Qantas’ real problem

Brett Gaskin writes: Re. “The Joyce who cried wolf: Qantas’ mayday call examined” (yesterday). When talking about Qantas, let’s discuss one of the main reasons they are struggling: customer service, or in the case of Qantas, a complete lack of.

For many years now the general attitude from Qantas staff is they are doing you a favour by letting you fly with them.  The number of JetStar flights that are cancelled or rescheduled is staggering. While the faux American super happiness of the Virgin staff is a little grating, I’d fly with them any day over the unreliable and miserable Qantas.

Storms ahead for the ABC

Les Heimann  writes: Re. “Rupert v Aunty: the real News Corp agenda” Don’t dare say we didn’t know. Of course the geriatric king wants absolute power — or at least the illusion. Rupert Murdoch has constantly achieved his pet PM (with some exceptions), and now I believe his current pet, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, will do his bidding and slowly grind the ABC into a shadow of its former self.

Mind you, the ABC, particularly the Sydney latte-Lefties, has brought a lot of this on itself pretending to be what it is not and slavishly following The Australian “scoops” each morning — it did this because Labor was not what the ersatz socialists believed.

Anyway, we shall watch with interest the ebb and flow of attitude exhibited by the ABC. As to whether Tony Abbott is even remotely concerned over Malcolm Turnbull’s stomach for mayhem, forget it — Turnbull will do his master’s bidding.

We need the ABC, but the leaders of same only understand their egos.

No WorkCover for older workers?

Mary Seely writes: Re. “‘No one wants to know you’: unemployment catch-22 for older Aussies” (Friday). My mum is evidence of another problem facing older employees in the workforce. She is aged 68 but as a registered nurse specialising in geriatric care, living a rural/regional South Australia she has been able to continue working (the fact that there is such a shortage of nurses that she often works 10 days straight without relief is a separate issue). Recently, a patient suffering dementia became violent and attacked a carer in the home. My mum stepped in to diffuse the situation and ended up with three broken ribs. When I jokingly told her that she should go off on WorkCover she told me that once you are over 65 there is no statutory workplace insurance scheme.

Not sure of the veracity of this, but it is certainly not very incentivising for older employees to continue working.