Premature contemplating by your wife i would say. The fair work has success; The outcome is what the it was designed for. An overreaction in going global for an internal dispute. Other options were at hand, Faults on both sides, now thinking time prevails. So you could say the ALp has won again, without any ideas from the opposition, missing in action again.

The chickens are coming home to roost. The unions, inspired by the new Fair Work act believe they can act with impunity. As this was an entirely Labor construct, Juliar cannot blame previous governments as she usually does.

Wouldn't it be nice to have something that Labor hasn't stuffed up.

sarnian, don't be such a dinosaur, companies reinvent themselves all the time .. desperately clinging to old ideas is symptomatic of Luddite tendencies I hear.

What's wrong with Qantas changing? If that's what the owners, the shareholders, want, they should just get on with it and not allow the company to be run for the sole benefit of the corpulent unions.

Surely when the government sold them off, they didn't expect them to retain the old model forever, it simply doesn't work to tie yourself to a behavior when all your competitors and indeed, your customers change.

At any rate, Qantas has shareholders to report to, not the Australian public's sense of entitlement. Well, some of the Australian public at any rate.

The unions clearly see Qantas as a vehicle to gorge themselves in pay and benefits and who cares about anyone else, while blaming the company for the effects they deliver.

Ask any shareholder if they have invested in Qantas so it can become a benevolent society for the workers?

Shareholders expect a return and if they don't get it, will pull out and the share price and value of the company will drop.

Some one can talk sense. The company belongs to shareholders, and they will decide, as they did with two million of their money. It is free enterprise, as so many others before them have gone off shore. Money speaks all languages, with out interpretation.

Dick Smith commented on the radio this morning and made a lot of sense.
With an open skyes policy there are many more flights into Australia
by airlines that are government owned and or subsidised by government.
They have costs that are significantly lower than Qantas.

The upshot is if we want the lower fares the choice becomes

Many airlines flying into Australia and no International Qantas.
or
Many airlines flying into Australia and low costs for Qantas International.

The other alternative is
Less airlines flying into Australia and Qantas charging higher fares.

The scene was set when the government quite some years ago opened up
Austalian airports to all comers.

QANTAS deserves to die, hopeless service, terrible cabin staff, high prices and a greedy board.

Who cares?

Keating flogged it off to 'the public' so it is no longer anything but an airline business like any other.

I already never fly QANTAS anymore, and much prefer Singapore, Thai, Air France and KLM, particularly when carting children around the world.

We should insist QANTAS stops pretending to have any claim to 'being Australian' though, and have them remove the Kanga from the tail, to be replaced with, what?

Something more 'Asian' perhaps?