Health News at Your Fingertips

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has *kinda* apologised for the baggage issues passengers are experiencing in an interview with ABC News Breakfast:

Q: You talked about the Qantas turnaround yesterday. Expected to reach profitability again in the 2023 financial year. Lots of demand for people to travel after the worst part of the pandemic, hopefully. But again we’re seeing these long queues and issues at airports. When will there will be the appropriate Qantas staff levels to match this customer demand?

Joyce:

Well, Michael, this is not just a Qantas issue. The queues at our airports. This over Easter was an issue that was created by long queues at security, which are run by the airports. It was an issue for Virgin, for Rex, for Qantas. It’s an issue for airlines around the world.

It was caused by a COVID issue with people being absent from work because of close contacts, because of catching COVID. It’s dramatically improved even as we speak. We’re gearing up for a big expansion of our international operation. We’re recruiting 2,500 people at the moment. We have over 20,000 applicants for those jobs. And while we get into the school holidays in July we should be back to normal for those big peak requirements. But who knows what happens with COVID. This time last year we never knew there would be a Delta strain, an Omicron strain, we’re putting the resources in to manage a big expansion of our operation going forward.

Q: To be fair, it’s not just the airports. There’s still issues faced by Qantas passengers…that’s not good enough, is it? We’re out of school holidays. We’re out of peak – supposed peak periods.

Joyce:

Yeah, we do apologise when these things go wrong. This happened before COVID as well as after COVID. It happens to every airline around the globe. The statistics show that over 99.5% of people’s bags are going with the customers. There were similar stats to what we had before COVID. There is some mishandling of bags that take place again on ever airline on the globe. We apologise when that happens. It’s the nature of the industry. It’s a huge complex industry. And things can go wrong at times. We aim to be perfect. We aim to get every customer’s bag with them. We aim for every flight to be on time. But the nature of the industry, sometimes things go off shelled. Sometimes there’s things outside the airline’s control – any airline – and the airline has to do its best.

Q: Qantas sacked 2,000 ground staff, including baggage handlers. Have you given any thought to rehiring some of these full time baggage handlers to prevent some of the issues we’re seeing?

Joyce:

We’re using specialist baggage handling companies.

Q: I’m asking about the staff you got rid of.

Joyce:

Maybe I can answer your question, you’re giving the impression that staff are missing. They’re not. There’s people doing those jobs from the specialised baggage handling companies. All the airlines around Australia have recruited staff, they have staff, there’s people there doing these jobs.

Peter Hannam has the latest on Mike Cannon-Brookes and AGL:

AGL Energy, Australia’s biggest electricity generator, says it remains determined to pursue its plan to split despite a bid for a blocking stake by technology billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.

In a second tilt at the company in three months, Cannon-Brookes bought 11.28% of the AGL shares through his family’s Grok Ventures firm, making him the largest single shareholder.

“We have purchased this substantial interest in the company because we fundamentally believe there can be a better future for AGL,” Cannon-Brookes said in a letter to AGL.

“A future that delivers cheap, clean and reliable energy for customers. A future that accelerates the transition to net-zero, and a future that creates opportunities for AGL and value for its shareholders along the way,” he said.

“We firmly believe the proposed demerger is a flawed plan that will fail to achieve these goals. As a result, we intend to vote every AGL share we control at the relevant time against the demerger, and will actively encourage all AGL shareholders to do the same,” Cannon-Brookes said.

There is polling today, released by the Australia Institute, showing Liberal MP Tim Wilson is in danger of losing his seat to independent challenger Zoe Daniels.

Wilson has been running very hard on the “fake independent” line.

Today he has had an op-ed in the Australian where he claims independent candidates (he uses scare quotes around independent) are trying to override democracy.

Yup.

Happy 23 day – number of choice for Michael Jordan, Shane Warne and any sporting wonder who thinks they have a shot.

It’s RBA meeting day where the reserve bank will decide whether the underlying rate of inflation (inflation when you take out the stuff that fluctuates in price) of 3.6% is enough to force it to move the cash rate target.

The RBA has previously said it wants inflation to be between 2% and 3%. So it’s above that. But it also doesn’t want to cause inflation in Australia to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Economists who know a lot more than me about this say Australia is facing a supply-side inflation issue. Not demand side, which is what we usually think of when we think inflation. So you don’t want to panic people into thinking their money will be worth less, because then they go out and spend while they can, buying what they believe which in turn, increases inflation. It’s a delicate balance for the RBA and one that has probably given governor Phil Lowe a couple of sleepless nights. If interest rates move, it’ll be the first time since 2007 that there has been an interest rate increase in the middle of an election campaign.

The RBA could signal it’s about to move rates. Or it could move them a smidge to show it’s willing to move rates. Either way it’s a pretty big stress for people who are already on the bubble.

It’s also of concern to Scott Morrison who has tried to build his re-election campaign around being a better manager of the economy. He wanted to talk about cost of living but now it’s an election issue because it’s an issue for millions of people, and that makes the narrative much harder to control. Morrison has started the rebrand – telling reporters he doesn’t see these things “through a political lens”. It’s all about people, you see. And the choice they have about who is better to manage the coming economic changes (which of course makes it about him, but that’s just details).

Sarah Martin has the latest Essential poll which shows that choice is not quite as cut and dried as Morrison would like it:

At the mid-point of the six-week election campaign, the Guardian Essential poll of 1,500 respondents finds the primary vote for both Labor and the Coalition largely unmoved, despite billions of dollars in election promises being made as voters tune into the contest.

But while primary support is flatlining, Labor retains a lead over the Coalition of 49% to 45% on a two-party preferred “plus” measure.

The challenge to connect with disengaged voters is also highlighted by the fact that 17% of people say they have not been paying any attention to the news, advertising or updates from the federal election campaign, and 33% saying they have only been paying little attention.

… On the cost of living, 40% of voters judged that Labor was best placed to manage the issue, compared to 30% who trust the Coalition on the issue, and 30% who deemed both parties to be no different.

We’ll bring you the blow by blow of the day. As usual you have the Guardian Canberra crew of Katharine Murphy, Sarah Martin, Paul Karp, Josh Butler and Daniel Hurst with Amy Remeikis on the blog.

It’s a mint slice for breakfast kinda morning.

Ready?