The previous government certainly did not introduce legislation to hand over majority ownership to overseas interests that would have grossly disadvantaged many more Australian workers. The current government is the Abbott government and it basically wants to kill off totally the concept of an Australian owned airline and will mean wholesale cuts to jobs that will be moved overseas if the abbott legislation prevails.
Government needs to work with management and the unions to try hard to improve the situation and Management has the greatest responsibility. Instead of those that play ideology and union bash who is looking closely at the decisions of management in terms of capital purchases,routes etc and their impact. Given that Qantas is an Australian majority owned entity under existing legislation government has a responsibility to be involved to at least explore avenues to keep the airline as Australian and keep as many jobs as possible here in Australia. Instead its the easy way out. A bit of union bashing, carbon tax bashing and basically just giving up and handing the airline over to overseas interests that wont give two hoots about Australian pilots, engineers and other airline associated staff.
