Qantas, Kardashians and Occupiers

Qantas’ union smackdown. Kardashians. Occupy Protesters. The Australian public, via the mainstream media, have been salivating all over their egg and bacon rolls this week over these three narratives which revolved around rich people who the public think should be as wretched and destitute as the rest of us.

The public detest anyone who has cash up their wazoo, primarily because they don't have any money themselves and think it is unfair and discriminatory and, well, they are just plain resentful really. Thus, the poor people want the rich people to give them their money. Unless I'm reading it all wrong, that is all the information necessary to explain why these stories resonate all over the country.

Let's start with Qantas. It all started last week when Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, gave Australia's loutish bully-boy trade unions a big, hard smack in the mouth. I apologise for my rejoicing if you missed your flight last Saturday, but I couldn't stop smiling for hours after Joyce announced he was grounding the entire airline until the union bullies stopped behaving like Angry Birds and started behaving like sane, professional people. 

The unapprised among us who were flabbergasted when Qantas pulled the socket on the flying kangaroo need to examine a union handbook or two on industrial action, because Qantas had been on the receiving end of a bizarre amount of textbook thuggery for months now. And I'm not sure which part of the union statement to the public the other week - "do NOT fly Qantas until Christmas because we'll ruin your holiday by striking" - did you people not appreciate?

Yep, total inconvenience for months and months, so a bunch of baggage handlers can bully their way into a pay rise.  Although I do acknowledge the role baggage handlers play in national hygiene. Day in and day out, they haphazardly throw suitcases onto a conveyor belt, thereby ensuring the travelling public's undies get to their destination in a timely fashion. But this should be a minimum wage job at best.

And don't get me started on flight attendants. Greet people - close overhead compartments - serve tea - prepare for landing - weekend in Paris.  With the way they carry on, you'd think that the only thing preventing us from plummeting to our deaths was the fact that our tray tables were in the upright and locked position.

Of course the Australian public don't care if the Qantas baggage handlers get paid at all, which makes sense, given that the baggage handlers are paid not to care if they break our stuff.  The public are just outraged that another company CEO is taking another million dollar bonus, while they get nothing.

When I heard that Joyce had given himself a $1.7 bonus this year I thought he was having a laugh.  Richard Branson would never give himself such a paltry sum, and the head of Emirates would pay more than that for a bathmat. What sort of airline CEO only takes $1.7m? If Joyce's pay troubles you so much may I suggest you heed this advice - get a better job.

What happened to the good old days, when Qantas’ worst skeleton was news of a randy British actor on a long haul flight who decided to take first class hospitality quite literally? I'm sure Qantas are desperate for controversy that doesn't involve in-flight engine failure, parts falling off their planes or anything to do with unions.  Where’s Ralph Fiennes when you need him.

The media and the public have also been going quite spare over the arrival of two of the Kardashians sisters to Australia this week; girls who are famous (and exceedingly rich) for being on a reality show, being friends with someone who is also famous for being famous, and for being the offspring of a lawyer who defended a celebrity murderer. Gotta love America.

One of the incoming K sisters had just divorced her new husband which was newsworthy etc etc. The public's indignation has developed because these girls are essentially rich and famous for doing nothing in particular. Well, geez, give them some credit then! I don't see many people getting rich and famous by doing diddlysquat. Credit where credit’s due, people.

And then there's the Occupy demonstrators, who are so dreadful at getting their message across that they could be protesting about goats for all I know. These capitalist dislikers have been squatting illegally in cities all over the world for a few months now, showing indifference and contempt for the fact that they too could have dirty, sexy money if only they got a job. Ah, but that would mean they would have to engage in labour, rather than sit around with their "reimagined money" which I believe is a form of currency like macrame or healing crystals or some such.

If billionaire entrepreneur Dick Smith had breezed down into Sydney's squalid little Occupy protest the other week in his helicopter and offered the nearest bludger $1 million, no questions asked, do you think the protester would carve up his ch-ching with the other 99% of us? Or do you think he would do what the other 99% of the human race would actually do and pocket the money for his own use? I think we all know the answer.  Capitalism isn't evil; it's just a system.  A system where you can get a lot of the things you want if you are prepared to do something about it.  Like get a job, for starters.