-month period.
I’m neither an aviationist nor a booking system IT specialist – and certainly not a shill for the ACCC. But if this kind of system outcome wasn’t deliberate, or was tolerated because of convenience (and a neat way to boost working capital), then QANTAS’s defence is probably going to have to centre on ocean-going management incompetence.
Or possibly a distraction squirrel.
In the bran new cat world computer system errors don’t exist.
We don’t even know any details of how those 8000 bookings were made but we do know it was fraud.
I’m going to assume! that far many more people got booked on to cancelled flights but accepted alternatives. Is it only fraud if you chose not to take another flight and wanted a refund or are there thousands more fraudulent bookings hiding in the Qantas supercomputer?
H B Bear
Sep 11, 2023 10:28 AM
Known antivaxxer wins US Open tennis.
And good for him too.
Tom, the answer isn’t fines.
They will flow to Treasury with the ACCC angling for a cut.
The correct remedy is refunds to the customer with extra added compensation for inconvenience.
“Would be interesting to look back at the fact checking of Sky presenters in 2021 in relation to vaccine matters. Pretty sure they were silenced for saying things that were or later found to be true.”
They were, the biggest scalp silenced was one Alan Jones. And people like Craig Kelly, George Christensen and others were regarded as persona non grata. To be fair to Sky, they were being targeted by leftist scum (who were targeting advertisers), including those two big turds, Rudd and Turdbull.
Agreed Faustus, could be a real problem. A lot of it is just noise and people giving the Leprechaun a kick as he makes his way out the door. Plenty of brand goodwill being done too. Long overdue IMO.
But if this kind of system outcome wasn’t deliberate, or was tolerated because of convenience (and a neat way to boost working capital), then QANTAS’s defence is probably going to have to centre on ocean-going management incompetence.
Or possibly a distraction squirrel.
Round up the Usual Suspects. And there is a small one that has just walked out the front door with a nice swag of $$$$$$$$$$.
Book ‘im Danno’.
Oh I misread the article.
Still May June July kind of points to ocean going incompetence.
Legal question. Is it fraud if they took your money for a particular flight but offered you alternatives?
That’s me.
If it’s good enough for the political left* then by being fair and pure we just let them get away with it. They need to feel the injustice of it and to remember about presumption of innocence otherwise nothing will ever change.
*Even though Joyce is/was a business leader he is still of the left.
Sky v Media Watch, Sky v RMIT Factcheck …
“Seconds out the ring please.” Hard to think this is not a deliberate choice.
Bear
What’s your estimate of how many fliers Q will lose as a result . I’d say it will be unnoticeable all things being equal, but they aren’t equal because they have a sheila running the airline, which is asking for trouble.
Sure, you could argue they now have two
Sheilas back to back as CEO, but that’s a story for another day.
It was a free for all on entry. Noone to help with your cabin baggage. No sense of welcome, left to jostle with other passengers who were similarly treated. Find your own way with pillows and blankets, stuff your jacket into overhead yourself, and sort it out yourself re the meals tray. Fingermarks still on the TV screen. The fake champagne was warm. The orange juice was sour. The food was atrocious. Worse than meals we’ve had on other airlines in Economy – I kid you not. The choice was limited, they ran out of some things. You had to eat when they told you to and it felt like a production line. Cabin staff were unseen at any other time and were tardy in collecting the leftovers. If you wanted anything else to eat or drink you had to go hunt for it. The toilets were not kept very clean. No help with sorting out your bedding and putting the bed down. The cover was thin and not warm enough. No help to retrieve shifted articles from the overhead on arrival.
I think overall there was just a general sense of not caring, that passengers shouldn’t expect service, that near enough was good enough with everything, that there were no little luxuries in basics like pillows and covers and snacks, let alone the meals, and no thoughts about how to make you comfortable. No attentiveness. The contrast to Asian airlines was stunning, and that probably made it seem worse for us.
Here’s why Ukraine’s defeat could mean the end of NATO in its current form
The bloc has too much riding on Kiev’s highly-unlikely success, and that’s why it’s doing all it can to prolong the conflict
As the West’s proxy war in Ukraine slips inexorably towards utter failure, the neocons behind the debacle are faced with dwindling avenues of retreat.
Early confidence that Russia, in its current form, would collapse under the pressure of the harshest sanctions regime in history failed to materialize. Early Russian miscalculations on the battlefield were not followed by a military meltdown, but by a pragmatic display of strategic adaptability, which is begrudgingly admired in the military war rooms of the West.
The Russian army, far from falling apart, has steeled itself into making bold decisions to retreat when prudent and advance when required, both of which have proven devastating for their Ukrainian opponents.
It follows that, as the Western political elites that cultivated this conflict peer into another winter of political, military, and potentially economic discontent, it is now that we potentially face the most dangerous period in Europe since the outbreak of WWII.
The catalyst for a wider war in Europe isn’t, in fact, a limited conflict in Ukraine in itself, one that started in 2014 and, notably, had been largely ignored by Western powers for almost a decade.
The real issue is that NATO, which is currently engaged in a proxy War with Russia, is facing a ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ scenario regarding its growing military involvement in Ukraine.
If the US-led bloc escalates further as defeat looms, it could likely lead to direct confrontation with Russia. If it doesn’t, its proxy will collapse and leave Russia victorious, a fate once utterly unthinkable in Brussels, Washington, and London, but now becoming a nightmarish reality.
Such a defeat would be devastating and potentially terminal for the prestige and reputation of the whole NATO brand.
After all, despite the Soviet Union having long ceased to exist, the bloc still markets itself as an indispensable bulwark against imagined Russian expansionism. In the event of an increasingly likely Ukrainian defeat, that ‘essential partner’ in ‘countering Russia’ will have been proven utterly impotent and largely irrelevant.
More cynically, the vast US arms industry would also be denied a huge and lucrative market. So, how does a multi billion-dollar machine that has prophesied absolute victory against Russia even begin to contemplate defeat?
And how do senior EU bureaucrats like Ursula Von der Leyen climb down from their quasi-religious devotion to the ’cause’ of utterly defeating Russia, which she has shamelessly evangelized for over a year and a half? Lastly, how does the American administration, which has gone politically, morally, and economically ‘all in’ against Russia in Ukraine, contemplate what amounts to an increasingly inevitable European version of Afghanistan 2.0?
They will need to do two things: Firstly, find someone to blame for their defeat and secondly, find a new enemy to deflect public opinion onto.
The ‘someone to blame’ will be quite easy to identify – the narrative will be flush with attacks on states like Hungary, China, and to some extent India, who will be accused of “undermining the unified effort needed to isolate and defeat Russia.”
Blaming Ukraine itself will also be central to this narrative. Western media will insure it’s singled out as incapable of ‘taking the medicine’ proffered by NATO and therefore suffering the consequences, not listening to Western military advice, failing to utilize Western aid correctly and, of course – given that little has been done by Zelensky to tackle the endemic corruption in Ukraine – this fact will be easily weaponized against him and used to lubricate a slick narrative of ‘we tried to help them, but they simply couldn’t be saved from themselves’.
The ‘shift focus to another enemy’ narrative is the simplest and most obvious – that will be China.
NATO is already trying to expand its influence in Asia, including via a planned ‘liaison office’ in Japan.
The ‘China is the real threat’ narrative is bubbling steadily to the surface in Western media.
And, most worryingly, should Western powers fail to make their case for ‘plausible deniability’ around the culpability for this war, there is always the option of further escalating it.
Such an escalation could rapidly lead to direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, an outcome no lucid observer on either side of the debate could or should be contemplating.
The problem is, rational assessment and negotiation seem to have become so rare in Washington and Kiev that a devastating escalation could, quite remarkably, be considered an option by the deluded neocon think-tank advisers wielding disproportionate influence over an increasingly desperate political class in Washington and Brussels.
In the event that NATO does indeed sanction a direct intervention into Ukraine, it will, of course, be justified as a ‘peacekeeping’ or humanitarian intervention by Polish or Romanian troops, but the categorization of the ‘mission’ will become gloriously irrelevant when the first clashes with Russian forces occur, followed by a potentially rapid spiral into all-out war between Russia and NATO.
Looks like they are going to have to blast The Chook out. Stand back everyone please. No tidy Snaekers exit stage left here (no pun intended).
“How can Trump win a fixed election?”
Seems to me that all the charges and 14th amendment stuff is designed to get DJT off the ballot, and to hinder his campaigning – why bother if he can’t win?
Biden won by around 43k votes in the key swing states in 2020 – Trump won those same states by around 70k votes in 2016.
When even CNN says Trump is leading in polling, the left start panicking and will do whatever they can can stop him from winning – remember, for the left it is “whatever it takes”.
that’s what we need,
a national carrier where incompetence is its own reward
Yes. We’ve flown Business with Emirates and it was something of that standard that I regard as par for the course with this type of fare. Qantas didn’t match up at all, and as we’ve flown Qantas Business in the past it was obvious that the service had precipitously declined.
I don’t mind opinion journalism so long as it is quarantined within the editorial pages. I think reporting, both news and investigative, should simply orientated towards recounting or exposing the truth, respectively. Analysis sits in-between because although it is often orientated towards the truth, it typically occurs within a frame, but that is only a problem if either the analyst or the reader is under the illusion that this isn’t the case. Oakeshott has the wonderful image that the modes of experience, practice, science, and the like are varieties of dreaming but that the peculiarity of the dream of the scientist is that he’s awake.
It’s really: Did they intentionally or recklessly use deception to financially advantage themselves or to financially disadvantage another party?
Hard to say JC. We never did any work with airlines, I’m not sure how much of it is truly discretionary, probably less than people imagine. QAN would have much of the business market tied up I expect. Airline management at every level has always been a particular case.
I haven’t been following the to and fro on this recently but if this is the case, just wow.
Oakeshott has an optimistic view of scientists.
The ‘Climate Emergency’ Is a Hoax
Europe’s Gasoline Demand Is Increasing, Despite the Shift to Electric Vehicles
and
Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy
Why the Ruling Elite Is Anti-American | Constitution 101 Highlight
It’s amusing how the DeSantis camp thinks Iowa is ‘in play’ via ‘consolidation’ even though Trump is at 51 in that state. Do they really believe that appearance can make reality tarry?
If it’s on that scale it will take more than a couple of jingo Ayers Rock ads to repair the damage.
Interesting to know if subclinical mRNA vax effects lower athletic performance. I can think of a few ways it might.
Athletes do anything for a tiny increase in efficiency. It may be that the vax is causing a slight decrease, through small blood or heart changes that you wouldn’t otherwise notice. That would be consistent with the comprehensive article from yesterday.
Not much could be done about it, the Joker paid for his stand. If you ain’t allowed to play that is worse than not being at top condition. Lot of stuff is still eventually to come out about this fiasco.
Dover
What are you wowing exactly?
What was the problematic period? How long did it go for and what was the percentage of flights in question? Also, how would you factor in coming out of a long term lockdown?
Let me remind you that only last week you were suggesting Apple exploits its customers ignoring brand recognition and many other factors. The most expensive phone on the market with 10% share is exploitive? Wow back to you.
Details, details – you pettifogging mem.
But luckily, Maximum Leader has the good, well-paid Green jobs thingo sorted out:
Apparently there are 59,000 welders and fabricators and marine crews and offshore installers standing by, waiting to spring into action. And capital and construction crews and equipment for the manufacturing tsunami and the work boats and specialist marine laydown and support facilities for the offshore work.
Just not immediately clear if they are currently in Australia.
But we will know this in the near future.
In good hands.
“I don’t mind opinion journalism…”
Nor do I – the better opinion pieces often bring up points otherwise never addressed.
However, the current crop of young “journalists” want to “make a difference” and “tell a story”. While this has it’s place, that is NOT what I want from news – what I want is for you to me THE story, not A story.
Find out what happened; find multiple sources to confirm/question official narratives; tell me what is spin and what is true as best as you can find out.
Just give me the facts under the banner “news” and make sure you clearly mark opinion as opinion. Not hard.
Another fine tale of woe today, and from an obvious EV fan.
Tales of Towing With Our Rivian R1T: Electric motors are great for pulling trailers, but batteries? Not so much. (10 Sep)
I dont think tradies are going to be falling over themselves to buy electric utes like the Rivian.
dover0beach
Sep 11, 2023 10:58 AM
Yes, I want REPORTERS to report what is known, who said what etc. I don’t mind some opinion JOURNALISM, but I want REPORTERS first and foremost.
I remember the Good Old Days when James Dibble would read the Evening News on the ABC and just report the news.
These daze, it is all just propaganda.
In support of Qantas though, it wasn’t entirely their fault that they had to bump a Business passenger down in order to fly an employee on that flight. We had the same thing happen on Hawaiian Airlines, when we flew Business back from Honolulu. I blogged about it here. We weren’t bumped as they had spare Business seats but we had booked to sit in carrels next to each other, and one of those carrels was now taken by the reserve pilot, who watched videos next to me most of the flight. We complained then, to no avail, as that seat was apparently ‘dedicated’ to an employee if needed. Why they couldn’t leave Hairy next to me and put the spare pilot in Hairy’s Business seat was not explained as anything other than ‘regulations’.
Obviously airlines gamble on having one spare Business seat somewhere should the employee condition come into play. Qantas didn’t. They’d overbooked, leaving no spare. And it was only when the media piled on about it that they offered a proper recompense to the passenger. We had to just accept our lot. Not too hard. I don’t get to sleep next to a handsome pilot very often. 🙂
Dear peoples,
The best possible news. The young fella missing in Ukraine has been found alive. It appears he was separated from his unit for a time and there was deep concern for him. But he has now been located.
Deepest thankfulness and gratitude in my heart.
Yep. Back to the days of Lois Lane, Reporter on the Daily Planet.
The rot set in with Journalism at universities.
Suddenly everyone wanted to be important, to be a ‘journalist’, with opinions.
Cadets doing the Courts round and the Shipping News no longer existed.
“Luzu
Sep 11, 2023 11:29 AM”
Amen.
No, I wasn’t ignoring any of those things. Apple is like Nvidia in the GPU market. They use brand recognition, insensitivity of their users to prices, its position as a status marker, etc. to farm their users. As you said last week, they are making 90% of the profits from 10% of the share in the phone market.
Good to hear Luzu. You made the war a little more personal for the rest of us. I was actually thinking about that kid during the week.
Uptick and best wishes for such good news, Luzu. It is what we were all hoping and I’ll bet what some were praying for too.
Lizzie – Wrong way of going about it. They should’ve offered the employee $1000 if he flew economy. Would cost a lot less. Ok the EBA required that union wukkas have to fly business class, but what wukka would turn up their nose at a thousand bucks?
I once got to sleep next to Susie O’Neil (at the height of her butterfly career) on the Redeye back from Perth.
I imagine she still talks about it.
Bio:
Just another professional political parasite who’s never had had a real job outside government. The Liars Pardy specialises in them.
The NSW police minister is a former frikking council librarian — so reassuring for the wallopers on the beat!
Totally agree, Dover.
For any business in a very competitive market, that’s the top of the pyramid in terms of where you want to be. They worked hard with their brand. How is that exploitive though in a market with much cheaper options?
Lady, I think the problem is the product, not the advertising…
‘Labor has failed miserably’: Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie scathing of government amid poor Voice polling (Sky News, 11 Sep)
To be fair she gives Albo a serve about the cost of living, which is absolutely correct. But says zilch about why the cost of living is skyrocketing.
I know absolutely nothing about building and maintaining wind factories, but if I was put in a room and told to think about it, and write down what would need to be done, I would do better than our fool investors and politicians are doing now.
What is wrong with these people? The mind is so open their brains have fallen out?
No resting on these laurels yet, please. The sheer massive force of advertising, plus the sense of being the ‘underdog’ could see the Yes Vote still rise from the dead and sneak in to defeat us. There is only one poll that counts.
Farnham’s song, far from being a “Game Changer” (as was crowed about non-stop last week by the yes/left) appears to have had not even the slightest, most miniscule, upward impact on the Yes vote.
As for QANTAS, if it acted in a misleading or deceptive manner it should come out in the wash. But given that its been a thorn in the side of centre-right politics, particularly of a conservative flavour, I’m not going to break a sweat defending them here. They have more than enough capacity to defend themselves. It’s interesting though that they are being hang out to dry here by the political machine. Apparently, over a decade of slathering leftist causes on their planes hasn’t bought them enough political protection.
Maybe we’re not as bad off as we thought.
For the most part journalism is a lost cause. I prefer content creators. For example, I just watched an interview with Eric Weinstein. He makes some very good points about the decay of institutions. The interview was 15 minutes. In the MSM the interviews are less than 5 and usually just soundbites. Why bother with journalists and the MSM when content creators can provide much greater analytic breadth and depth, and source so many individuals rather than the usual talking heads?
“Yep. Back to the days of Lois Lane, Reporter on the Daily Planet.”
I recently subscribed to the US Epoch Times video-only offer they had – $US1 /month for 12 months.
If you want to check out what is available, you can log in with an email address only and watch 10 or so videos.
My favourites are: “Facts Matter” and “American Thought Leaders”, but there are docos as well and many other shows. You can also find (most) Facts Matter eps and “teasers” for American Thought Leaders on eww-tube (but many vids are taken down for “mis/dis-information”, even though the news reporting is fully cited to source links on the vid page).
I’m happy with it so far – worth more than what I pay, IMO.
Because they know it means that their users will purchase products that are inferior price/performance compared with their competitors. Not so much the case now with their computers, the M1 and M2 chips have been very good, but their computers prior to this, particularly their desktops, were mid.
“As you said last week, they [Apple] are making 90% of the profits from 10% of the share in the phone market.”
Apple may have 10% of the global market, but have much higher penetration in the US and “the west” in general.
Robert Gottliebsen on Qantas:
Qantas is looming as arguably the biggest corporate governance failure in Australia’s history, outside companies that run into serious financial difficulties as a result of their failures.
Potentially, the Qantas governance morass could trigger endless class actions and/or corporate investigations, which will tie the company up for many years.
What makes this so serious for Australia is the fact that, although it is a listed company, Qantas dominates our air transport in business, freight, tourism, and in time of war, defence. The nation can’t afford such a vital company to be crippled by governance issues. Worse still, the governance issues involve the chairman and board members as much as they involve the former CEO, Alan Joyce.
Accordingly, I urge chairman Richard Goyder to act in the national interest and recruit a top chair for Qantas – possibly one who is prepared to be, for a short time, executive chairman.
At the same time, the new chair with Goyder’s help needs to reconstruct the board.
Without a top new chair and a reconstituted board, new CEO Vanessa Hudson, as a top executive in the troubled days, has little chance of extracting herself from the mess.
I don’t believe CBA CEO Matt Comyn, who faced a similar though not as difficult a situation as Hudson on taking office, could have avoided being caught in the 2018 morass of the CBA without having a magnificent chair in Catherine Livingstone.
I am an admirer of Goyder, which why I have faith in him doing the right thing by Qantas and the nation. Sadly, he made the mistake of taking on the chair of arguably the three most difficult organisations in this country – the AFL Commission, Woodside and Qantas. His talents were spread too thin, and living in Perth did not help.
We should not forget that when Joyce took the Qantas CEO reigns under then chairman Leigh Clifford the public company was akin to a government body with management dominated by the unions.
Joyce, under the eye of Clifford, an outstanding job taking the company into the 21st century. And while undertaking the task he kept the brand in great shape.
But 15 years is often too long to be CEO, and in his last years he became totally besotted with maximising the profit and was prepared to trash relations with staff and customers in the process.
And the board and chairman watched ringside the resulting destruction of the Qantas brand and staff relations, thanks to the graphic and regular findings of Morgan Research. The evidence was there, but neither the chairman nor the board intervened. Had they done so, they might have discovered the ACCC alleged fictitious ticket rackets and refund scandals.
Anecdotally, one of the early chairman of Qantas, Sir Lenox Hewitt, loved sitting up in the front of the aircraft but regularly wandered back to talk to passengers in economy to understand what was really happening to the company’s customers. The tradition didn’t pass down to the current generation of directors.
That director failure means the governance issues facing the company are substantial.
Qantas has a 70 per cent market share and has become vital to our so many parts of our community. I repeat, we cannot afford this vital Australian company to fall into a governance morass. Yet the issues cover a wide area:
*When did the ACCC begin investigating the company’s fictitious ticket booking practices, and who knew about the investigation? Presumably the chairman did. Presumably the board. If so, in my view, this was vital market information that was not passed on. Those who knew about the investigation and withheld the information obviously had a different view to me about market relevance, but it’s a view that will be hard to substantiate.
*The issuing of fictitious tickets and delays in cancellation payments greatly boosted Qantas cash flow. In a company that pays large amounts to lease aircraft, this can be a boost to profits. Was the Qantas cancellation merry go around and fictitious ticket scandal simply a tactic to further inflate profits? If so, what was the boost?
*The Qantas CEO, chair and board correctly ran down the capacity of the airline to minimise losses during the Covid shutdowns and were understandably caught by the sudden resurgence in demand. What was required was a massive exercise of staff and customer relations that would have cost large amounts of money via one-off compensation and incentive programs, but would have retained the faith of its customers and staff. Profits would have been reduced
*Why did the company suddenly decide to increase its share buyback rate late in May 2023 when presumably the board knew about the ACCC investigation, and the boost being given to profits by the failure to refund cancellations?
*Who gave permission for the CEO to sell his shares into the buyback rather than to wait until the profit and ACCC investigation was announced? Once the ACCC investigation was announced, the shares fell sharply.
*Why on earth would Qantas have so publicly backed a political issue such as the “yes” campaign in the full knowledge that many of its shareholders, customers and suppliers had a different view. One explanation is that is sought good relations with the Albanese government at the same time the government was considering what to do with the Qatar airlines expansion application. (In what is probably a coincidence, but the AFL Commission backed “yes” while the federal government was considering backing the Hobart stadium).
The industry superannuation funds are major shareholders in Qantas, and they will be debating whether to take legal action. What they should do is ensure that Goyder does what he is required to do. Both ASIC and ACCC will need to devote large resources to the issues. Qantas itself will need to devote resources, which is why the chair may need to be an executive chair for a short time.
I believe that a new chair and a reconstructed board should be able to take a fresh approach to these matters and sort them out in what ever way is appropriate.
We may find that in some of the above situations that the company did nothing wrong at all. But there is no way Goyder and Hudson can resolve those issues, given their possible involvement in the knowledge or decision-making process.
Richard Goyder at this stage is the best possible person to select a top chair and, with that chair, reconstruct the board. He will then be able to leave the company knowing that he had the courage to realise the seriousness of the situation and to have acted in the national interest.
The worst possible thing for Qantas is if he tries to hang on and he and the company gets caught up in a total morass. And it is Australia that has the most to lose if he takes that course.
It’s obvious. We’ve been manic about playing ball games right throughout human history.
Early humans deliberately made mysterious stone ‘spheroids’ (Phys.org, 10 Sep)
Ugg, I bet you this deer carcass I can throw my ball nearer to that stick than you can with your ball.
but what wukka would turn up their nose at a thousand bucks?
Don’t know what Qantas payz pilots but I’m guessing he earn’t close to a $1 000 just walking from check-in to his seat ……. course if it were cash-in-hand! .. but we all know Qantas is as pure as falling snow so wouldn’t happen …
both CEOs, past & present, tellz us, as does our PM .. and none of those 3 would tell fibz, would they ..?
A new lot we have to deal with. ‘Welcoming Australia’. On the surface v soft language. Who could not agree? (Assuming youre a CC zealot). Dig down and its another swamp organisation with big objectives. Coming to a workplace tax trough near you.
The fun police come for circuses.
German circus replaces live animals with holograms (Phys.org, 10 Sep)
Why would you bother?
Treated myself to a prezzie .. lotza building brick models of the TITANIC around but this is the 1st time I’ve come across .. sinking …..!
https://ibb.co/Qbvrb8y
You appear to be confused with cause and effect. Also, why is your knowledge superior to the millions of people who buy an iPhone: that it’s an inferior product?
I’d equally argue that it’s superior and millions of folks agree with me.
They have found the sweet spot in terms of the revenue/sales profit curve that is supported by their customers. In a very competitive market it’s hardly exploitive.
Should we abuse a company which maximises its profit potential? Is that where we’re heading now?
“…their computers prior to this, particularly their desktops, were mid.”
They never sold on performance, they sold on ease of use.
To be honest, Apple has “plug and play”, everyone else has “plug and pray” – related to their closed software systems, which of course also has downsides.
And they at least told the FBI to go jump when they wanted a “back door” into all phones, saying instead “give us the phone and we’ll get you access”.
So while I’m not a huge fan myself, I can see why many are.
No disrespect, any reasonably sentient human could do this better than the retards with their hands on the wheel.
I know I crap on about this, but governments and their carers have had the benefit of having all these issues and pitfalls and traps for young players – the ones currently tearing the arse out of the National trousers – explained patiently to them in easy terms by people with credible expertise and capacity to plan forward. For years.
What you are seeing in your lived experience is willful misconduct – not unexpected circumstances.
The sheer massive force of advertising, plus the sense of being the ‘underdog’ could see the Yes Vote still rise from the dead and sneak in to defeat us.
If you’ve already decided to vote NO, cos like me you know YES is a con, or simply watched/read/listened to all the for/against arguments why would you, between now and 14 Oct, be swayed by more YES advertising …..!
I’d be very surprised if there are many “swing” voters left to convince .. most folk, I’d expect, have already decided which way they are going, they just prefer to keep it too themselves ……..
still if there is one thing gummint excels at it’s throwing more OPM at ego driven pie-in-the-sky ideas ..
Dr. Faustus do you know anything about road construction? Near my home there has been ongoing freeway upgrade on a bridge that has lasted 4 years and still far from complete. I don’t understand why it takes so long to complete these projects.
” I don’t understand why it takes so long to complete these projects.”
I am far from expert, however I can tell you there is a lot of “unseen” prep work going on for this sort of project – foundations that need to cure completely and so on.
Remember – this is not a shed in your back yard, this is public infrastructure that will be (presumably) heavily used for decades. A little bit of paranoia and over-engineering is preferable in these cases and that can mean taking the time to ensure everything is OK before proceeding to the next step.
The Noel Pearson interview on Insiders yesterday was laughable. He remarked how the indigenous people by offering the Voice were expressing their love to the Australian people. His tone was so different from months ago when he had an arrogant attitude to doubters and was full of bluster and confidence.
I’ve long thought most Australians tolerated the arguments of activists. We didn’t want to challenge them and hoped that at some point saner heads would prevail. Price and Mundine gave us confidence in that regard but both have been demonised by the activists.
The activists deserve to lose this vote. They didn’t realise that most Australians quietly believed that the problems of indigenous people were principally about the hopeless idealism that remote communities would allow indigenous people to live their traditional lifestyle.
We don’t need more of the same voices telling us we’re racists and don’t care about the plight of those in remote communities. Most of us are disheartened and in despair about the plight of some indigenous people. We also know that the activists can’t solve these problems.
The failure of the referendum may be the best thing that ever happened to indigenous people because it might promote new voices, new perspectives, and new ideas.
Thanks Kneel. Looking to overseas examples might help me understand this better.
Bit of a flap at the moment about Pegasus spyware on iPads and iPhones.
Update your iPhone now! Pegasus malware may be tracking your location (11 Sep)
I don’t believe the journalism of Janet Albrechtsen in relation to the Lehrmann disgrace has been “a lost cause”, nor has the journalism of Sharri Markson in relation to the origins of the Covid virus been “a lost cause”.