Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [46]
When pushed on the maintenance of QF16’s broken undercarriage strut on the ABC, Mr Forsyth explained to Quentin Dempster: ‘Well, when you’re twisting a cylinder, the undercarriage strut is a cylinder, and when you’re twisting it during taxiing, it puts very high torsional loads on the top of the strut and that’s the failure mode that’s occurred here.’5 The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union raised its concerns over the airline sending maintenance overseas. Union spokesman Julius Roe told The 7.30 Report: ‘If the public are to have confidence in Qantas, then Qantas needs to have full control over the maintenance operation. We’ve got to reverse the trends that have occurred since privatisation and corporatisation.’6
The Rome incident was minor compared with the other factors affecting Qantas at the start of Geoff Dixon’s reign. Qantas had to deal with the fallout from the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in America, the Bali bombings, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), bird flu in Asia and the start of the Gulf War in Iraq, all of which affected the public’s confidence in flying. They may explain why, when asked to reflect on his early days at the head of Qantas, he said: ‘When I took over they thought I had been handed the proverbial shit sandwich.’7
Dixon is not a man to mince his words. Profiles of him during his tenure at the top of Qantas portrayed a tough, ruthless businessman who ground opposition from his path, and a loyal friend and family man devoted to charitable causes. Angel and demon in the same package; which one you thought he was depended on whether you were his friend or in his way.
Geoff Dixon was brought into Qantas before the airline was privatised as part of James Strong’s loyal coterie. The two men had formed a close friendship when they worked together at the bauxite mining company Nabalco in Gove in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Dixon had gone there to work in the public relations department; Strong, four years his junior, was already the industrial relations manager. ‘We liked each other immediately; we were sort of from similar backgrounds,’ Strong told the Australian Financial Review Magazine.8 Strong was from a dairy farm in Lismore and Dixon from the rural New South Wales town of Wagga Wagga. Despite being younger, Strong became a mentor to Dixon, leading him to some of the key jobs in his life and ultimately to the top job at Qantas. ‘He’s a good man and he’s done a great job. In every organisation there’s the right man for the right time, and I think he’s been that man. He’s a tough dog for a hard road,’ said Strong of his protégé.9 And Strong should know. He tested his own mettle at the mine in the 1960s by leading the management team onto the floor when the mining and process workers demanded higher wages. For 13 weeks the white-collar team produced the alumina, with women from the offices greasing the machines, and the mining unions were defeated.
Dixon, who would also become known for his tough dealings with unions, had grown up in a staunch Labor household, the son of a wool and skin buyer and founding president of Wagga Leagues Club. Born in December 1939, he was a wiry five-eighth for the Wagga Wagga Magpies and lifesaver with his older brother, Terry, at the local lifesaving club on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River. He left school at 17 after his Intermediate Certificate and became a trainee journalist on the local paper. ‘I didn’t like school, I wanted to earn money. I had a chance to get a job as a cadet at the Wagga Daily Advertiser and I took