This is part of a long article by Joe Aston of 'Rear Window' ('AFR') in print on Friday 3 March 2023. Very well written and worth buying the paper for. I will be!
('Hudson' is Vanessa Hudson, CFO at QAN who Aston says is one person Alan Joyce makes appear when 'an exploding cigar' goes off at QAN: (in other words, Joyce doesn't want to put his name to comments):
"...Foremost, she complained, “The article claims Qantas has paid only $288 million in company tax since 2010. The actual figure is $411 million…”
Yet Hudson only got to her number, they have since clarified, by omitting the $129 million tax refund Qantas booked in 2010 because it related to the previous tax year (and, still without explanation, excluding a raft of other small tax amounts in subsequent years that were never disclosed as foreign tax)....
...Hudson also challenged “[Rear Window’s] version of what support Qantas received during the pandemic”, saying “those figures aren’t right either”. She again referred to “the circa $2 billion of funding Qantas received from the government.”
In note 24 of its 2020, 2021 and 2022 accounts, Qantas reported total government support of $2.66 billion. Hilariously, Qantas asked me on Monday where I got this number. I have since asked them repeatedly why they continue to say government support was $2 billion when their own audited accounts say $2.7 billion, but Qantas has repeatedly declined to answer this question.
According to those Qantas accounts, its repatriation flights and regional route maintenance were operated on a “cost offset” basis. As for the airline’s $559 million of international freight support, Hudson refers to a lovely letter Qantas received from Austrade thanking them for helping to protect jobs and farmers and Australia’s international reputation. This is relevant, how? Did Austrade thank Qantas for operating these services at cost? Of course not. The agency should’ve said “Thanks for continuing to slurp down this subsidy well after the international freight market had recovered and was booming like never before.”
Hudson even claimed my article argued that Qantas should pay back JobKeeper, which my article certainly never did – much as it never argued Qantas doesn’t pay its fair share of income tax. Actually, my piece illustrated why Qantas has barely paid income tax by citing (and even showing in a graphic) the company’s negative cumulative income from 2010 to today.
My piece offered an instructive comparison between the government of New Zealand lending money to, and buying equity in, its national airline while Canberra handed out money on a non-recourse basis. It was completely legitimate to go there, and to consider the government support Qantas received and the tax it pays.
Hudson’s exposition finished by claiming that “These are not the first errors of fact or judgement in the many Rear Window articles focused on Qantas in the past six months, but it’s the first time we’ve moved to correct them publicly.”
This is the cheapest shot in the book. His pieces are all wrong – riddled with errors! – but we’ve always let it slide, until now. So many mistakes, but we won’t name them.
Does anyone really believe that if previous columns contained material factual errors that Qantas would’ve raised no complaint?
Anyway, what is an “error of judgment” in the context of analysis and opinion? It sounds more like any conclusion Qantas executives find jarring to their self-narrative, after years of having their arses kissed by federal ministers and newspaper editors and anyone too poor to commute on their own Gulfstream..."
Hilarious, and sadly for QAN, the truth hurts. It's about time politicians and staffers in Canberra (and in State governments) woke up to how QAN behaves.
I am rarely critical of the Liberals/Nationals but far too much money was given to QAN "with no questions asked" during COVID-19.
(20min delay)