155 Joe Aston Unfiltered The Chairmans Lounge Qantas Selling Australia Out The Journey To Sobriety

When you're starting off with something new, it seems like your to-do list keeps growing.

Finding the right tool helps, and that tool is Shopify.

Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of U.S. e-commerce.

And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping.

If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash retail.

Go to shopify.com slash retail.

Ever wonder what your lashes are destined for?

The cards have spoken.

Maybelline New York Mascara does it all.

Whether you crave fully fan lashes with lash sensational, big, bold volume from the colossal,

a dramatic lift with falsies lash lift, or natural-looking volume from great lash,

your perfect lash future awaits.

Manifest your best mascara today.

Shop Maybelline New York and discover your lash destiny.

Shop now at Walmart.

I'm Mike Boris, and this is Straight Talk.

Well, you know, Australians love this company.

Well, they did love this company.

Joe Astin.

Well, straight talk, mate.

Thanks for having me, and I'm glad I got the memo on the Boris uniform.

But it was the pants, mate.

Well, you're shooting from the waist up, I hope.

Yeah, correct.

No one can see that.

You're right.

George Orwell said, this is one of my favorite quotes,

journalism is publishing something that someone doesn't want to be published,

and anything else is public relations.

This book is about how Qantas influences all politicians,

because this has been going on for 40 years.

Qantas managed to rip $2.7 billion of subsidies out of,

say, the Morrison government after they convinced the Morrison government

not to save Virgin Australia with a financial lifeline.

They were the biggest recipient of JobKeeper,

and then they illegally sacked people.

Their power is immense, no matter who is in government.

Because I think it's important to establish Joe Astin,

so I hope you don't mind me asking those sort of questions.

That just got worse and worse, and...

Joe Astin, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

Mark, thanks for having me, and I'm glad I got the memo on the...

You got the Mark Burris uniform?

But it was the pants, mate.

You're shooting from the waist up, I hope.

Correct. No one can see that. You're right.

Actually, mate, congratulations on your book.

It's been like a... I think it's a huge success.

I mean, what does a huge success mean for you in relation to this book?

Well, look, for me, a huge success would be if the public finally understood

exactly what Qantas had done to the country, you know,

to its customers, to its loyal customers, and, you know,

it's a national carrier, of course.

If that sunk in, if everyone understood exactly how big

and intentional and how much of a...

Yeah, if that became clear to the public, I'd be very happy.

That's sort of what I'm trying to do.

Of course, we're talking about today, the book called

The Chairman's Lounge, which I have to admit I am a member of,

but I'm also on the verge of VIP one, too.

And you're also not a politician, so we'll forgive you.

I'm definitely not a politician.

But I think what's important about this, I mean, we will talk

and park it a little bit at a moment,

but we will talk a little bit about the Albanese part and all this,

but, like, that's, to me, that's already been done to death.

This is, what you have underneath the heading is it says

the inside story of how Qantas sold us out.

Yeah.

And we've got lots of, and there's lots of, you know,

well-known people like Adele Ferguson, et cetera, and Kate McClymont,

who has, you know, have read the book.

I must have read it before publishing and have given it a big rap.

Qantas sold us out.

Qantas being a national carrier, Qantas being,

you know, a monopoly in Australia, you know,

Virgin sort of a piece of it, but not really.

It's an effective monopoly.

Effective monopoly.

What was the objective, mate?

You know, you've taken yourself, you know,

you were retired effectively from, you know, the AFR,

where you ran many, many years.

We'll talk about this a bit later, the rear window, and you were great.

In fact, I think you're the best ever to ride in that area.

Took a couple of years off, got married, had a couple of kids,

or had a kid, wrote this book.

What's the deal?

So.

I didn't really plan to do, I really didn't plan to do it.

So you didn't stop working with the AFR to write the book?

No, no.

And in fact, when the publishers came to me with a book deal

around the time that I was pulling the pin at the AFR last October,

I just straight away said, absolutely no way.

I didn't leave to do exactly what I've been doing

for the previous 12 months, which is, you know,

writing about Alan Joyce and Qantas.

But, you know, after a few weeks off,

some people aren't very good at doing nothing.

And, you know, although I had every intention of resting

and I went overseas and had a nice little break,

but very quickly I was like, I need something.

And it felt hard to be.

What I then saw, I suppose, is Qantas trying to just, you know,

PR wash the whole thing.

Alan Joyce had gone, Vanessa Hudson had taken over.

They just sort of tried to make out like nothing had happened.

And I thought, this all needs to be put in one place.

So the public can not be hoodwinked into thinking that this was all just a bit

of an accident.

A couple of small mistakes and a bit of a, you know,

a bit of a PR storm that wasn't really based on anything.

I thought, no, this has to all be done properly.

Because it's not like, you know, Qantas didn't burn its loyalty.

It didn't burn its reputation overnight.

It wasn't a couple of decisions in the last six months

before Alan Joyce left.

This is something that started to happen even before COVID.

And that's not been properly understood.

So that was sort of my motivation.

And I was just so, you know,

so happy that I had nothing else to do.

Well, unfortunately for Qantas.

But I guess I know I've known you when you were at Rewindow and, you know,

you're an investigative journalist, but you also have a certain style

of writing, which you would obviously be aware of.

You have a style of writing that probably made Rewindow one of the reasons

most people bought the AFR.

I mean, you don't have to say yes or no, but I know a lot of people

only buy it because today, especially, or back when you were

writing, is because they wanted to either make sure they weren't being

written about or alternatively, they want to see who you were writing about.

And if in any way they had any shape or form, any reputational risk.

And effectively, you're an investigative journalist, the way I look at it.

You investigate issues or people and you start writing about it.

Where does that drive come from?

That process, that thinking process.

I mean, what's behind that, Joe?

Like, why do you like to do this?

What is it?

Do you look at something that's unfair or you think it's an issue that needs to be raised or?

Someone's getting away with something and it needs to be put out there?

What's the deal?

That's a really good question.

It evolved.

Like, I didn't get into journalism to sort of like be Mr.

Truthseeker.

That was not, I didn't have some sort of self-righteous subjective.

I got into journalism mainly because it looked like so much fun.

You know, it looked like, accurately looked like what you got to do was go out to lunch

with people, you know, and get them to tell you things that they shouldn't tell you and

then write them.

And, you know, I enjoyed making that.

I enjoyed making mischief and that suited me, but you know, over time you would get

bored, as anyone does in their career, if they just keep doing the same thing.

Like if you work for a big company, you might move around into different roles or, but I

just was stuck on the one column, but I was thankfully given the creative freedom to go

from sort of writing a column, which was just like, have a laugh at this person or, you

know, being, you know, a bit of a hypocrite to in a light way, or even just gossip about

who was out with who and who's talking to who.

But I was able to, you know, I was given the freedom to change that and to become more

of a commentator and more of an investigative commentator.

It was quite an unusual format.

It's hard when, like if I talk to journos who are mates in New York or in London and

they sort of, you try and explain what rear window is, it's quite hard because there's

nothing.

There's no other precedent, nothing.

Well, there's not really anything overseas that you could absolutely directly compare

it to because it's sort of, it's sort of gossip.

It's sort of gossip.

But increasingly it's commentary, but it's also news and it's also satire, you know,

or comedy, you know.

Well, satire is in the writing, the writing style.

Yeah.

You're quite brilliant.

I mean, I've told you before, but you're quite brilliant in the way you write your

writing style.

It's very readable, but it's fun too.

Like satire sort of has to have a bit of fun associated with it.

It's also quite an Australian thing to laugh at people who take themselves too seriously.

You know, people who get laughed at, they don't like it.

They call it the tall pop.

It's called the poppy syndrome, but actually what it's doing is just, you know, holding

a mirror up to people who are being pretentious or obnoxious or whatnot.

And there's a little bit of it in Britain, but definitely in US journalism, they do not

get it because they take themselves very seriously.

The journalists, not just the people they're writing about.

So do you think the rear window style when you're writing it was a fairly unique proposition

relative to, you know, what other journalistic sort of newspapers you've written about?

Yeah.

I mean, it went around and around the world, especially at the AFR level on a national

level, something with so much impact.

Is that where you would say that was unique?

It got to that point where I think it was unique and the reason that is like it wasn't

just have a laugh.

It was have a laugh.

But underneath these laugh, look at the serious thing that's here.

Look at all the data that's in there, look at all the evidence and the research that's

done and that's what a lot of big, businesses and business people couldn't fight off.

They couldn't laugh it off because.

You know, sure it was humor, but behind it was really serious issues.

And that's how I campaigned on big companies like Rio Tinto and Magellan and Alex Malli

at the CPA, if anyone remembers him.

And then, of course, there was PwC last year, which I was part of a team that was working

on that.

And then finally, Qantas.

And I think Qantas thought they could just laugh it off.

It's just rear window.

It's just gossip.

And that's what a lot of people try to do.

But increasingly, the columns were pointing out, with a lot of data, stuff that was inconsistent

about their behavior, particularly towards customers and staff.

And they found that that was an error that they thought they could just brush it away,

try and shut it down, laugh it off.

It stuck to them.

So it's interesting you say data, Joe, because I think what you mean by data is you mean

evidence, proper evidence.

And a mutual friend of ours told me once that...

Many years ago, when you were writing earlier, that this guy, referring to you, is very good

at getting his facts.

How does someone like you get your facts?

I mean, like, what's the process?

How do you build...

And like, let's say you've got to write a...

Let's take us back to rear window days.

And let's say, you know, there's an expectation you've got to write a column every day, five

or six days a week.

Five.

But I, you know, I had quite a few days off in between.

Don't worry.

By the end, I was not doing many weeks where it was five.

But in the early days?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you've got to get a yarn out.

And you shared it.

It wasn't just you, but there was a shared...

There's another journalist in that territory.

And you've got to get a yarn out every day.

That's like, it would seem to me, you've got to have like at least five...

You might have to have 10 or 20 topics going at once.

What would you...

Yeah, because of course, when you see it come out, that doesn't...

I might have been working on that for three or four days.

You're sort of juggling all these balls, because when will you be able to prove that one versus

that one?

And they're all bubbling away.

It's like trying to cook, like do a dinner party for 20 people.

You've got about five games of chess going at once.

Yeah, correct.

So what's the process like?

Like, I mean, where do you get your ideas from?

A lot of the time, you've got to be talking to people all the time and just on the phone.

And you've got to be face-to-face with people, because people, you've got to build trust

with people.

And people need you to prove that you can be trusted.

You've got to have a track record of protecting people that trust you with information.

Yes, exactly.

Your source.

But I, increasingly over time, I moved more into like, let's get documents.

Let's look at financial documents.

And let's look at what people say.

Look at transcripts of what things have been said versus now what they're doing.

And look for the discrepancies between those things.

Because, of course, relying on what someone says to you and what multiple people say to

you versus what someone else says disagrees.

And it all relies on human accounts of things.

Also agendas and opinions.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's always hard, right?

Because, you know, people are always calling you up saying, guess what?

I'll tell you.

And they tell you A, B, or C.

And you always have to think, what is this person's motivation?

Are they acting because they're outraged that something bad is happening here?

Or are they just trying to settle a score with someone?

That's happening all the time.

And by the way, just because someone's trying to settle a score doesn't mean that the information

they're giving you is wrong.

So you might still use it.

But you've got to really be twigged to people's real motivations.

But how did you develop that skill?

So, and what I mean by that is, did you study something or did you just study someone else?

Or did you have a mentor sort of sitting there like, hey, Joe, look, just check this, this

set of accounts out.

Do you have other resources to your availability to say, well, can someone give me the lowdown

on this set of numbers?

Yeah, well, I mean, the great thing about being in the AFR newsroom, you've got some

great, like some really terrific reporters and subject matter experts.

Analysts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And guys who've been there.

Guys and girls.

We've been there for a long time.

They can read accounts.

They know the industries that they write about.

And then you also get to know lots of shareholders of companies and they really are right in

the weeds of things.

Again, you've got to figure out their motivations.

Are they shorting the stock or are they long the stock and therefore they're motivated,

you know, to only tell one side of the story.

It's everyone's, you're always watching, but just being in that spot and as sort of

became more high profile, you get access to the best people and they, you know, the

great thing about that.

The great thing about that job was you pick up the phone to like top, top people and they

answer and they were, and they're happy to talk to you mostly.

Yeah.

Um, and.

Unless they're the subject matter.

Yeah.

Well, even still a lot of the time they will.

Um, but that's the quality access to, to, to experts that you're obviously that allows

you to just supercharge your learning curve.

Yeah.

Do, do, do you actually limit, but the more powerful you get, well, not powerful, it's

probably not the right word.

The more, um, the more content that you've created.

And the more feathers you've ruffled, does that then start to create a, a bit of a chasm

for you in that people are going to say, oh, I'm not going to talk to him because if I

talk to him, I could be included in the story.

Do you, do you get people starting to be scared of you?

Um, or give you a birth?

Yeah, I think that definitely happens.

It's, it's, it's a hard job if you do it properly.

And I've sort of said before, you can't be a good journalist if you need to be popular

or if you want to be popular.

And that's, that's hard because we all.

I think naturally are wired to want to be popular.

Yeah.

We want to be like, yeah.

And no one sort of, some people do, but not many people are wired to enjoy conflict, but

ultimately your job is to publish a George Orwell said, this is one of my favorite quotes.

Journalism is publishing something that someone doesn't want to be published and anything

else is public relations.

Right.

And so ultimately if you're doing journalism properly, you're writing something that the

person you're writing it about doesn't want out there.

And so you're doing something that they don't want.

And so I really struggled with this in, in the, uh, in the early years because you talk

about pre we rewinder or during the early years of writing rear window, you know, I

really struggled with sort of, I was quite afraid to answer the phone to someone that

was angry.

I was quite afraid to call someone up and say, I have this negative information about

you.

What do you say about it?

And I, and that led me to make mistakes.

Um, uh, that you're timid, naturally timid at that point.

I think I had a lot of false bravado.

Um, which means.

Well, it means that I was pretending not to be timid, but I was very conflict avoidant.

Um, which is not unnatural.

It was really quite overwhelming at times, but I got better at that.

And if you lean into it, it gets better.

But what makes you better at it then?

So it's practicing it, you know, instead of hiding under the doona, you just make yourself

pick up the phone and have the hard conversation and look into someone's eyes and say, this

is not personal.

This is about the issue.

This is not about the personality.

Did this happen or did it not happen?

This is what I think.

This is what I think.

This is what I think.

Tell me what you think.

Even if you disagree with me, tell me what you think.

And I can still go away and say, no, I still think what I think.

I disagree with your perspective.

I'm still going to write it the way I was going to, but that process is important.

Um, and, and really unnatural on a human level.

Cause you know, you walk around and you, you've said, said lots of negative things about people

and people understandably hate you.

Um, and how do you not let that sort of eat away at you?

Um, you just have to be.

You're really certain that you're being fair and that you've, um, you know, that your position

is strong from where you're standing and then you just have to let that, the rest of that

go.

Do you have to pick a higher order?

In other words, sort of say, look, I'm doing this for a, it's important that people know

about this truth or these, these facts, this content, this data that, that, that is important.

Whether the people read my column or is it more Australians, whatever, you might have a

different view on that, but tell me that I like that answer that who is it, your, who is it that

you're trying to take down the road to the truth.

And, and when it comes to that as well, you have to take a view that it's so important that I don't

care whether I upset the individual I'm writing about.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

That's exactly what you have to do.

And like, um, there's a good bit in my book where Greg Highwood, who used to be the CEO of

Fairfax, he was talking to Alan Joyce because Alan Joyce obviously went to war last year with the AFR

and pulled the AFR at a large.

I remember it.

Yep.

So, but the thing people probably forgotten is that 10 years before that.

He did the same thing to the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, and he pulled all those papers out

of the airports and canceled the advertising of Qantas in those newspapers because Adele Ferguson

had written that he should resign because he just delivered a record loss.

And Greg Highwood called him, this is in the book, Greg Highwood called him, uh, when, when he found

out that Alan was pulling the advertising and he said, you know, do you realize that like this

journalism that we, we produce is what keeps society functioning.

And, you know, by pulling advertising like this, you're threatening.

What you're doing is you're threatening the free press, which is how we keep this country together.

And, and when you think about it, it all sounds so high and mighty.

And I understand if people out there are rolling their eyes going, oh, you think that, you know,

what you do is so holier than thou because I would roll my eyes too.

And we, we also all tell ourselves these stories about ourselves to make ourselves feel better

about what we do, you know?

So I, what I do is so important for the public.

And, and so, you know, I, I put my hand up there, but if you do think about it without journalism,

um, like Adele Ferguson's.

Or Hedley Thomas's or Kate McClymont's or many others, Neil Chenoweth, like you powerful people

do not stop and pause before they do something that they shouldn't do.

You know, that's, it's, it's the existence of people like them, um, who, who cause powerful

people to go.

I won't steal.

I won't lie.

I won't cheat because I might get caught.

And if there was no press holding them to account, there'd be all sorts of, I mean, society would

break down.

So it's.

It's an important thing.

Like, so you got to do it.

And it, but it, do you have to remind yourself of that?

Because if you're just written a story about somebody and then on the phone, they're blowing

up and their wife rings you and their PR agency rings you and every other person rings you.

Did at any stage when you go home, you think, oh my God, what a crappy night.

This would say pre-marriage because you know, you, when you, when you're married, you have

a partner and it's, it's probably a bit easier.

You can sort of feel a bit more comfortable at your home with your family, but let's say

you're going home on your own or hanging out with, you know, whoever you are.

Yeah.

Whoever you're living with at the time, do you ever get to the point with, oh fuck, like

this is, this is, this is so hectic.

Yeah.

Just stresses the shit out of me.

Oh, countless times I've said, what am I doing this, what, what, what is this?

Countless times I've said, like, there's gotta be an easier way to make a buck.

And, and, and I, let me assure you, there is, um, I, and so it is sort of a toil of

love.

You, you, you wouldn't be a journalist if you didn't love.

You know, yeah, if you didn't love doing it, um, you don't certainly don't do it for other

reasons because the pressure is high and yeah, in the end, that's what, what, why I decided

to, to leave the AFR.

I mean, there were a few different reasons, but one of the big reasons was I just got

to the point where I was like, oh, there's a lot of just accumulated hostility.

I walk into a room and everyone's just wants to kill me.

And you just think I might just, I might just need a bit of a break.

I might, you know, I might just need a quieter life for a bit.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, um, this book didn't, this book didn't, yeah, exactly, tell me about

it.

Yeah.

Amanda, one of the things that probably results from prior to this book though, results from

the position you're in is that you will make powerful enemies and powerful friends.

And I know that you have powerful friends.

Um, how do you manage that?

The old, no fear or no favor sort of position in relation to that.

How do you, in your own mind, how do you reconcile that?

Mm.

Do you just say, well, if something comes your way that you probably feel like I don't

want to have to write about this because by human nature, I would be that person you might,

do you hand it over to somebody else?

What, what do you do?

Like.

That's yeah, that's, that's hard and you know, you can be the subject of criticism about

this.

Oh, well, why aren't you writing about this?

Why?

You didn't say anything about that person and you sort of, sort of think, well, that

doesn't necessarily mean that.

Um, it's a fat, some sort of dirty favor or something like that, but.

But it, but you're allowed to make the choice aren't you as a journalist?

Well, I don't, I think so, but I, I would also understand, look, I just don't want to

be a hypocrite, right?

Yeah.

And say, how dare you criticize me?

I'm, I'm open to criticism on that.

Like you do, you're still a human being.

Yeah.

You still make friends.

And the thing about being a journalist is you then develop sources and at some point,

sometimes you get to a point where you've gone over that line where you're just in way

too deep with someone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't have access to all of their personal life and secrets and, and they trust you and

they confide in you and you sort of go, I'm, I'm beyond a journalist, a journalist with

this person now.

And you just have to give it a wide berth professionally and.

Give that person a wide berth professionally or?

Well, that's, that's what I have done.

Yeah.

Um, and I think there are, there's people who do it differently and they continue to

write about that person, but only positively.

And I have not done that.

Yeah.

Um, or tried very hard not to do that.

Um, so you sort of, but you still don't.

You still get a bit, a bit of a hard time from people because you don't write about

them.

I mean, what are you meant to do?

Just, just attack them as hard as you can and not allowed to, not allowed to have any

personal relationships.

But I get, I get the criticism, you know, like people are always looking for you to

be inconsistent and it is an inconsistency to say, you know, to hit this person, that

person, that person, but not that person and that person.

But it's sort of, um, a bit unfair to expect a person, someone like yourself or anybody,

um, to come home and come home on a friend of yours.

Like, uh, you gotta live the.

You gotta live the.

You got your journalist world, but you gotta live a life too.

Yeah, sure.

And all of a sudden you got your friends.

You're not gonna go around telling everybody what happened at the barbecue.

Correct.

Exactly.

Like, why would you?

And by the way, I don't think any journalist would.

Do you think there's an expectation that by consumers of your stuff, readers, the expectation

is that if you're gonna be that person on one occasion, you're gonna be that person

on all occasions.

You've gotta be consistently put, uh, at it.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't know.

I think there probably are some readers who had unreasonable expectations about that.

Yeah.

But there are probably other readers who understand that it's a human, it's a human being, you

know, at the, at the, uh, tiller doing this.

And so they're gonna have some human needs and human weaknesses and human preferences.

And like, not only do you need to have friends in the world, you also need to have sources.

Yeah.

And that, that is also a transaction in some ways where you go, well, is this a source

relationship or is this a potential subject?

And.

Yeah.

It's all a bit of a gray area.

You gotta be careful.

I don't burn it because it might be important.

Yeah, correct.

But is it hypocritical not to burn it?

Is it more important to burn this person because they've done the wrong thing than it is to

maintain them as a source of information?

That's a really hard, uh, transaction internally of, uh, which, which, you know, I've grappled

with many times.

Do, do you ever get into the position where, cause clearly you're playing the man, not

the ball here.

Like that's your job.

Well, man, whatever the case might be.

Well, I mean, I would contest that.

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't, I don't, I'm sure I've made mistakes, uh, where I have, uh, played the man.

Um, but when I'm playing, I'm, I think I'm playing the ball and the person with the ball,

um, for what they're doing with the ball.

Yeah.

You know, like I'm not, I'm not right again, I can imagine someone's gonna say, what about

that time?

And then, you know, you've made, I've made mistakes, but usually 99 times out of a hundred,

it's this person, um, I'm not attacking that person cause they're fat or thin or they're,

you know, uh, Asian or Jewish or, you know, like it's, the idea is it's what they're doing

in their job and what they're doing with shareholder funds or what they're doing in public office.

So, you know, okay.

I lay, put humor on top of that and have a laugh about it.

And you know, that might, people then say, oh, well then you're playing the man, but

I don't know that that's accurate.

Do you think people should get, I mean, if it's just a one off story or two off stories

as opposed to what's the chairman's lounge, which is a whole book.

And, and by the way, that was, that's just a book that culminated at the end of a process

cause you'd already been going at Qantas for quite a while as, as probably correctly, you

know, as you have done in the past with other entities or other groups.

Um, do you think that, um, most people who read your column when they're written about,

for example, I've been written about in your column, I don't know if it was about by you,

but by others.

Um, do you think they shouldn't, they should, if it's just once or twice, listen, dude,

get over it.

Don't worry about it.

Like it's.

Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about that.

What do you think people should say?

Well, the, the, the, the subject should say, who cares?

Well, what do you want them to think?

Well, I mean, I want them to look at the issue, you know, if some, if you criticize someone,

but let's just say it's a fun thing, a bit of a, yeah.

Oh yeah.

Then you hope that they laugh it off and it's all just a bit of light entertainment.

But if someone is ripping off their customers or they're saying one thing and doing another,

they're being a hypocrite, then I would hope that what they do is look at their behavior

and think about the criticism that's being made.

Yeah.

And it's very hard to do that because when people are under attack, they switch quite

often from rational to emotional.

Yeah.

Cortisol jumps in.

Yeah.

And that's very hard to think straight.

And so you sort of have to give people that, um, that sort of, um, what am I, what's the

word I'm, I'm going for?

Um.

Would I ever think Joe Asin could not think of a bloody word like unbelievable.

You sort of have to give people that leeway.

Best words to me I've ever met.

Like unbelievable.

I can't think of the word.

I bet you'd be writing it.

It'd be written all year.

You're timing it.

It'd be 20 words heavier.

That's why I like writing because I can sit there and, you know, craft the perfect sentence

and everyone thinks I'm so great with English language.

But then when you get me in front of a microphone, you realize I'm just as crap as anyone else.

Well, there's a camera on you.

Expressing myself.

Yeah.

So, so, so, and, and just on that, um, your style of writing, look, I don't really remember

you when you first kicked it off, but I certainly remember towards the end, your style of writing

was, um, very fluid, easy to read.

Very easy to read.

It was, it was entertainment.

Um, did you, is that something that you, you worked on to, to become good at, or was that

something you've always been?

Were you like at uni doing this sort of stuff or at school you're writing in the, in the,

you know?

I was, I was a speech writer professionally before, uh, I worked, uh, as a journalist.

And who did you speech write for?

So, uh, James Hogan, the CEO of Etihad Airways, the airline that I worked for after I worked

for Qantas and before I started at the AFR.

And I read a lot.

So I spent my 20s.

20s buried in novels, not so much nonfiction, but, um, I just loved literature and I actually

dreamed that I could be a novelist.

Um, unfortunately that was a pipe dream, but, um, that is a really good basis.

And if you continue to read, I really love other people's great writing and I'm always

underlining phrases and, and, and just thinking about how other people render the English

language.

But the other part of it is you just get good at something you do every day.

Yeah.

It's nothing.

It's no different to going and benching four times a week in the gym, progressive overload

as sitting at your desk, writing 800 words a day for the public, for public consumption.

Do that for 12 years and you'll have a big chest and you'll have a great writing style.

But Joe, you're being very modest because I, as long as my butt points to the ground,

I could be, um, pressing every day for the next 10 years and I'll never lift 140 kilos.

And, uh, and you know, with your style of writing is sort of 140 kilo territory.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so there's gotta be a talent in there as well as a love of it.

You must love it.

Sure.

I must be lucky to have some natural talent.

That's, that's, I'll probably admit that.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

Cause there's some guys down the gym mate, you know, and they and I could start on the

same day, do the same weights for the next 10 years and they definitely will be lifting

more than me in the period down the track.

And do you run, do you feel as though sometimes though, in terms of language and, and, and

style of writing, um, that the satire that you attach to these things, um, is, is, is,

um, to people, that's the only thing I feel like at the moment, but particularly in the

weeks when I'm writing these titles, um, and that's some of the things I'm not used to

is the, um, you know, the social, the best way to build these things.

Yeah.

You haven't got a lot of those things.

Yeah.

Um, you know, there's a lot of those things that I'm not used to.

Um, but I, to, and I go to a lot of these things.

Do you ever think to yourself?

Like my hub, I didn't go too hard on the person in this ridicule, like, hopefully I don't feel

as a feel ridiculed because when you're writing a book, it's more facts.

Yeah.

You got a lot more time.

Totally.

I'm just grappling with is that people understandably are pulling

out little sections of the book now and really like obsessing about them

and that's all fine but you sort of think if you really look

at the whole thing, there's a lot more going on and a lot more,

you know, a lot of research and a lot of context

and definitely in a column you can't get anything,

you can't get everything in.

It can't be too dense either.

No, because you want people to just enjoy it.

Yeah, correct.

So look, well, your original question was do you worry

that someone will feel ridiculed?

It depends if they've done something ridiculous and in many cases

when I was writing about someone, they had done something ridiculous

and people should be laughed at if they do something ridiculous,

especially with shareholder money or public money.

So but yeah, look, there are times where you go,

I'll tell you what changed.

At the beginning I was trying to make a splash.

I was young.

I was immature.

You know, I was writing about stuff that was just a bit, yeah,

it was a bit impetuous.

Like I was, you know, making jokes about mummy bloggers

and, you know, getting involved in cultural crap around, you know,

whether Julia Gillard was, you know, was being treated unfairly as a woman

or wasn't being treated unfairly.

And I just look back and go that that was not the most important thing

that was going on in Australia.

But it was, that was just my level of competence at the time,

I'm embarrassed to say.

But I think as it developed, I was able to ensure,

and again, there were exceptions, unfortunately,

but I was able to focus on, you know, trying to punch up, you know,

always make sure that if I was going after someone,

it was someone who was more powerful than I was.

And I got better at that.

Not perfect, but I got better at that as I went along.

Not too long ago, running a business looked a lot different.

A good location and a solid reputation were enough to keep a customer base happy.

No websites, no social media, no SEO, just old school networking,

and persistence, of course.

But times have changed.

In today's digital world, your business needs more than just a great product.

It needs visibility.

That's where Squarespace comes in.

Whether you're just getting started or expanding your brand,

it's the all-in-one platform that makes building

and managing your online presence simple.

With Blueprint AI, creating a professional,

customized website takes just a few clicks.

Plus, powerful tools like automated client invoicing,

online courses, and membership,

help you generate revenue effortlessly.

So you can focus on growing your business instead of juggling logistics.

Head to squarespace.com forward slash mentored for a free trial.

And when you're ready to launch, use offer code mentored,

M-E-N-T-O-R-E-D,

to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain.

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start?

Thumbtack knows home so you don't have to.

Don't know the difference between,

matte paint finish and satin?

Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is?

With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.

You just have to hire one.

You can hire top-rated pros,

see price estimates,

and read reviews all on the app.

Download today.

Before I get onto the book,

because I think it's important to establish Joe Astin.

So I hope you don't mind me asking those sort of questions.

Sure.

Because I saw you interviewed on 730 Report this week,

and I felt like,

you know, I'm not having a go with Sarah Ferguson,

but I just felt as though,

given the time she had to interview you,

I felt as though it was,

given that I know you,

I thought it was an unfair discussion.

I just,

and I actually felt like you were quite guarded in that.

Mate, if you sit down with Sarah Ferguson,

you're going to be guarded.

Totally, totally.

She's a tremendous interviewer.

And does her work, homework.

And I get it.

And I just didn't think that it was a good expression of Joe,

of yourself.

One of the things I do want to talk to you about,

like just quickly,

is that in the process of meeting lots of people,

you have to go to lots,

lots of lunches.

The danger of that is that you become a lush.

Yep.

Drinking, eating, blah, blah, blah.

I know you're five years sober, I think.

Five years sober.

Yeah, five and a half now.

Five and a half years sober.

Just take us through that.

What's that process like?

Well, our mutual friend, David Ginger,

was the first person who said to me in 2013,

which is about six years before I actually stopped drinking,

that I needed to do something about my drinking.

He was a boss of Channel 9 then?

Yeah, he was.

Of the group?

Yeah, exactly.

Before the merger with Fairfax.

Before the merger with Fairfax.

We were still doing stuff.

The Fin Review had a TV show on Channel 9 at that point.

Yeah, I remember that.

So, yeah, look, I actually sort of got into journalism

now that I can be honest with myself

and I have enough distance between.

And I can now see that I got into journalism

because it appealed to me that it was a job

where I could start drinking in the daytime.

Before that, I'd been in office jobs

and you had to at least stay sober during the day.

And then I was like,

oh, you could just go out and get people drunk at lunchtime.

And it was, so it's unsurprising that I fell into that profession

and yeah, it just got worse and worse.

But was that a process?

So, in other words, did you do that to sort of soften yourself

relative to the person you're having lunch with

by maybe having a couple of gin and tonics early, straight up?

Or was that to get them off guard?

Was that to get them into the mode?

Well, the thing is it was both,

but usually what happens when you become addicted to something

is that you make excuses for yourself.

Right.

So you say, I'm doing this so that I can get the other person a bit loose.

But really, you're lying to yourself.

What you're doing is you're just drinking

because you're addicted to alcohol.

Yeah.

And you're doing it to cope with all the,

you know, you're not dealing with in a healthy way.

So that just got worse and worse.

And eventually I just sort of, it got so bad that I had to stop.

How did you do that?

I just, I'm sort of lucky.

I didn't sort of go to rehab or anything like that,

but I just hit the fence.

I was sick.

I just got really, you know, I was feeling really unwell all the time.

You know, bloated, was losing my,

I remember I was getting to the point where I could barely,

even really write anymore.

And that really scared me.

You know, I was sitting there, I couldn't remember what words meant.

And I, you know, I needed a dictionary to start,

put together a sentence by the end.

And I just realized that it was going like this really rapidly.

And so I was actually in New York on a work trip.

And I called my editor in chief and I said, I'm really sorry,

but I need a break.

I just need, I need, I'm about to disappear.

And for health reasons.

And I don't know when I'll be back.

And I came back.

I came back to Australia and went and stayed at a friend's house

on the central coast for a couple of weeks and dried out.

And then just got on with my life, trying to do it myself

and with friends surrounding myself were the right people.

But work was really amazing.

You know, they were very supportive.

That year in 2019, they gave me a lot of time off

and let me just get better slowly.

Because that's the only, you don't get better fast.

You know, if you do, if you thrash yourself the way I was

for 20 years.

For 10 years, you don't sort of just have a day off drinking

and all of a sudden you're back to healthy.

It takes, you know, it takes a long time for your brain to recover

and for your body to recover.

And now I just like, life's just changed so much

and I just feel so lucky because I know lots of other people

who have what I have who don't make it.

And you got married during that period or just a little bit thereafter?

Yeah, later, yeah.

And you're married how many years now?

Two.

Two years and you've got a child?

Yeah, six month old.

Six month old.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

I must have to say when I first met you I didn't think,

I just never imagined you settling down so to speak.

No, me neither.

Yeah, but you were like pretty young.

I don't even know how old you are but you still look really young.

I'm 41.

Well, so then this would have been like.

I probably looked about 55 five years ago, that's the thing.

You look great at the moment.

Thank you, that's kind.

So we got onto the book, right.

So this week, you know, it's the time we're doing the podcast

but at the end of the week it's all been about Albanese

and it's all been about.

Did he make a call?

Did he make a call?

Can we just get some stuff cleared up straight away

before we get into the rest of the book, the important part of the book?

He's denied it.

He said he didn't make a phone call.

Reckons he's never really received any favours.

I watched Paul Murray keep putting up on the Code of Conduct,

the Parliamentary Code of Conduct which is, you know,

Julie Rudd's Code of Conduct, Julie Gillard's Code of Conduct,

Kevin Rudd's Code of Conduct and also Albanese Code of Conduct.

Is the issue that he shouldn't have accepted free flights?

What is it?

What's the issue?

The reason Albanese's upgrades in particular are the focus

of attention in that section of the book is because it's sort

of context to understand how, or sorry,

it's context to how nobody can understand the Qatar decision

that happened last year where, you know, Qantas was in the toilet,

worst customer service ever, highest airfares in living memory

and none of the airlines were flying enough seats.

So there was really high travel demand, really low supply of seats

and Qatar puts their hands up and says we'll fly more,

we can bring in more flights right now and that will bring prices down.

And by the way, Qatar kept flying to Australia right through COVID

when all the other airlines had packed up and it's all on track to be approved.

You know, the transport department's in favour of it.

Catherine King verbally, who's the transport minister,

verbally says, indicates to Virgin that she's in favour of it

because of course Virgin's the partner of Qatar.

And then all of a sudden something changes.

And so that is, the relationship between Albanese and Qantas

and Alan Joyce in particular is fair game and absolutely of high interest.

The thing is, there's lots of questions.

Like he declared those upgrades and in some ways, ironically,

he's being punished for being transparent about the fact the upgrades happened.

The argument is, has he been transparent about how they happened?

He only now, I mean, it's taken a lot of days to finally now say he didn't seek those upgrades.

That's inconsistent with what I've written and inconsistent with what I know.

But the fact is, he was transport minister.

So that's the unique thing.

He had unique powers over the airline industry.

And so was that appropriate?

I don't think it was.

But having said that, this book is about how Qantas influences all politicians

and both sides of politics.

And that's really the big issue, because this has been going on for 40 years.

And like Rod Eddington says in my book, he was the CEO of Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong,

British Airways when they owned a quarter of Qantas, and also Ansett.

He was chairman of Ansett before they went down the tubes.

And he says, you know, Qantas is the best lobbyist in Australia, bar none.

He can't think of anyone who's ever been better.

And he competed with Qantas for the vast majority of his career.

So many people accept that Qantas,

I think, is the best lobbyist in Australia.

Qantas has had this really powerful influence over politicians,

Liberal, Labor, National, everyone, for a long time.

And so, you know, I'm a bit bemused.

I mean, it's just Albanese is prime minister today.

There's nothing we can do about that.

But I am a bit bemused that that's the only angle that anyone's talking about.

Because, I mean, a lot of it is about how Qantas managed to rip $2.7 billion

of subsidies out of the Morrison government

after the election.

But they convinced the Morrison government not to save Virgin Australia with a financial

lifeline.

So their power is immense, no matter who is in government in Canberra.

And is this, but is, Joe, is it a, corporates sort of have a responsibility, well, they

definitely have a responsibility to their shareholders under the corporation's law.

And part of the responsibility of the shareholders under the corporation's law is to make sure

that they can always survive, out-survive everybody else as a business, that they can

maximize a profit.

Um, you know, in order to pay dividends back to their shareholders, um, and if you're given

an opportunity to put yourself in a position of power or influence, um, whether it's under

Richard Goyter as chairman and, or, you know, anybody else, previous chairmen's going right

back for the last 40, 50 years, um, you would probably do it because it's like a risk management

process.

What is the objection to a corporation that's called a corporation?

You call it managing politicians, uh, the way Qantas has done.

Well, well, there's, there's the, there is the responsibility to shareholders, but there

is the politician's responsibility to us citizens to make good policy that's good for the country

and good for consumers as well.

And so the problem is when Qantas is saying, you can have, you can all have the chairman's

lounge and we're going to give you upgrades or, or they get asked for upgrades by politicians,

which they do often, and they give them to them.

And then that, what that fosters is an individual.

It's an environment where Qantas is able to make politicians create bad policy for

us as travelers.

And that Qatar decision is a great example.

Um, they, uh, Qantas managed to convince the government to defund the ACCC's airline monitoring

powers last year, which was again, an unbelievable decision when prices were sky high, service

was terrible.

Uh, Rex was basically in the process of being destroyed, um, and Bonza.

So, um, that's the issue that not, uh, Qantas.

Is absolutely entitled to, and should do the best for its shareholders.

And no one's saying Qantas should not make money.

Um, but it's the way they go about it.

Is there, but today on today's standards, do you think there's a level of, at Qantas,

at least from, from Qantas' point of view or Qantas' obligations, that there is a social

license for them given, you know, we give them a social license, the Australian people

give them a social license through the government, um, given that there are sort of, you

know, effectively the major, the only airline here, particularly when it comes to overseas

travel, um, domestically.

Do you think they also have a social license on top of their profit, um, obligations in

total, on top of their looking after shareholder obligations, that they must look after the

social license relative to their customer base?

Definitely.

Um, and because that's a new, relatively speaking, new concept, social license, like banks.

Yep.

Is that an issue?

It is new in a corporate sense.

However, Qantas has been more than just a company for a long time.

And part of this is a hangover from the fact that it used to be.

It was owned by the government, you know, it was only privatized in 1995, but it's also the way they

monetize, uh, their law, the loyalty of their customers.

You know, they, all of their advertising is about being the national carrier, the spirit of

Australia.

So they're very happy to use the sort of social part of their brand to make more money and to

sell us tickets that are more expensive than on any other airlines for service that is quite

often inferior.

But then when you're, they, they're expected to like meet the responsibilities that come

with being the national carrier, not just a profit-making corporation, they sort of go, oh, well,

hang on, we're just a company.

Um, so they can't have it both ways.

And, um, Qantas did try and have it both ways in COVID, you know, they, they shut down

internationally, other airlines kept flying to Australia and there were, you know, many, many

Australians stuck overseas.

Um, they took COVID subsidies, uh, lots of them, um, not more than foreign carriers.

Like American carriers got more from the American government.

European carriers got equity injections from their governments, but they got big amount of

subsidies and they took JobKeeper, especially they're the biggest recipient of JobKeeper.

And then they illegally sacked people while those people were on JobKeeper.

And so it's the way they acted.

Um, it's, they also started paying share buybacks.

So they started returning hundreds of millions of dollars to their shareholders right after they just

received, you know, billions in subsidies.

And, and they, they weren't, instead of like, instead of reinvesting in the product so that the

standards were good enough.

Um, so they had their priorities all out of whack.

Um, that's not even just social license.

That's just, if you treat your customers so badly that you destroy your brand, then your shareholders

will ultimately suffer.

And even in the book, Qantas' largest shareholder, uh, says a lot, a lot of stuff.

But one of the things he points out is that they were so focused on making this record profit out of

COVID to prove that it was the turnaround of all turnarounds.

But actually.

If they just said, let's make, you know, two.

Or $300 million less this year, put that back into catering, call centers, um, you know, putting more

frontline staff in the airport terminals, you know, all those kinds of things that would have made

things better for customers, the share price wouldn't have collapsed as much because there wouldn't

have been a public uproar.

So you can, um, try it.

You can actually almost make too much money if you, if you're too single-minded about it.

And that's what Qantas had under Alan Joyce before COVID.

They were at this point where they had this, I call it the Holy Trinity, which isn't very original.

I know.

But you know, customers, shareholders, and staff, and they're all in this perfect balance.

Qantas was making lots of money.

It's staff loved the company and its customers loved the company.

And, and COVID after COVID, Alan Joyce just allowed that to fall completely out of whack.

Do you think it's, um, a single-minded brilliance though, but the single-mindedness wasn't that good?

Oh, it's a big character study and, um.

Yeah.

And I'm talking about the character, which is Alan Joyce, of course.

Yeah.

A single-minded brilliance.

Yeah.

But the single-minded part of it wasn't right.

It wasn't, uh, it, it, it became problematic because his single-mindedness was probably

a great strength until it was no longer a strength.

You know what I mean?

Did it become an obsession?

Uh, well, look, I, I don't, I wouldn't go that far, but.

Not for you.

I'm talking about him.

Um, yeah.

His single-mindedness to make the profit, to profit at all costs.

Yeah, well, it certainly became his overriding priority.

And that's also because of his incentives, because the bigger the profit, the higher the

share price, well, theoretically, and his, his pay was mostly in shares.

So he was, his incentives were get the share price ramped.

Right.

Um, and so that, that, that, it is a really interesting character study because it's over,

I go into, you know, Alan Joyce turned up, Qantas was sort of collapsing financially.

Uh, it's, it's results when he took over in the GFC, um, you know, he just chipped, chipped

away, tried to make Qantas more efficient, got it into this pretty good position before

COVID and, but by the time COVID had hit, he sort of started to lose his judgment a little

bit.

And.

That happens to people like, again, um, there's this great man theory of history and people

go, oh, well, you know, that's all a bit made up, but I think Qantas is a great example

of someone who really, he was there for so long.

He came to dominate the organization, his chairman changed in 2018.

So he went from having this really very commanding chairman in Lee Clifford, um, who'd run Rio

Tinto and, uh, really you knew who was boss between those two.

Then he leaves in 2018, Richard Goita comes in and he's a far more deferential, nice man.

And, and, and, and hands off at, yeah.

And, and, and I think plus Alan Joyce was much more confident by that point.

He'd been there for more than a decade and he was like, no one was questioning his, his

judgment.

But the thing is with power, and this is a really, an interesting psychological study,

uh, power affects people.

If you, if you're in a powerful social status or professional status for a long time, it

actually starts to affect you just like a traumatic brain injury.

As in judgment.

Yeah.

Because.

You know, like normal people, um, I probably am not very normal, but just say I could consider

myself normal.

You know, we, we, we're not very important or powerful.

We sit around with each other.

We talk, say we're in a meeting, we're looking to each other subliminally.

This isn't conscious, but subliminally we're looking to each other to co-regulate like

each other's, uh, responses.

So, you know, you laugh when I laugh and I'll, you know, grimace when you grimace, I'll look

at my shoes at the right time.

And that's how, uh, that's how humans communicate.

Yeah.

But powerful people over time, they become detached from that process because they don't

have to care what other people think because they're in charge.

They don't have to be part of the community.

They form the community.

They, they just drift away and, and they are not co-regulated by other people, especially

because everyone is inferior to them.

So nobody would not laugh at their joke.

Nobody says that's not funny.

No one says, boss, you're full of shit.

Um, people stop saying that to them.

So they, so they, that, that the longer they're in power, it affects them progressively and,

um, you've seen that in lots of politicians that stay in office too long.

CEOs should not be, you know, nobody should be CEO of a large Australian company for 15

years.

It's too long for the, for, and, and I reckon, you know, I'm, I don't want to verbal Alan

Joyce, but I reckon he would wish that he left in 2019 when, uh, he'd been there 11

years.

It was right before COVID hit, you know, the, the share price was really high.

Um, everyone loved him.

He was a hero over gay marriage, uh, and instead.

The board offered him a contract extension and instead of leaving then he stayed and

then COVID happened and the rest just got out of control.

But who's responsibility is that the board's responsibility?

A hundred percent.

The board's responsibility in relation to what the CEO is doing.

Cause when you said something interesting there a moment ago, when someone's been in

the role for a number of years, what they tend to do is they actually put people around

them and sift out those people who are around them who don't fit into the category, who

are actually not going, they're going to laugh at their jokes.

They're not going to sort of, especially the business is doing.

Well, or making money and, and all the share prices high, they're going to, um, everyone's

going to play the game sort of thing.

And, uh, it seems to me then what you're talking about here in the book, what you're sort of

revealing is maybe, um, regulators need to take a greater role in these things.

Do you think regulators have a need to sort of, uh, say, well, you know, maybe there's

a tenure period or.

I think that's making excuses for bad, um, performance of boards.

Well, maybe the, the regulator's got to talk to the good.

Well, I think the boards need to do their jobs.

Yeah.

And then you don't need regulators to do anything that they're not already doing, you know,

like a good board, uh, at Qantas would have in 2019 said 11 years is enough.

It's time.

Instead, they gave them another contract extension.

Um, a good board would have more importantly, you know, you can argue the toss on 2019 should

have been 2020.

And then if it was 2020 COVID happened and he couldn't really change CEOs in the middle

of a crisis.

So, you know, you could argue the toss on that, but what you can't argue the toss on

is when Qantas was running off the rails, you know, they, they, they were in a situation

of brand crisis, they'd become toxic.

And because Alan Joyce had been there for so long, he had come to inhabit the Qantas

brand.

People just.

He'd become the flying kangaroo.

Well, he became the devil of, you know, he almost became the devil incarnate and people

hated him so much.

Fairly or unfairly, that's how people felt that.

And that wasn't just, that's not, she's not me saying, I reckon that's true.

That's in the brand consumer research from Roy Morgan, RepTrack, all the big research

houses were finding this.

Um, what you can't.

I argue the toss is that at that point, the board of directors at Qantas should have

said, Alan, we need to fix some things here.

No, if not to get rid of him immediately, at least to say the, all these things need

to change COVID credits, not, not good enough.

You know, we've got to pay, um, we've got to settle with the baggage handlers who we

sacked illegally.

Let's pay them money now and apologize.

Um, you know, a whole bunch of stuff they could have done.

Um, but instead it was just, they kept, uh, Alan just kept fighting, which was his instinct.

He overpowering instinct.

He was always to fight.

He's a real street fighter.

And the board was just, well, Alan Joyce is, he knows better than we do.

We can't second guess him.

How do you, how do you, that's interesting.

So the, the balance between a board and, uh, the balance between the personalities on a

board and the CEO, often CEOs generally can't, if they're powerful, can select their own

board and, and, or, and, or work over the chairman or chairperson.

Um, and I'm not suggesting this has happened with Richard Goyter, but generally a really

good CEO who's bringing good results.

Uh, put, put, put aside what happened in post COVID, you know, with the sort of demise

of the brand, et cetera, and the things that were going on.

Um, and they don't want to challenge the CEO.

Um, how do you, how would you say, I mean, you've, you've written the book and, you know,

you've obviously observed a lot of stuff at Midland at a greater depth than anybody else

in relation to this particular case study, Qantas.

How do, how do the shareholders then, is it up then to shareholders to recognize what's

going on and then go on and say, make some changes themselves at the board level?

Because yes, the board is.

The board is responsible for the CEO and the shareholders are responsible for the board.

Yeah.

They're the, they own the company.

That's a very good point.

Very good point.

And then the CEO usually knows the big shareholders.

Oh yeah.

And, uh, it was sort of got a sort of.

And guess what?

They're all members of the chairman's lounge as well.

Correct.

So it's a sort of, not an unholy alliance, but it's a.

No, it's a circle of, uh.

Quite a clever process.

Yeah.

Cause that's what I'm saying about Alan Joyce's single-minded brilliance.

Yeah.

Around himself.

Yes.

I think that's fair.

And he's worked every, every aspect.

Every angle.

And he's.

He's, yep.

Including governments.

Yeah.

Oh no.

Not just government.

Yeah.

Shareholders.

Yeah.

Board.

Yep.

100%.

Senior staff.

He, he, he raised the, the sort of the capturing of strategically important people to a high

art and that included his board members.

Um, and, and, and definitely I think he was very good at investor relations cause he was

very focused on that issue and they trusted him because he had got Qantas from where it

was, you know, the share price was, you know, bumping along the ground at a dollar a share

for a long time.

Um, by 2019 before COVID it, it was seven bucks 40.

Uh, so he'd, he'd, you know, more than, you know.

Seven bagger.

Yeah.

It's a seven bagger.

I mean, amazing investment.

That's ridiculous.

But of course what anyone should know about the airline business is it's cyclical.

It is the most cyclical business of all cyclical businesses.

So if the share price.

It tells us about, it tells us about a new trend before anything else.

Yeah.

Anyone knows that if the share price gets to seven bucks, then the next place it's going

to get to is three bucks.

Yeah.

Like that's what airlines do.

And now it's, it's, it collapsed to like five bucks last year when all of this stuff

was blowing up and Alan resigned and guess what?

It's back to eight bucks and everyone's thinking that they're really smart, but you know, eight

at eight bucks, I mean, and this isn't investment advice, but at eight bucks, quite clearly

it's toppy and it's going to fall again.

Like it's a bit of a trading stock.

So lots of people trade in and out because you know, it's just going to be like a roller

coaster all the time.

So have you spoken to Alan Joyce about the book?

I have not.

I, uh, I've tried to approach.

Um, there's a statement from him in the book, which he, I thought was a bit amusing, um,

where he complains that the book will not be balanced or fair, um, towards him.

He, I don't know if he's read it and whether he still thinks that it wasn't balanced or

fair.

I tried hard to give him credit for what he did well.

What did he do well?

Um, well, what he did really well was the hard graft of making Qantas more efficient

because, you know, today maybe it's too efficient, but back in 20, uh, 2008.

Uh, when he took over and I worked there, then, um, it was a very fat, um, lazy company.

And, and in, and in fairness to Jeff Dixon, who was the predecessor to Alan, uh, it was

much less fat and lazy than when Jeff took over, but that's the sort of thing when you

take over a government business, it's so fat and, and, uh, hierarchical and you just got

to do the slow, hard work of making it more efficient, pulling costs out year after year

after year.

And that that's boring, unsexy work that no one's going to give.

It's hard graft.

I get it.

Oh, that's a pain.

That's a pain in the ass.

Yeah.

And, um, he.

Where'd he go wrong?

Yeah.

I was just going to try and give him credit for something else.

Cause he's, he's done a lot of other good things, but, um, where, where did he go wrong?

Cause what, what did he do?

I mean, there's lots of things.

Yeah, he did.

But where did it start?

Like one thing he did wrong was he just, the one thing that, that led to all the other

things was that he allowed hubris to, to take over.

And there was a moment in, when COVID hit where Qantas was worried that they were in

trouble.

But very quickly, they realized that they had a very strong balance sheet and that they

could survive without any government help.

They said publicly, no, we should, we don't need money.

We're fine.

And so Virgin shouldn't get any money because they calculated that if they didn't get any

money and Virgin didn't get any money, Virgin would fall over and survive and they, and

it fell over.

Right.

So next thing you know, they've got through that.

They've knocked over their competitor and then they change their mind and say, we do

want money.

But it's easily forgotten.

That's pretty clever though.

Very.

I mean, exceptionally clever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was, yeah, he's, he, he was a very good strategic thinker.

And by June, 2020, like they had got their costs down.

They, they, they really big achievement to like contract the business into this tiny

like dormant thing in, in mothballs where it was only burning $40 million a week.

And they said they could survive till for 18 months like that without a dollar of revenue

coming in.

The door.

So they, they never thought they were going to collapse, even though they later started

saying, oh, we were almost going to collapse.

They never thought that that would happen.

Truly.

But so what Qantas did at that point was they raised more than a billion dollars from

shareholders when the share price has recovered.

And they didn't say, oh, we need this billion and a bit dollars to survive, you know, just

as working capital.

They said, we need this money to sack 10,000 people and pay a billion dollars in redundancy

payments.

And that was too many people to sack.

But what clearly Alan Joyce saw was an opportunity.

COVID became an opportunity to supercharge Qantas' profits.

And he, he went for gold.

He was clearly saying we can basically turn Qantas into Jetstar, you know, with higher

prices.

I mean, that's an exaggeration, but you know what I mean?

Like really savagely cut the costs and reduce the quality of the customer experience.

And push the prices.

And push and keep the prices high and the profit margin will just get fat.

And so if you're a fund manager and, and Alan Joyce is proposing such a capital raising,

you're going to say, that sounds great.

Sign me up.

And they all did.

And, and surprise, surprise, they did make the super profits when they came straight

out of COVID.

But what they also did was they fell to pieces operationally.

Because if you sack 10,000 people from a 30,000 people company.

Oh, it's one third.

Almost.

Yeah.

It was like from 29,000 to like 21,000.

Wow.

So it's like, yeah, you're 25, 6% or something like that.

A huge number.

And you come back and how do you really think you're going to operate properly?

You know, the wheels are going to fall off because, you know, there's so, so far fewer

people working in the airport terminals or working in the engineering department.

And you haven't kept your pilot training or your cabin crew training fresh because you

wanted to save money.

There's so many areas where they, they were just threadbare.

And of course they say, oh, but it was COVID sickness.

We couldn't have expected that.

And it was supply chain disruption.

We couldn't have expected that.

And.

The thing about this story, it's why it needs to be a book instead of an article is those

things are partly true, but they use those things as if they're wholly true.

And so of course, COVID sickness in the staff and, and supply chain disruption for parts

that made an impact and made it worse, but it is not the reason why Qantas' performance

in 2022 and 2023 was so horrific.

And we all remember how bad it was.

I mean, anyone who tried to travel in 2022, it was hellish.

Um, and that was all because Qantas was being greedy.

Someone told me that they, um, uh, a pilot actually told me, one of the captains told me that, um, Qantas sent a whole lot of planes to the US and mothballed them, effectively put them in the desert in Vegas or something like that, because it's dry there and things don't rust as much.

And in fact, he's, he was also saying to me when the borders reopened and Qantas can, is going to be flying in and out, they won't have the planes to do it.

No, no, they still don't have, so that those A380s, a lot of their aircraft weren't there, but all their A380s were shut down properly.

Like really put into proper storage.

And, uh, there's, there were 12 of them that went up there.

They ended up scrapping two of them for metal.

Um, and so that they reduced the A380 fleet to 10, and then there are still two that have never come back because it's taking that long to get them through heavy maintenance.

So there were a lot of short-sighted decisions now, by the way, Qantas doesn't really want them back because they're such big aircraft that they bring prices down.

So Qantas now post COVID.

Is playing a game of keep the number of seats that we fly constrained, and then we can keep our airfares much higher.

But the assumption around that, well, there is a presumption in that model, that business model is that, that people feel compelled to fly Qantas.

So where does the, uh, you know, the platinum member in the chairman's club membership maintenance and, you know, keeping my, my miles up, um, you know, all the other memberships and all the loyalty programs.

Where does that fit in?

Where does that fit into that business model?

Does that, it's a huge part of it.

It's a huge part of it.

So, um, it's funny, there's a double status points, uh, uh, promotion on this week.

Uh, well, by the time you go to air, it'll be over, but you know, I'm as guilty as the next person.

I'm booking all these flights, you know?

But Joe, why do we do that?

Why are we so interested in our flying status?

Oh, it's such a good question.

And I'm guilty of it myself.

I mean, um, especially once you actually get to the platinum or.

Uh, platinum one or whatever status and, or chairman's land status and you go, what is the value of these benefits?

Really?

Is it really that good in this lounge or would, yeah, in the airport terminal, you can get just, just as good, good, probably a better coffee and a better sandwich than you can in here.

Anyway, um, is it because you're in there because when you're in the chairman's land, you're, you're rubbing shoulders with all these powerful people.

Correct.

And, and, and you, it tells you that you have arrived, you know, this is a, it's an ego massage.

I am one of the inner sanctum elite members of Australian society.

And people want to feel that way and people, because you can look over there as a prime minister, well, there's the treasurer.

Yeah, yeah.

And that we've been, we've been, uh, Western culture has, has, um, conditioned us to, to be like this.

And that's the same reason why people wanted to pay 10 grand a year to have a black Amex in the day before credit cards were all on your phone.

I mean, it's the same concept, you know, you want to pull that card out where people go, oh, he's somebody, right.

Or she's somebody.

Is there a, um, a certain amount of flattery deserving for somebody?

Yeah.

Someone's marketing brilliance.

Hell yes.

Oh, full credit.

And the Qantas frequent flyer program is the great success story of the Joyce era, I would say.

Um, and I think when I worked at Qantas in 2008, 2009, that sort of period, I think there might've been like about six or 7 million members of the Qantas frequent flyer program.

There's now 16.

Whoa.

Now they're not all active, super active members, but there's 16 million members.

There's only about 20 million adults in Australia.

So that would be the equivalent as if the.

United or Delta or American loyalty program in America had like 250 million members, which they don't.

So there's no proportional equivalence.

Hell no.

It is globally unique to have that much penetration.

He has done a brilliant job or somebody.

Uh, well, I mean, he was a CEO.

You got to give him the credit.

Yeah.

And, and the thing is it, it is what is underneath all of the, of, you know, competitors of Qantas, they scratch their head.

They try everything.

They, you know, they try their own lounges.

They drop their prices.

They change their routes.

They lobby in Canberra and they go, why can't we beat them?

You know, not, not only can't, why can't we beat them?

Why can't we even come close to even competing with them?

And what's underneath it is that loyalty program, because it's got such deep penetration.

People value it so much.

It's also like the sunk cost theory.

Like I'm in this deep, I've been a platinum for this long or a chairman's lounge member for this long.

I can't let it go.

I can't let it go.

Now it's part of how I'm invested too much.

It's part of how my life works.

You know, I've got all these points.

Yeah.

If I, if I switch now, then I'll never be able to use them.

It's genius.

Um, and that's why no matter how badly Qantas treats its customers, they know Qantas will never admit this, but they know we will keep coming back for more punishment.

So, and therefore you can build a business model off that.

So therefore they can treat you poorly.

And so there's no incentive for them to compete on the quality of their product.

I shouldn't say there's no incentive.

There's a lower incentive for them to compete on the quality of their product, like other airlines have to do in other parts of the world.

So that's why they.

They calculate stuff.

It will make the catering crap.

We'll, we'll let the planes get old.

We'll let the, the lounges deteriorate till the, the carpet thread bear, cuz it won't make a difference cuz the suckers will just keep rolling through the door.

And how much of that is when they call them Qantas is called the spirit of Australia, which is like, in my view is absolutely brilliant.

Um, oh, I agree.

Like they're like so good.

In fact, I had on my mental podcast, uh, the, the family who did all the flying kangaroo, the whole thing for Qantas.

Um, and also launched Virgin blue for that matter here in Australia.

Um, and, uh, the, the brilliance of their, their program, their market, their externals, but to Qantas, but the brilliance of their marketing program was just like amazing.

Um, yeah, that was one of Singo's like that was peak John Singleton when he was the great ad man, you know, in the day him and Jeff Dixon created those, those choir ads around the Sydney Olympics.

Yep.

And they are the greatest Australia home.

I think the greatest advertising campaign, Australian advertising campaign ever period.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, maybe, uh, common Aussie come on, but that type of thing.

Yeah.

But it's that.

Yeah.

Well, that's another one.

Yeah.

That's another good example.

But we're talking about iconic music, iconic lyrics, iconic, um, imagery.

Yeah.

And I want to be a member of that.

Yeah.

And I'll do anything.

Yeah.

I want to be that.

I want to be one of the most valued customers of that company.

You know, there's, I want, yeah, I want to associate my own life with that brand because

people do, they, they, they identify in ways with brands.

And they align with them and they use them as proxies for themselves.

Well, that's who I am.

Yeah.

I'm the spirit of Australia sort of thing.

And then this is what we, we, we tend to think.

Yeah.

And, and so therefore Qantas sort of has done Qantas, not, not anyone in particular, but

Qantas as a group, as a corporation has done quite a brilliant job as a corporation edging

everyone else out of the system.

Like you're out, you're out, I'm in, it helps that they were, you know, the first airline

here ever in the country, but they've done quite a brilliant job of maintaining the position

there.

And actually enhancing their position overall, overall.

Yeah.

And they've made it into a fortress.

Yeah.

One of the ways.

That's a good way of describing fortress.

Yeah.

Well, you know, good businesses have moats.

Yeah.

Yeah.

As you know, very well.

And you know, how do you get over the moat into the fortress to compete with them?

And it's very hard once you have such a dominant competitive position and Jetstar, them create,

Jeff Dixon created Jetstar and he appointed Alan Joyce to be the first CEO of Jetstar.

Oh really?

Is that right?

Yeah.

And that, that's, that was a globally unique thing as well.

Like no.

No full service airline had ever said, let's create a budget carrier to compete with us.

Yeah.

Because that was considered like cannibalizing yourself.

It was like later Steve.

You would never do it.

Well, Steve Jobs created the iPhone, which destroyed the, the iPod.

Yeah.

Sort of like that.

It was very against the grain thinking.

And to this day, airlines around the world have tried and failed to replicate the Qantas

Jetstar thing, dual brand strategy, they call it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It makes it impossible for Virgin to ever really get a, it makes it very difficult for

Virgin to ever do anything other than really get the scraps.

And, and certainly for a Rex or a Bonza or another upstart, it makes it very difficult

for them to ever have a chance.

If Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar were three different companies and they were competing with each

other, that would be a much more competitive market for consumers and would there be better

outcomes, but that's never going to happen.

I mean, no one, no government's ever going to force Qantas.

Yeah.

No one's ever going to force Qantas to sell Jetstar.

But it's the way they do.

They can just squeeze everyone from the, from both ends.

So you've got Qantas with all the highest paying customers paying the highest fares.

And then you've got Jetstar, which just rakes up all the cheapest travel, all the leisure

holiday travelers, and they have the lowest costs.

So they don't have to make a huge amount of money, Jetstar, the real creams made by Qantas,

but they just take all this traffic, the cheap end and the expensive end, and they squeeze

their competition in the middle.

So Virgin's stuck in the middle, trying to be.

A little bit premium, a little bit like budget.

So what are they?

They're just sort of a bit of a blancmange and, and like again and again, they, they,

they just dominate by that.

And they really got Rex that way too.

They've squeezed everyone out.

And by the way, no one should be, uh, no one should, should blame Qantas for being a really

aggressive competitor.

Like that's what shareholders want them to be and no one should take that away from them.

But it's.

It's like, where does aggression cross over into anti-competitive and like if you dump

the price.

And I think that's the point.

Anti-competitive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so whose responsibility is that?

Are we talking about the ACCC?

That's the government's responsibility.

Are we talking about the ACCC?

Well, the ACCC is part of the government and the government, the political part of the

government also is in charge of sort of setting the powers and the budgets of the ACCC.

Yeah.

So it's the government in totality that sets aviation policy.

So, um, but so is that therefore why governments sort of compromising themselves or putting

them in a position where their position can be questioned and or, and or possibly compromised?

Is that your whole point?

Yes.

Because, you know, here's this mob who've become extraordinarily powerful, done a great

job for the shareholders, et cetera, blah, blah, blah.

You the government should not put yourself in a position where you're going to have to

second, someone's going to be second, we're all going to be second guessing your decision.

Because the only way that their power can be managed by virtue of their great success

is through you, the government who we voted in.

Is that your whole point?

It's exactly right.

Yeah.

It's exactly right.

That's the thesis of the book.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You've nailed it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, but, but, and it doesn't really matter whether it's Albanese or-

No.

Because it was-

It's just another politician.

There were people before that.

Scott Morrison sucked up to, to Alan Joyce as hard as, as Albo ever did.

And the next person after Albo will do the same thing.

And, and Margaret Jackson and Jeff Dixon.

Yeah.

Before Alan Joyce came along, were just the most phenomenal lobbyists.

They, long time ago, Singapore Airlines wanted to launch flights between Australia and the

US and compete with Qantas.

And Jeff and Margaret at Qantas killed it stone dead and, and John Howard blocked it.

There's been like example after example.

This is not a, this is not an Albo thing.

It's not a ScoMo thing.

It is a system thing.

So do you think that's, but, but is that, is that an apologetic reading the tea leaves

saying, well, you know, Australians love this company and-

Well, they did love this company.

That's correct.

But if I go back though, it's like the koala bear.

We can't have anything that's going to challenge our icons, what we love.

But that's why Qantas was being so ingenious by branding itself that way.

That also was part of the whole thing.

They made a whole thing.

Not only did it make us want to travel with them, it also allowed them to effectively

blackmail governments and say, well, what about all the jobs?

You know, if you let, like all these people will have to sack.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In my book, Margaret Jackson said to a Howard government minister when she was lobbying

against the Singapore airlines thing, she, she, she brilliantly, she said, well, you

can allow Singapore airlines to compete with us on the, on the Pacific to America, but

you'll just have to explain to the people of Tamworth why they're now catching the bus

to Sydney.

Right.

That's just, it's blackmail, right?

Brilliant.

I'm giving her credit for that and they're terrific lobbyists and governments time and

again have fallen for their stuff on jobs in particular, like protecting Australian jobs.

But the problem with that argument under Joyce at the end was that he was sacking so many

Australians and, and, and not just sacking them, but offshoring jobs.

So like it now, a lot of crew on Qantas are based overseas.

That's all happened under him.

So that argument gets, gets diluted and the unions, even though that it's a labor government

and sort of the Albanese is really pro Qantas, you've also got all the unions in the labor

party who are very anti Qantas because of what they did to employees.

So it's, it's sort of a complicated story.

And why it's frustrating that, that the whole thing gets boiled down to just Albo Qantas.

It's it's even in the Albanese government, they were very, very anti Qantas on industrial

relations.

They changed the laws so that Qantas has got to pay a lot more for its, for its crew than

it, than it did.

So there are some burning points for the government in relation to the way they've managed Qantas's

power.

I'm not sure.

I mean, that's giving them maybe more credit than I want to give them, but what I would

just say that it is nuanced.

You know, that's why, again, why this needs to be a book and not an article.

It's why this needs to be like a longer conversation and not a 10 minute conversation, which is

why I asked you to come on the show.

Because like, I think that we Australians who are going to read this book, we need an

opportunity to get the context around it.

And I think it's really important that we all get context around what it is because

otherwise Joe Ashton becomes the devil in Canada himself, because it'll be 50, 50.

Some are going to say, good on you.

Well done.

There'll be some saying, oh, why are you pulling, pulling the organization apart?

Yeah.

I mean, and, uh, and to some extent you're going to get, you're going to get caught up

in this for your all.

I mean, how you been, how you been handling?

Uh, well, you just put one foot in front of the other and focus on, on, on the work and

the, and the issues, you know, not the emotion or the politics.

It's just, it's just.

Yeah.

But you're front and center at the moment, you're, you're the most controversial journalist

at the moment.

We have an election coming up.

Yeah.

We've got elbows struggling at the polls.

Yes.

He bought a house recently.

That didn't help him.

It's not only like the timing of your book's perfect in terms of the book, um, relative

to Albo.

Well, I think it'll blow over and, and the thing.

Well you're a journalist, you know how this works.

Yeah.

So what, what do you reckon will happen?

Well, I don't, I don't know.

I can't tell you how the Albanese government will respond, but I do think in terms of the

political cycle.

The narrative.

People move on.

And, and the thing is these stories morph.

So everyone just attacks Albo for a few days and then, then it turns out that, you know,

other politicians were doing, you know, oh, whoops, we didn't disclose our upgrades or

we.

Yeah.

And then that all becomes a story.

And then they quickly realized nobody can win from this because they all really just

want to stay in the chairman's lounge and they want to still be able to keep getting

their upgrades.

And they all realize that and go, let's just stop talking about this.

Doesn't mean nothing will change.

I have very low expectations of change.

I mean, punters, I mean, punters, I think are hungry for change.

They're sick to death of this stuff.

Um, not just in Australia, like the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer is getting absolutely

killed over the free concert tickets that he accepted.

And the free football game tickets.

And there's just a real tiredness from the public, not internationally in Western democracies

of politicians that are just seeing, seem to be in it for the, for the, for themselves

and for the trappings of office.

If, if, um, if, if Albanese came out and said, I get it, I get it right.

Let's not quibble about this.

Um, I'm ending, I am ending chairman's lounge membership for all politicians.

I'm ending upgrades for all politicians.

They are.

I am so proud of them.

I'm always proud of them.

Oh my God.

I'm so proud of them.

Yeah.

No, we don't have the time to, to speak up.

I was just going to kick it out.

I was going to say, we all know the whole story behind that one.

Yeah.

I think it's something that's been known for quite a while.

I, I am just going to, I am just going to kick it out, but I, I was going to.

I, I was going to say, I'm not, I was going to say let's, let's just, let's just get

out of this.

I don't understand it.

I don't understand the, the information around it.

I don't understand how politicians get that kind of attention.

I mean, I think not everyone does.

Mark Latham was banging on about how politicians getting their lifetime pensions was an outrage.

And arguably, there was some outrageous examples in the system.

So John Howard came out and he just ended it, even though that was, was that good policy?

I don't know, but it was, he screwed over every incoming politician after that.

He just got up and he said, I'm taking this issue off the table and I'm ending all life

pensions.

From now on, when you're elected to parliament, you get 15.4% superannuation, which is still

more than most people, but that's what the public service gets.

And that's it.

There's no pension when you leave that, that is it.

And if Albo took the same approach and said, all right, we're all going to get our snouts

out of the trough, no more upgrades, no more chairman's lounge, that would be a really

smart and similar approach.

You just have to think maybe it's gone too far now to, well, either it's gone too far

or maybe it's blown over and he's hoping and everyone's hoping.

That no one gets back to it and, and that, that no one can't, um, that they've sort of

survived and they can cling onto their goodies.

Does he, does he give you a, does he pick up the phone and say, Hey Joe, what the hell's

going on here?

No, no.

Prior to that, would you?

Well, last year I tried to engage with his office when I wrote the fact that his son

had been, uh, had been put in the chairman's lounge and, um, his office was, uh, impossible

to deal with, uh, would not return phone calls for days, repeated phone calls.

Over and over again, uh, would not respond to emails, repeated emails, um, which is just

pretty crazy given these people are paid by the public to respond to questions from journalists.

Uh, so the only communication was when he would call my editor in chief to complain,

um, your boss.

Yeah.

Uh, and, and wanted to kill the story.

And, and luckily I have an editor in chief who, who doesn't do that if a story is true.

So, um, and, and only last, only this week.

Uh, he finally admitted that yes, his son is in the chairman's lounge.

So he, that, that was something that, that was written a year ago.

He's never even acknowledged it or he's refused to even answer whether it was true.

So now he's finally sort of come out and it's been a bit messy, obviously, but, uh, I don't,

um, no, I don't have a direct relationship with him.

What about Alan Joyce?

No, I tried to, as I said, I tried to contact, uh, sorry, I did reach out to Alan Joyce repeatedly.

I asked him to talk to me for that.

The book I was keen on.

Before he's exiled, before he exiled himself from Australia back to Ireland or.

No, this was this year, you know, in the process of writing the book.

Um, again, Alan Joyce was not someone who ever tried to engage with me directly.

Um, he also complained about me to my boss.

Um, what do you do?

You know, uh, my boss, it's all, it's all written about in the book.

You know, my boss repeatedly said to him, if you can point to me the, you know, the

facts here that are wrong and we'll, we'll, we'll fix it.

Um.

Uh, but you know, last year at that time, Joyce was, uh, unable to identify those.

And so he was just frustrated because he just didn't want to be criticized.

Um, and again, that was, that was his judgment had gone astray.

He was in, he was no longer able to say, I'm being criticized by this person.

Maybe I should think about the substance of those criticisms and are they accurate?

But he was just so, so black and white, so self-blind, you know, it was,

it was my way and any other way is wrong.

And that's the point that he got to, and that's what did him in.

Do you think we've lost much by Alan Joyce leaving the country?

And, and I think he's gone permanently.

No, no, no.

He's he's he lives here.

He lives here.

He went, he went away immediately to escape the furor.

And I was sort of don't claim he didn't get, yeah, he left the country.

And so the Senate couldn't call him as a witness.

Um, sorry.

We don't know if that's the reason.

Yeah.

But he, he, he wasn't able to be compelled to attend.

Yeah.

Um, and, uh.

Look, the thing about Australia is, and this is why I was sort of disappointed.

He didn't talk to me because I suspect it probably changed the book

by not having his voice in it.

Um, I'm not saying that it would have become a really pro Alan Joyce book

if he had a spoken to me, but I think it would have had more of his perspective.

And the thing is, Australians actually like a comeback story.

You know, it's, we like, we like really hammering people who do the wrong thing

or, you know, even perceived to pop their head up too high.

Um.

But equally those people who.

Turn things around or they come back.

Um, the redemption tale is, is a bit of an Aussie favorite.

So it's a love affair, mate.

Yeah.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if Alan Joyce is back in the future.

It's not like he's not, not at Qantas, but like you don't sort of, um, just lose

all of the experience and, and, uh, valuable knowledge that you, you have from, from a

company or, um, running in a, such an important company for such a long time.

Uh, and potentially after a period in the wilderness, he, um.

He gets better perspective as well on the mistakes that he's made.

Um, I'm sure he wouldn't agree with everything that I've said, but I, I, I reckon probably

over time you start to say, yeah, probably just did that wrong.

Probably could have done that better.

I, I'm not in the business of sort of like trying to bury people, you know, and I'm not, I don't

want Alan Joyce to be gone, banished, you know, forever.

That's not my intention anymore that it's my intention to try and destroy Anthony Albanese.

I mean, this is just, I'm just trying to put the facts out there and, and, um, put together

what happened at Qantas.

Uh, and let other people make their judgment.

Just so we'd be clear on this.

So there was a bias that, um, that's been sort of leaked in the media that, um, that you

remember the liberal party and et cetera.

Can you, can we just put that into context now?

Well, that I was a liberal party staffer, which is all in the book.

I mean, that's how, can you just express it now?

Yeah, sure.

So I, I started out, um, uh, as a political staffer for Bruce Baird and Joe Hockey in the

Howard government.

That was the last time I worked in politics.

Two of the great politicians.

And, um, but that was the last time I worked in politics.

I mean, that's almost 20 years ago.

I don't think, I then worked as a journalist for 12 years and I, so, uh, I still talk to

lots of people in politics on both sides.

That's what journalists do.

Are you political then?

No, far from it.

Um, I have, I have no interest in politics and actually I much prefer writing about business

than politics.

Again.

My responses tend to be rational instead of emotional.

I, uh, so, so it was sort of, it's sort of expected that you're going to get attacked.

Um, you know, that's playing the man, not the ball to say, well, you know, he, he wasn't

addressing the substance of the book.

He was sort of suggesting that I had improper motivations and I don't think that's, well,

I can tell you that's not right.

Um, there was even a story in the, um, news.com where I had.

I had, uh, been pictured having lunch with Peter Dutton like nine months ago or something

like that, which I thought was quite funny, really, um, which, which was true.

I mean, there I am in the photo, but you do, you catch up with politicians, you talk to

them, but I, um, that that's even that even that can, that's been painted as a conspiracy

theory.

Peter Dutton certainly didn't say, look, Joe, could you sit and write a book about and mention

Anthony Albany.

Yeah, sure.

No worries.

No worries, Peter.

I'll just go down a rabbit hole for 10 months just for you.

Can I, can I just, uh, pick your journalistic, um, sort of interest.

Um, one of the things you mentioned Qantas being sort of a monopolis or having too much

control in relation or having a lot of control in relation to one aspect of Australian business.

But if you think about Australian business generally, we were, we've got, um, you know,

three or four major insurance companies, three or four, four big banks.

We, um, you know, three or four big supermarkets as well.

Um, it's sort of like a symptom of Australian economy at the moment because of its size.

I don't know if that's the reason, but that could be the reason.

Perhaps it is.

But do you think that, um, we will never solve these issues because, uh, and, and I

mean like CBA for example, you know, was owned by the government, one of the most loved banks

in the country, probably got 53% of control, but they'd have seven or eight million customers

for sure.

Yes.

And a good bank.

Don't get me wrong.

Got a good bank.

Yeah.

And good competition.

Yeah.

And plenty of competition sitting around them.

Um, the Macquarie, uh, in particular has come out of nowhere as a tremendous retail bank.

Yeah, totally.

Totally.

And, but, but, but, but still it's now five, concentrated in five hands.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Five hands perhaps.

But five's pretty good for a population of 25 million people.

But it's not so good.

But it's not so good.

But do you think it's good though if there's another 22 others who don't really get a look

in, like in other than the 22 banks, you know, building societies, you know, smaller banks,

regional banks, et cetera.

Yeah.

Um, but it sort of is, and then for, therefore you get pricing oligopolies is effectively

what I'm trying to say here.

But, and, and, and I don't want you to reflect on any particular industry, but do you think

that that is a symptom of Australia and that it may be not, we're not gonna solve quite

as long as we want us or anything?

Um, it's hard to see how well there's a, the problem is there's no simple answer to that.

Like one part of it is the population, you know, a big Australia, I'm, people won't like

hearing this, but I'm in favor of Australia having high immigration intake, um, and getting

to a much bigger population and building up the urban density of the east coast.

Not the cities necessarily, but all of the other regional cities along the way could

be much bigger.

But of course that means that the state governments have to keep up with the infrastructure requirements.

But if you import skilled migrants who bring, who come here with money, with qualifications,

who pay, uh, who earn good money and good jobs and pay high taxes, then that should

over time work.

Um, and then that will solve a lot of the competitive issues in the economy and make

it a more dynamic economy because it's very hard to, you need scale as a business and

you need, well, what we call TAM, total, total addressable market, really the banking sector

to have.

So.

You say five players, uh, plus a whole bunch of smaller ones and sure they can't get a

look in, but that they, they would get a look in more of a look in, they'd be more sustainable

if there were 60 million people in Australia.

So that's part of the problem on the airline side.

It's a part of the problem, but it's not the whole problem.

And the, and the, the just as big a problem is that Qantas and Jetstar are one company

and to, to take them on when they've got an established 65% market position.

It's not impossible, but it's close to impossible because.

So do you think the government should be doing what the, one of the considerations of the

recent quarrying to the retails, the big retail, big grocery retailers was that they should

be made or should be encouraged to sell off part of their businesses?

Should Qantas be encouraged to sell off Jetstar?

Well, you could encourage them all that, all you like, they're not going to do it.

They would, you'd have to be forced to do it.

That's what I mean, well, forced is probably a better word.

I don't think they should be forced to do it, but put it this way.

They should be threatened with it.

It should be possible.

That it could happen.

And if that was even hanging over them as a possibility, it would change their behavior.

You know, they would think twice about, you know, how much they dropped their prices and

through large numbers of seats into new markets, you know, things that can be on the borders

of anti-competitive versus aggressive, that, that sort of behavior would definitely be

curtailed.

Can I second up with this to you, Jack, when it comes to governments encouraging us to

change our behavior.

Governments encourage us as individuals, consumers and all, just individuals, voters, constituents

to change their behavior.

A good example of that is of course during COVID.

But they encourage us to change our behavior when the Reserve Bank, the Reserve Bank encourage

us to stop spending by putting interest rates up.

Sure.

And they have no trouble doing that.

And in fact, it's a fundamental of Australian, the Australian system.

And by the way, global systems, it works everywhere around the world.

Why is it then?

Governments are.

Yeah.

Governments are nervous about trying to change the behavior of a corporation like Qantas.

By saying, listen, you better sell or if you don't, we're going to, we'll, we'll do something

about it.

You got to do something about your behavior, otherwise we will force you to sell Jetstar,

for example.

Well, politicians have experience with trying to tell businesses what to do.

They try to tell the miners to pay a mining tax.

That was a major disaster.

And the miners destroyed the Rudd government.

Yeah, they sure did.

Yeah.

Um.

You take on big business.

It's.

It's a lobby.

You take on big business at your own risk.

And I think if you chip away at them on the fringes, they might cop it on the chin, you

know, they'll complain, they'll lobby, but they won't actually go to war with you because

ultimately, you know, a, a big corporation can, can justify spending tens of millions,

even hundreds of millions of dollars on public advertising campaigns.

Mining.

The mining.

The mining tax.

Because it's existential to their profits.

Totally.

Yeah.

But, but a political, uh, but a government can only spend so much and a political party,

they're, they're quite poor.

And in fact, they rely on companies to give them money, uh, in donations.

So.

So the old, that old horse self, that old horse called self-interest, which is in every

race, emerges again.

So it's political self-interest and, uh, so the smart people at the places like those

places where they are creating oligopolies, et cetera, or, and, or monopolies and duopolies,

the smart people in turn that inside those places, they actually, whilst they know their behavior is bad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They know their behavior is maybe not perfect.

They also know the behavior of the people who may, will be able to change their behavior.

That is a government's, they know that self-interest.

And so maybe this will never be solved.

I have, uh, again, I, as I say, I have very low expectations of change.

Do you, would you expect an inquiry maybe?

A new government picks it up and says, let's, let's have an inquiry.

Absolutely not.

Off the back of Joe's book.

No.

They just want it to go away.

Mate, finally.

And, and, and it's a good read.

And I, I, I commend anyone who's listening just to go and buy the book.

It's a bloody good read.

Is it?

By the way, did you do the, um, audio book?

I did.

I narrated the audio book.

How long does it take?

Oof.

I think it's 12 hours.

So you'd have to.

You did yours quick.

I, I, I couldn't speak for more than two hours.

Like I'd have to stop.

Oh no, I didn't do it in one take.

I did it over about four or five days.

Yeah.

I took my two weeks or something.

And I, and when you're doing it, where you're reading things go, my God, did I actually

write that?

Did I say that?

You know that.

Well, I found it a good way of finding errors.

So like you.

But once you publish it, you've got to read what you wrote.

I know.

Did I say the wrong word or?

Same as me.

I was looking at it.

I was freaking out.

Um, cause I did my audio many, about four years after or three or four years after I

wrote the book.

And it was, some stuff was a little bit out of date.

So, uh, if you buy my book and, uh, and by the way, it's about Joe's book, so don't worry.

No, please cross promote.

Importantly though, Joe, um, what, what, where to from here, mate?

Your book's out, you know, you're, you're batting things back, you know, you're, uh,

going into Christmas time.

We're going to see Joe emerge again next year in the, in journalism.

I hope so.

Yeah.

Look, I don't have any news to share about that, but.

Breaking news is always welcome on this show.

And I'm not being coy by any stretch either, but, um, you know, journalism is, uh, what

I'm good at.

Uh, well, some people would disagree, but I don't have any other core skill really.

It's what I've been doing for a long time and, um, I enjoy it most days.

So I think, you know, I've been off on the, you know, I've been down my rabbit hole for

a year now and I do miss it.

And I think I'm leaning towards going back to journalism, but look, I just don't know

what that looks like yet.

I've, I've just finished the book and I've been.

Out there talking about it.

And now I need to sort of talk to some people about who might be interested in, in my services

and maybe I'll find nobody is so.

Journalism world has changed.

Oh, well, it's not changed.

It's sort of morphed into lots of different things.

So there could be lots of exciting sort of opportunity for someone like you, like, because

I think people still want to listen to you and, or read you.

Yeah.

So to speak.

Yeah.

No, but I, when I say listen, I mean, read what you've got to say, perhaps even listen

to you, like verbalize something over a, over a microphone.

Yeah.

I mean, I, you know, cause some people when they launch a book, you know, we know it,

you know it, I know it.

Um, there are sort of an effectively without saying announcing a new career or a new business

venture or something.

Yeah.

And cause you know, the PR people, they say, do a book, establish yourself in the marketplace.

So do a book.

Um, and I wonder when I, when I found out you were writing the book, I thought, I wonder

if Joe's got something, he's trying to do this as a precursor to what he wants to do

in the future.

Or is this.

Only because I don't have it figured out.

Exactly.

Um, I didn't speak to any PR people about writing the book.

I just did it because it was a subject that I felt really passionate about and I had command

of.

Um, and I felt, you know, this is my big opportunity to, I've always wanted to be an author, you

know, I can tick that box and see how I go.

And I, and that was a rewarding experience, but yeah, no, it wasn't sort of some strategy

to, to pump, uh, like surprise, big reveal, but I mean, eventually I'll hopefully have

a big reveal, but I don't have it right now, unfortunately.

Well, Joe.

If only.

I'm glad to have you, mate.

Thanks, Mark.

It's great to chat.

It's a great read.

Here it is.

Go get it.

And it's on the front page of every newspaper for the last week and a half, so you better

read it.

Thanks, Mark.

Cheers.

Not all that long ago, money was simple.

You earned it, save some, spend some, and maybe invested in a house if you were lucky.

No apps, no online banking, no thinking beyond what was in your wallet, but times have changed.

In today's money market, growth can come in many ways and the way we think about cash

is continuously changing.

Start with a strong loan.

Entirely and continuously evolving.

Enter Australia's highest rated crypto exchange, SwiftX.

Whether you are just starting to explore the crypto market or are already deep in the game,

SwiftX makes it easy to acquire, sell, and trade digital assets all in one place.

So if you're someone who's thought about dipping your toes in the crypto market but isn't sure

where to start, this might be for you.

Visit swiftx.app forward slash mark boris to check it out.

How to set up a cryptocurrency broker on the web.

That's it.

You're free to play with it.

Advertising is your best bet.

If you've been listening along for a while, you'll know I'm all about staying sharp physically and

mentally. As I get older, staying on top of my game means being smarter with how I support my

body and mind day in day out. One product I've already added to my routine from the bulk nutrients

range is their NMN Extend. It's a science-backed blend of 10 powerful ingredients including NMN,

resveratrol, and hyaluronic acid. Now, this is designed to support everything from energy and

muscle recovery to skin hydration, joint health, and even mental clarity. By the way, I need all

those. Whether I'm powering through a busy week or just investing in my long-term health, NMN Extend

helped me stay ready for whatever's next. And believe me, it tastes pretty good too.

Head to bulknutrients.com.au and see why NMN Extend might be the edge you've just been looking for.

Bye.