Qantas shareholders have vented their fury at board members over a year of reputational crises at the airline’s annual general meeting.
It came on the same day more than 50 Coles workers, unionists and activists staged a protest outside the Coles annual meeting calling for higher wages, more security in stores and an end to what they describe as price gouging.
This is what happened at the meetings.
Qantas
The Qantas brand was left in tatters by a whirlwind of public relations disasters, including a High Court defeat over , over its role in the cost-of-living crisis and allegations it misleadingly sold tickets to flights that had already been cancelled.
The meeting on Friday was Richard Goyder’s last as chairman, after he amid relentless pressure.
“It’s clear there’s been a substantial loss of trust in the national carrier and we understand why,” he told shareholders at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on Friday.
“There are things we got wrong. There are things we could have handled better and should have handled better. Things we should have fixed faster. And for all those things we apologise.”
Qantas executives at the annual general meetings on Friday. The brand was left in tatters by a whirlwind of public relations disasters. Source: AAP / Con Chronis
A total of 83 per cent of votes cast before the meeting rejected Qantas’ remuneration report, which set out a three per cent rise in base pay for board members.
Another vote against the remuneration report in 2024 would result in a spill motion, requiring all directors who approved it to stand for re-election.
It was Qantas’ first remuneration strike and one of the biggest in Australian corporate history.
Shareholders questioned TV personality and marketing guru Todd Sampson’s suitability for re-election to the board, given he had “completely misread the zeitgeist” of recent years.
The Gruen co-host revealed he had contemplated standing aside but decided his professional experience and the need to retain corporate memory merited his continuation.
More than a third of shareholders – 34 per cent – disagreed with Sampson’s evaluation but it was not enough to unseat him.
CEO Vanessa Hudson and chair Richard Goyder apologised to shareholders for mistakes by Qantas. Source: AAP / Con Chronis
Goyder thanked former CEO Alan Joyce, who received a $21.4 million final payout, for his service to the company.
Goyder denied any impropriety from Joyce in selling 90 per cent of his stake in Qantas before the consumer regulator announced its investigation into the carrier for misleading conduct.
As Goyder asked for shareholder Chris Maxworthy’s microphone to be cut off when he tried to continue his line of questioning, cries of “shame on you” swelled throughout the hall.
Joyce’s successor, , continued the apology party.
“There are many things big and small that we didn’t get right,” she said.
Ms Hudson said the company was investing in customer experience, would work with banks to automate the recovery of customer’s unclaimed flight credits and consider bringing call centre staff onshore.
Coles
As dozens of Coles workers, unionists and activists picketed the supermarket giant’s annual general meeting, about 200 members of the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union in Victoria went on strike on Friday while an extra 400 in other states held shorter stoppages, according to the union.
“Workers are paid poverty wages in unsafe workplaces, they’ve got insecure jobs and we need that to change,” union secretary Josh Cullinan told reporters at the demonstration in Melbourne.
“Our members can’t afford the groceries that they sell.”
He said the strike was purposefully staged on the day of the annual meeting and was critical of the gathering being held in a complex protected by police and security guards when ordinary workers didn’t have that level of safety.
Coles Chairman James Graham (right) pictured in 2018. He said Coles was negotiating with the union in good faith, as it would with any representative for its workers. Source: AAP / Richard Wainwright
Victorian Greens MP Sam Hibbins also attended the protest and ramped up calls for the state government to implement price controls.
Chairman James Graham told the meeting Coles had 120,000 team members and that the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union represented around 500 of them.
Coles was negotiating with the union in good faith, as it would with any representative for its workers, he said.
“Because we need to have a positive and supportive relationships with our team members, in order that we can conduct our business in a way which we’re proud of, and our customers enjoy and feel comfortable with,” Graham said.
Twice-yearly surveys that Coles conducts of its team members found that most are positive, confident and proud to recommend Coles, he said.
“But there will be inevitably be issues … and we’ll work those issues through.”
