Qantas must tread carefully on exec bonuses following fine, super funds say

Large superannuation funds want Qantas to exercise caution with potential bonuses for executives, following the recent record $90 million fine imposed by the Federal Court.

Speaking to The Australian Financial Review, Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) executive manager of stewardship Ed John said investors want to see that the Qantas board has “appropriately considered recent penalties”.

The board is due to meet to consider bonuses this week, the Financial Review has reported.

“The recent penalty judgment made clear that it was not only past management that were responsible for ‘performative remorse’ and the ‘wrong kind of sorry’,” John said.

“Investors want to see how the board has assessed the performance of the current management team.”

HESTA, one of the two largest superannuation shareholders in Qantas, holds, together with Aware Super, around 1.8 per cent of the Flying Kangaroo.

HESTA’s general manager of responsible investing, Kim Farrant, told the Financial Review that the fund is pleased that the board is willing to hear its concerns and that it will “continue to engage constructively on behalf of members”.

“We continue to monitor developments at Qantas closely with critical progress still required on brand trust. This remains key to long-term shareholder value,” she said.

The fine, around 75 per cent of the maximum penalty of $121 million, was imposed by Justice Michael Lee last week for the illegal outsourcing of around 1,800 ground workers in 2020.

As reported last week by HR Leader, the $90m penalty imposed on the national carrier – the “biggest ever ordered by a court for violations of industrial relations laws in Australia’s legal history” – is a shot across the bow for corporations across the country.

Fifty million will be paid to the Transport Workers’ Union, with a further hearing to determine how the remaining $40 million should be distributed.

This is in addition to the $120 million in compensation awarded last year to the affected ground workers, who were found to have been illegally sacked or redeployed in 2020-21 in contravention of the Fair Work Act, a ruling that was upheld all the way to the High Court.

Speaking to The Australian earlier this month, Mullen said Qantas has “religiously followed through” on every one of the Saar report’s 32 recommendations after it found the airline’s leadership had been too deferential to former CEO Alan Joyce before his departure in 2023.

In the report released in August 2024, independent business adviser Tom Saar found one root cause of events that damaged Qantas’ reputation in 2023 was “top-down leadership with a dominant and trusted CEO, leading to insufficient listening and low speak up”.

“We’ve had the actions audited by independent auditors to make sure we’re not kidding ourselves that we’ve done things when we haven’t, so I think that’s been hugely helpful but also I think the change has brought a much stronger focus on customers,” Mullen told the newspaper.

The board has seen the exit of several prominent Joyce-era figures over the past two years, including ex-chair Richard Goyder and adman Todd Sampson.