Qantas directors loitering in Chairman’s Lounge when they should be booted out

Qantas’ announcement this morning that Richard Goyder and a couple of other directors would be moseying away from the smoking ruin that is the airline’s reputation over the course of the next year is another demonstration of how cluelessly out of touch this mob of jokers are.

It’s a revamp organised by those departing the board, not staying — another example of how Goyder and other directors, including new CEO Vanessa Hudson, have no grasp of being seen to do the right thing.

Qantas told the Australian Stock Exchange this morning that “chairman Richard Goyder will retire prior to the annual general meeting (AGM) in late 2024”. Before that, “to facilitate further renewal, Jacqueline Hey and Maxine Brenner will retire at the Qantas half-year results in February 2024 after 10 years of service”. Former Liberal staffer and public servant Michael L’Estrange is already bailing out.

New directors Doug Parker and Heather Smith — both recent appointees with clean hands around the Alan Joyce-era litany of debacles — will remain. But so will Todd Sampson, Antony Tyler and Belinda Hutchinson.

All three have been on the board for years — in Sampson’s case, since 2015. His purported marketing expertise hasn’t done anything to rescue Qantas from the greatest branding dumpster fire in Australian corporate history. Along with his fellow directors, he seems to have sat back and watched as Joyce and his management illegally sacked workers, engaged in anti-competitive conduct, flogged tickets for flights that didn’t exist and underpaid workers millions — never mind turning the once-beloved national carrier into a national joke.

That any Qantas director other than Parker and Smith is still there is a testament to a dearth of accountability at Qantas and the contempt the airline continues to harbour towards its workers and customers.

Goyder’s half-arsed retirement — in which he remains chair for another year despite presiding over every Qantas disaster over the past five years — is particularly insulting. The airline’s risible media release links the board turnover, such as it is, to “the significant reputational and customer service issues facing the group” and that it recognises “that accountability is required to restore trust”. But what accountability? Two directors who’ve been there a decade moving on (in 2024) and a chairman deciding he’ll wander off at a time of his own choosing, with no boardroom succession or renewal plan in place.

And right at the end of the statement was the most interesting news of all — Qantas is going to have an inquiry into the Joyce era: “The board has also commenced a process of independently reviewing key governance matters over the past 12 months and will share outcomes in the second quarter of calendar year 2024.”

Notice the word choice. It’ll share the “outcomes”, not the report itself, which in any event will be an internal product, not an independent one. What price a proper, rigorous inquiry while one of the two main culprits in these “governance matters”, Goyder, is still chair? What betting that Joyce is the scapegoat?

And what about the big issue hanging over the board — how it’ll handle Joyce’s mammoth long-term bonus despite the opprobrium he’s brought on the company and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s shocking revelations of tickets for no service?

This is “accountability” Qantas style: an internal inquiry, a board makeover where a couple of those who directly oversaw the trashing of the company face the inconvenience of bringing forward their retirement dates a little, or having to promise they’ll leave at some point late the following year, while the rest stay in on the giggle.

And that applies to Hudson too. She has never explained what she knew about the no-service scandal as CFO, or when she knew it. The “accountability” she faced was getting the top job. Ouch.