15-07-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce comes in to land on the corporate speaking circuit
Ovations said the Dubliner was a 'gifted keynote speaker ... Alan combines sharp business acumen with engaging Irish storytelling' which we feel we have kinda read somewhere before.
Joyce will be the star turn at the Australian Aviation Summit next month, Australian Aviation reports, adding it was 'a rare opportunity to gain exclusive insights from a prominent aviation leader who has reshaped our industry'.
We can't argue with that. Travel hacks
Staying with Qantas, just when the national carrier was starting to shrug off a reputation for rank incompetence and consumer dissatisfaction during Joyce's final years in charge, millions of customers had their data stolen in a cyberattack last week.
That included details of members of Qantas' notorious Chairman's Lounge, the invite-only club that includes all federal MPs, judges, senior public servants, and corporate leaders who can't afford to fly private.
But CBD hears that for a fair chunk of Chairman's Lounge members, the amount of data revealed was far broader than originally reported. Some Chairman's Lounge members received correspondence from Qantas last week informing them that their name, gender, home address, mobile number and frequent flyer details had all been compromised.
That combination of information in the hands of cybercriminals could leave some of the country's most powerful people vulnerable to a spear-phishing attack, where hackers pose as trusted sources to extract sensitive information.
Is it just us, or have readers also experienced an uptick in scamming calls since the great Qantas data hack? We are still waiting for the man from 'PayPal security' who addressed us by first name to phone us back after he had the temerity to call us on deadline last week.
Fresh from winning a 94-seat election landslide, those who make up Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's operation have many reasons to be cheerful.
Or so we thought. Silly us. But with the Liberals crushed, and parliament's return still a week away, the PM's Chief of Staff Tim Gartrell has found a new enemy within: LinkedIn. Regular readers of this column would know that there's been a flurry of prime ministerial staffers dashing for the exits in the post-election period.
That includes press secretary and ex-Guardian political editor Katharine Murphy, fellow media adviser Stela Todorovic and strategic communications director Katie Connolly.
Many others have taken to LinkedIn and Instagram to pen lengthy farewells to life in politics, often featuring happy behind-the-scenes snaps with the PM. And we don't blame them. As much as CBD likes to make fun of lanyard-toting staffers, theirs is a gruelling, emotionally draining job. If our newly funemployed hacks want to adorn their LinkedIn profiles with a potentially salary-enhancing prime ministerial selfie, let them cook, we say.
But CBD hears Albanese's top aide Gartrell, famed for past glories such as the Kevin 07 Ruddslide election and the Yes campaign for same-sex marriage, has always taken a weirdly dim view of staffers glamourising their lives on social media.
This all resurfaced at a PMO all-staff meeting last Friday, where according to some attendees, Gartrell made clear his displeasure about his comrades' posting on LinkedIn and Instagram.
We know Labor wants to ban social media for under-16s, but didn't realise some wanted to extend it to the PM's own staff.
However, another source close to the PM's office told CBD that Albanese's chief of staff had simply reminded colleagues of their obligations under the ministerial staff code of conduct, which maintains that they must 'be mindful that social media is publicly accessible and ensure their personal social media use is consistent with these standards'.
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