Qantas Grounds Entire Fleet

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce went to the Marrickville electorate office of Transport Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday, October 21, to warn of the looming crisis. He showed him the books to prove what would happen to Qantas if the unions continued with their demands. Nothing happened and negotiations with the union continued to stall.

Last Saturday morning at 10.30am the Qantas board gave unanimous approval for Joyce’s plan to give 72 hours notice of a lock-out of striking unions and to ground the airline. At 2pm Qantas group executive Olivia Wirth called Julia Gillard’s chief of staff and told him that Qantas CEO Alan Joyce was standing by to talk to the Prime Minister. He wanted to give the PM advanced warning of his intention to ground the entire fleet and a chance to call the unions off and declare all future industrial action illegal. But she refused to take his call and didn’t bother calling him back.

After Joyce made the announcement to ground the airline, the government called a crisis cabinet phone hook-up and decided that instead of calling an immediate termination of the dispute, a request for termination or suspension would be taken to Fair Work Australia. But Joyce said he wouldn’t put his planes back in the air unless there was a “termination” not a “suspension” of all industrial action.

Fair Work Australia’s head Justice Geoffrey Giudice said the unions had wanted a suspension of the industrial action for up to 120 days but the panel had decided that it wouldn’t give sufficient protection to the already damaged tourist and aviation industries. Their decision appears to vindicate Mr Joyce’s drastic strategy of grounding the fleet.

The cost of claims for accommodation and expenses will undoubtedly cost the company millions but the writing was on the wall without a miraculous intervention and Joyce delivered in spades. The question now is can they recover and continue to prosper?

But what about Joyce’s obscene salary package? He says he is paid less today than when he was CEO of Jetstar four years ago. He also says he took a 30% salary cut in 2009 and a 20% cut in 2010 and is not the highest paid employee in the company, “A380 captains get paid more by the hour than me” he said. He points out that the shareholders at the AGM last Friday voted 96% in support for the remuneration packages.

After seeing Transport Workers Union (TWU) national secretary Tony Sheldon on the television over the weekend, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a more aggressive union official - it’s in his speech and his general demeanour and he has the unfortunate habit of pointing his finger to emphasis his point. It’s easy to see why anyone having to deal with this man would have a problem.

On Saturday he made a speech in his typical gruff, aggressive fashion but this morning, he's a changed man. He’s stopped shouting and now speaks quietly, the finger pointing is almost gone and he’s stopped blaming Tony Abbott for everything.

If this is the man tipped to be the next National President of the ALP, after witnessing his performance over the weekend, it will give the electorate one more reason to vote Liberal at the next election.

Alan Joyce - Qantas Million Dollar Man

It's hard not to side with the Qantas workers who want a pay rise when they see their CEO Alan Joyce handed a $2 million bonus at yesterday's AGM meeting. It just not fair, but what they fail to realize is their strike action has caused long delays and left passengers stranded around the country and who needs the aggravation? The uncertainty has turned people away from Qantas in droves and their main competitor - Virgin - is loving it.

Alan Joyce is the man - he's delivered shareholders a handsome profit and 97% voted in favour of his $2 million bonus yesterday amid boos and cat calls from union members in the audience.

The Aircraft Engineers head Steve Purvinas is understandably furious and said "Alan Joyce will use his own $10 million worth of shareholding to vote in favour of his own 71% pay rise and I think that's absolutely disgusting." And who would argue, it is disgusting. Mr Purvinas went on "Here is a man who got $3 million a year and he walked into his boardroom and said 'I can't live on $3 million, I need a $2 million pay rise.'" And Joyce really put the boot in earlier this year when he announced that he will shift the best part of the airline to Asia to cut costs even further at the expense of 1,000 jobs. I think this man is in urgent need of a bodyguard.

In the end, it all comes down to that dirty word - profit and we have to decide where we stand on this issue with Qantas. Do you support the mum and dad investors, ordinary hard working people who own shares in their favourite airline? If you do you will be happy that they have confidence in Mr Joyce and not begrudge him his bonus.

If you hate Mr Joyce with a passion for being able to attract such an obscene salary package, you will probably side with the workers who walked off the job yesterday as the AGM got underway.

But remember this, if the workers continue their strike action and the uncertainty continues, there won't be any Qantas or Alan Joyce to worry about because they will completely disappear and another Aussie icon will hit the dust.

Saif Gaddafi on the run

Gaddafi's son Saif once said "We fight here in Libya, we die here in Libya". But it didn't work out that way. His father and three of his brothers all died on home soil but not Saif - he headed for the hills and now wants to surrender to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

As the heir apparent, Saif was educated at the London School of Economics and was once seen by many western politicians as a moderate, acceptable alternative to his father, but when the rebellion broke, he decided to side with his family and stay to the end.

Saif once pushed for more media freedom in Libya and wanted a Constitution drawn up. The country was suffering badly from US and European sanctions in 2004 and Saif was instrumental in getting them lifted. In exchange, he promised that Tripoli would discontinue all weapons of mass destruction. This indeed was a sign that Libya was 'doing the right thing' and British PM Tony Blair was so pleased, he went to Tripoli to shake Gaddafi senior's hand.

Fluent in English, German and French, Saif knows a lot of important people but will they help him now? He's asking for an aircraft to take him out of Libya so he can turn himself into the Hague war crimes court.

It's rather ironic that the governments who were once his friends, bombed his father's regime into oblivion. Now they will have the difficult job of deciding whether it's legally possible to transfer to sins of the father onto the head of his son.

Choking Game hits Australia

The first Australian victim of the choking game "black-out" or "knock-out" happened on the Gold Coast this month. Abigail Corthals 15, was found dead in her bedroom with a belt around her neck. Her heart-broken parents want to warn everyone about this bizarre Internet craze which has killed hundreds of teenagers around the world. There were no warning signs for Abigail's parents, it was a quiet death - she even left the door of her bedroom open as she was doing it.

The game is popular at teen parties and schoolyards as children choke each other or themselves to achieve a high, a brief feeling of euphoria is experienced by depriving the brain of oxygen. Abigail spent a lot of time on the computer in her bedroom and was a high-achieving private school student. The irony is that she was planning to end the game because she told a friend "We have to stop this now" but couldn't resist one last thrill.

There have been 86 reported cases in the UK and hundreds in America. Other names for the game include "funky chicken" and "space monkey". The game involves hyperventilating or squeezing the carotid artery in the neck for a few seconds to achieve a high. Constricting the artery cuts blood flow to the brain and when the pressure is released, there is a rush of oxygen which causes the high. It's common among high-achieving students who don't want to get into trouble with drugs or alcohol.

The craze is not to be confused with auto-erotic asphyxiation because it's not done for sexual gratification.

Celebrity Apprentice Australia

Mark Bouris

Mark Bouris might be a successful, influential businessman but he doesn't have the charisma or the authority that exudes from Donald Trump or Sir Alan Sugar who features in the British version of Apprentice. I get the feeling the celebs don't respect him yet and he has the difficult job of trying to whip a group of undisciplined Aussies with big egos into line.

But you can't knock Celebrity Apprentice Australia because it's all about earning money for charity and if it gives old and new celebrities a career boost, so be it.

Warwick Capper deserved to be the first person evicted last night because he behaved like an idiot on the first challenge - washing cars. It was clear from the outset he had no intention of doing any work, he was just happy to make jokes and fool around. He said that now he was out of the show, their ratings would plummet. "They'll be lucky to beat Home and Away" he said.

Shane Crawford

Celebrities are expected to pick up the phone and get huge donations from friends and acquaintanances and that's exactly what they did - Max Markson earned a whopping $36,500 and Shane Crawford was close behind with $30,500. But two sporting legends were a big disappointment - Wendell (Dell) Sailor only made $250 and Warwick Capper a lousy $20.





But Pauline Hanson went beyond the call of duty for her team when she stripped down to just her "Aussie Bum" undies for $50,000 which helped win the challenge.

Jesinta Campbell

Winning team manager Jesinta Campbell will hand over $166,385 to her favourite charity - The Reach Foundation.

Celebrity

Sharia for new Libya

With Gadafy dead, the question now is who will run the country – Islamists or secular Liberals? On Saturday, the de facto prime minister Mahmoud Jibril said progress would depend on what kind of resolve the National Transitional Council (NTC) will show in the next few days and what the Libyan people want. Jibril also warned that Libya needed to find alternative sources of income because the country had already consumed 62 per cent of its oil under Gadafy.

NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil made it clear in his speech yesterday that Islam would play an important part in Libya’s future. “This revolution was blessed by God to achieve victory,” Jalil, who is considered devout but moderate, told the crowd. “And we must go on the right path.”

Libya, he said, would be a state where Sharia law would be the “fundamental source” of legislation and any existing legislation that contradicted Islamic principles would be immediately annulled.” He added the new state will not disallow polygamy and charging interest will be forbidden.

Elections are due to be held by June next year and the newly elected body would draft a constitution to be put to a referendum and form an interim government pending a presidential election. No constitution existed under Gadafi.

The world looks on with interest.